Multiball

Eric Fuller, CubicDissection, 2019
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• Puzzle Details:
  • Puzzle Box: 2 Steps
  • Woods: Ash, Wenge, Walnut
  • Number Made: 99 (signed and dated)
• Dimensions:
  • Overall Size: 3″ Cube

It is almost immediately apparent upon holding Eric Fuller’s what one must do in order to open it: get the stainless steel ball bearings out of the way so the panel can slide out. Easy, right? If you are familiar with Fuller’s work, you should know the answer to that already.

The panel moves slightly, showing you enough of a gap to confirm that this is the way out, and a plastic window teases you with a view of the obstacles rolling in your way. This is part of the fun of Multiball – as you turn it this way and that, first carefully, then perhaps more abruptly, then veeerrrrry slowly, then all these repeated with the box inverted, sideways, and diagonal, then perched upon one’s open palm while you perform your most graceful whirling dervish, and then clenched tightly in your fist while you glare at it scanners-style. All to no avail.

I rather quickly figured out how to will the first ball bearing out of the way, slipping sneakily into some secret recess, then the second soon after, only to have them burst back in, after having gone just a bit too far, like a drunk Uncle regaling your family with Dad’s early sexual escapades over thanksgiving dinner. Rinse and repeat: one ball, two ball, do the hokey pokey and shake it all about, ok there goes the third again, and…. and…. annnnnnnd…… damnit.

After hours of this, the noise of the ball bearings earning quite a few annoyed glances from my wife as we Netflix away our evening, suddenly: it opens! Can you believe it?! Check it out, it’s open! (“that’s nice, babe.”) Yeah, all I did was…. was….. waaaaasssss…. damnit. Still waiting on figuring out what exactly I did right. But I did see that the internal compartment was sizable, maybe not loaf of bread sizable, but more than big enough to fit your Uncle’s next white chip.

The box is beautiful, dark and light woods focusing your eyes on its window, inside of which you can manage to see just enough mirrored mechanisms to further frustrate, but not enough to know for sure what exactly you are looking at – maybe I will have a better sense once I manage to open it…. again.

Grade: Four Sinatras