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!

A star in a box

This was another IPP exchange puzzle that tickled me and was kept outside the boxes.  Sadly, I haven't had time to give it a proper play  until now.  I brought this one along for one of my marathon puzzle solving sessions over a testing weekend and managed to do a fiddle job of it.

The puzzle consists of 5 different pieces inside a plastic frame.  The object of which is to make a star.  There are 8 different possibilities, but sadly I only managed one. Each of the different possibilities has the lines from the star in a different place, and each of the wooden pieces has lines drawn in a different position on either one or both sides.

It's a real nice idea for a puzzle, but since there are no real instructions on the packaging, so I was going on memory of this one.  I may have the object of the puzzle all wrong, but I'll give it a go to explain what I did.

At one side there is an opening.  This opening allows for the pieces to slide partially through, but not all the way.  I think the object of the puzzle is to wiggle the pieces around until you can make the star shape.  If I'm wrong, someone please let me know.  The base of the puzzle has a couple of notches in it that hold the tips of the star just perfectly.  A rather nice touch that helps in the positioning of the bits. There is also a piece of paper in there that can be removed which shows the 8 solutions.  If you remove this paper, the puzzle and all its solutions are quite easy to do so I'm sure that isn't what needs be done.

I am hoping this is a dexterity puzzle that needs the wiggles, but if not, could someone please tell me how to do this puzzle right?  I'm lost and confused (as usual).

one possible solution

Meta-Puzzles

I have said before that I enjoy puzzles of all types. Today's blog post is confirmation of that. Since I started taking this blogging thing seriously I've posted mainly on mechanical puzzles but I've also shown a few other types of puzzles that have tickled my fancy. Quite a while back I became interested in meta-puzzles. The first I did was "The Runes". This was an amazing journey into a different type of puzzling for me. I'm sure I enjoyed it so much because we worked on it as a team.

When we finished this meta puzzle, we went in search of another. Puzzle Boat by the makers of Panda Magazine was the next one we tried. Sadly though, we stumbled across some inconsiderate fool who posted all the answers. So much for that.

When finished, some of the fellow Runers started up "Puzzle Brains" and I've attempted every puzzle they have put forth...although almost none successfully. That hasn't stopped me from renewing my annual subscription yet again.  I enjoy the banter on the forum, and look forward to each episode. Too bad Mr. Postey doesn't like delivering it the first time around.  I'm pretty sure he's figured out what the magazine is all about and he's just taking the issues for himself.

Panda Magazine is always good for a few weeks worth of on and off puzzling and not too expensive if you buy them six issues at a time. My plan is to go back and finish them when I eventually retire. (Yeah right!)

March of last year I purchased the Black Letter Game and enjoyed the start of it. It was a novel idea to send an artifact through snail mail that needed to be deciphered before the answer was submitted. My only complaint? The mailing time was...well, slower than a snail! I was working on this with a group of friends from back home and by the time I got my artifacts they had usually come very close to finishing the puzzles; if not already done with them.

A couple of years ago I enjoyed reading a Scholastic series entitled "The 39 Clues" with bug. This series of 10 books was at just the right puzzling level for a child. I quite liked the webpage that went along with it, but was not at all pleased with the cards they wanted us to buy to be able to play the games. It sure added up quickly, and when Scholastic announced a new segment to the game of a further 10 books, I was happy to not tell bug. This was a classic example of milking people. Something I really hate and because of that, I don't feel at all sad about not buying the next 5 books or the next 200 cards in the series.

Recently Kick Starter has had a new venture pop up.  The Maze of Games.  With my love of puzzles, I had no qualms about pledging on this one.  Reading about it, it seems that it might be something along the lines of one of those "choose your own adventure" books I read as a kid.  If I'm wrong, it still looks like it will be one good puzzle.  Besides that, they have some amazing puzzle designers working together on this project.  Go take a look and support it today.  It will make a nice early Christmas Present for you, and won't cost as much as a Karakuri box!  In the mean time, they have a couple of puzzles up on the site right now for you to play through.  Fun stuff that!

Put down that box or that twisty puzzle or that aluminium thing you've been playing with this week and go pick up a pencil.  Try on something new!  You probably won't regret it, and you might even like it.

Just a heads up Sue, I've another one for us to try!