Sadly, I'm still busy finishing up IPP. So...Otis has given me his permission to post his thoughts here. Enjoy! I know I did. And thank you Otis!
The World Puzzle Center is located in a small town called Panicale in central Italy. It is a really small town with only about 35 year round residents. Believe it or not, the building is actually a 15th-century castle with over 500 years of history! To make things easier, I'll just call it WPC from now on.
On the day we visited, because there were tons of IPP members coming over, the organizers set up a Puzzle Pop-up Store right at the castle entrance.
The Jar Room: Right after we walk in, we see the entrance hall, which is also called "The Great Wall of China". There are loads of different bottles and cups on display, which belong to the Puzzle Vessels category. You can find cool stuff like Pythagorean cups ("fair cups") and bottom-filling teapots! On the side, they also keep some vintage puzzle collections, like wooden dexterity puzzle boards and different rolling-bean puzzles.
The Lock Room: Just like the name says, this room is all about locks! Three out of the four walls are covered from floor to ceiling with tons of different puzzle locks. From what I saw, the locks here aren't the super pricey ones (because I saw the really expensive ones in other rooms later). But guess what? Here's the funniest part: this room was actually converted from a toilet, and the toilet is STILL working!
The Wood Room: A room full of wooden puzzles, mostly Interlocking puzzles. Some cool examples are Mjölnir made by Stephan Baumegger, and a camera-shaped Sequential Discovery puzzle made by Pelikan. And of course, you can't miss the famous wooden puzzles from Czech Vinco!
The Twistypuzzles Room: This was definitely one of the most mind-blowing rooms of the whole trip! All four walls are literally covered in Rubik's cubes—you are completely surrounded! (NB: I think this was his favorite room. But he didn't photograph the bathroom.)
I picked some of the rarer and cooler ones to take photos of, like the Gundam Head series, the Massage Ball (which was never mass-produced), and some awesome masterpieces by Smaz.
The Plastic Room: This room is for all the plastic puzzles that aren't Rubik's cubes. The amount of stuff here is crazy too! There are all kinds of Instant Insanity puzzles, 3D puzzles, rolling ball mazes, and sliding block puzzles.
The Single Player Puzzle Room: Generally speaking, children under age of 18 are not allowed to enter the WPC unless they are invited. The Italians, however, always bring their children along. This is a cozy little lounge where guests can take a short break and play various single-player games. Next to it is a Hanayama room, which houses a whole collection of various cast puzzles.
The Lego Room: Who doesn't like Lego? This room consists of many different toys made of Lego and nanoblocks all built by Rox. Some of the children in town are allowed to enter the lego room and build, but only in this room.
The Crystal Room: This room is all about the Crystal Puzzle. There’re every crystal puzzle made by Hanayama, Jeruel, Beverly and a few other chinese companies. All are made of transparent plastic blocks that you put together to make 3D cartoon characters. From what I know there’s only 2 missing from Russia, and also a few prototypes. Look at how many cabinets they need to display everything! To make the transparent puzzles look extra shiny and cool, they made the lighting in this room a bit dimmer. The vibe was awesome! (NB: this room is lit with black lights 24/7 as many of the puzzles glow!)
The IPP Room: Since our hosts, Rox and George, are both IPP members, they obviously collect tons of IPP puzzles! This room shows off the exchange puzzles from past IPP events over the years. They even have a souvenir puzzle from the very 1st IPP! So historic!
The Oskar Room: Oskar van Deventer is like a superstar in the puzzle design world, so of course he deserves his own dedicated room! This room has all kinds of puzzles from him—mass-produced ones, his own 3D-printed creations, and even some test prototypes. Honestly, I only realized I forgot to take a wide shot of the whole room when I started writing this... I guess I took way too many photos that day and my brain just froze!
While exploring different parts of the castle, we kept finding super rare and amazing puzzles hidden in different corners!
For example, the Craig Thibodeau Golf Chest (top-left photo) is a custom puzzle piece of furniture made just for Rox. This big wooden chest has lots of drawers that open with different secret mechanical triggers. So fun!
The little house in the top-right photo is called the Puzzle Palace. It's a super detailed Sequential Discovery puzzle made to look exactly like Rox and George's old house! Apparently, when they first had the idea for the World Puzzle Center, they turned their home into the original "Puzzle Palace". Later on, they moved to Italy, but that's a story for another time!
The middle-right photo is the Apothecary Chest. It's an ultra-detailed puzzle made by several puzzle designers working together, and there are only 15 sets in the whole world!
The metal sculptures in the bottom-right photo are the famous Berrocal puzzle series, which puzzle collectors go crazy over.
Finally, the middle photo is a jigsaw-style puzzle of Notre-Dame de Paris made by Jan Zoon. It is made of 7,438 individual pieces! It actually won an award back then, so it's one of the top treasures in WPC.
WPC isn't just about puzzle displays; they even have a Library! It's filled with books about puzzles and math. We were happy to spot a Chinese book called Qu Wan (趣玩), written by our friends Zhang Wei and Peter!
The castle itself has so many cool little details. Almost every corridor lamp has a different design—some look medieval, some look like disentanglement puzzles, and some are geometric math models! Walking through the courtyard, you might see a mini gym; around the corner, you might find artwork made from a twisted rug; walking downstairs, you might end up in a "dragon's lair". In one of the living rooms, we even saw a castle-shaped wooden craft that Yuan gave to George years ago.
Since George Miller is a professional puzzle prototyper, he obviously has his own workshop. We saw a bunch of 3D printers (mostly Bambu Lab), paper cutting and bookbinding tools, xTool laser engravers and cutters and more. He literally has every tool you could ever imagine!
Even though WPC is huge, there were SO many people visiting that day—we had almost 300 people! Plus, there were so many fun things to play with in every room, so the whole tour took quite a while. Besides chatting and taking tons of photos, some people joined to assemble a 3D interlocking puzzle designed by George Hart, while others tried to solve the Puzzle Palace.
We stayed there for 8 whole hours, and even then, we only barely managed to walk through every room once! After visiting, I honestly think the name "World Puzzle Center" is not an exaggeration at all—it 100% deserves the title! I really don't think there is anywhere else on Earth with such a massive and amazing puzzle collection, let alone a place that lets people actually touch and play with them! This trip to the WPC is definitely the most unforgettable memory of our whole Italy trip!
(NB: ChatGPT Translation: Dear Rox & Xixi,
It has been a wonderful experience to see your city transformed into such an amazing puzzle event. From the very first moment we arrived and saw your collection of more than 40 puzzle exhibits, we could already feel the happiness and passion that puzzles have brought into your lives.
Although our time here was short—only about 31 hours and 8 hours of sleep—it was enough to make us truly appreciate your care and dedication. We enjoyed listening to the stories behind each of the 40+ puzzles and learning about the city's puzzle culture.
Thank you for your thoughtful preparations for this IPP and for arranging such a warm and memorable gathering.
We wish your city continued prosperity and hope it becomes a place of honor for the puzzle community.
From: Your friends
(Drawing of Italy)
WORLD PUZZLE CENTER
SPECTACULAR!
MAGNIFICENT! ❤️)Thank you Otis for such a wonderful writeup.
