Notes from Puzzle Palace

Thursday, February 14, 2013

Lunatic 3D Maze

I purchased this one a while back now.  July 2012.  It was a kickstarter project. (A worthwhile cause if you want one.) I decided it would be fun to have a hidden maze puzzle made of wood...does this sound familiar to you?

I got the puzzle after a long long wait and it was no fault of the designers.  I simply forgot to send the money for shipping and kept on forgetting the shipping money.  One morning I woke up in a cold sweat and ran straight to the computer to fix my mistake.

Now the whole kickstarter process is very easy to do for those of you that haven't ever done one.  You simply choose the amount you want to pledge (and the reward that goes with it) and click the send button.  the money is collected through Amazon payments and not charged until the project is completely funded.  This is both good and bad.  Good because you know you will get the final product, as in this case.  Bad because if it is unfunded the project doesn't get off the ground and you may loose out on a good deal.

Ok, so on to the puzzle.  The one I chose is 2 inches square with a maple burl exterior and a clear coat finish.  I'm not exactly sure what that means, but it appealed to me to help someone start a puzzle project. I thought the wood I chose was quite pretty and since it is square, it will sit very nicely on my puzzle shelves.  The button to order was pushed very quickly.  The difficulty level is rated as medium and I would agree with that.  It took me about 20 minutes to solve.  There's a bit of tapping that needs to be done to get the ball around some of the corners and into the next section of the maze.  Over all it's a fun little puzzle to hand around.

I had passed it off to a friend, and without knowing it must have had it close to solving because the ball bearing inside went for a nice little roll.  Not to worry though, we found it and shoved it right back inside again for the next unwary puzzler.

My only compliant about this is the tape Marcus used to hold the ball bearing inside.  I'm not sure what it is, but it is super sticky and now I need to work out how to take the glue off my puzzle.....help anyone???

The designer now has a new kickstarter coming up. go check it out and give a think to pledging!


2 comments:

  1. Given the clear coat finish is varnish, you can use goo gone, or isopropyl alcohol to remove that gummy mess. shouldn't harm the wood.

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  2. I no longer use masking tape to retain the ball. That was a headache!

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