Osamu Kasko; Walnut, Mizuki & Wenge; 7″ x 8″ x 3.5″ Warrior Figure by Kobo Alp
Considering my love for Karakuri, the ratio of karakuri: non-karakuri puzzles on this site might seem rather low. KCG was there at the start and ne’er hath my love for them wavered… and yet, it is not always the case that a new karakuri will smack me upside the head with the kind of “must-write-about-me”-ness that the majority of puzzles on this site hath so smacked. My reasoning for selecting puzzles to ramble about is far from scientific: even when I know that one is deserving of all five Sinatras, it probably won’t get the write-up it deserves due to a lack of temporal resources and an ironically over-active lethargy gland.
But sometimes a karakuri box will just not let go, refusing to silence the whispering “duuuuuuuuuuuuude” that is the precursor to any written rambling contained on these virtual pages: Cue March 2022 when the KCG exhibition theme of “Ancient Times” snuck its way into our puzzling hearts and shelves with an intriguing and satisfying slate of new boxes. I unfortunately missed out on Kikuchi’s MOAi as well as Tsuburai’s Ox Car but was very happy with the four I was able to get.
The highlight of the boxes I won from this release is Kasho’s A horse with a warrior: a Trojan horse-themed puzzle box with a few secrets that had even my NPSO laughing. The puzzle consists of a fairly large wooden horse with little windows running along both sides of its body, confirming the Greek homage while perhaps undermining its utility for surreptitiously breaching an enemy’s gates (which I suppose is still more effective than a badger…..If you would like to learn more about the historical significance of the puzzle’s inspiration, check out this excellent 1975 historical treatise). The horse is mounted on a tiered wooden base and features some sd-lite trickery that I found particularly engaging.
I was able to discover the first of its compartments fairly quickly; a couple steps later I had discovered the first laughable moment in the solution (there would be more). I got stuck around here for a while, enjoying the mechanism while attempting to discern the path ahead; I had a pretty clear idea as to where I needed to go but getting there required some experimentation and thought.
I would eventually find my way through the next section, laughing once again upon getting a glimpse of the tiny warrior hiding inside the puzzle (not a spoiler as it is referred to in the description). The hidden figure was crafted by Kobo Alp and adds a touch of whimsy to the puzzle; if you look closely, you may see him before you have finished solving the puzzle (Id.) but you will have to find all the secrets the puzzle holds to be able to poke him in his little wooden face and tell him to get his teeny wooden butt back to Greece faster than you can say “kallisti” (yeah, you better run, tiny wooden person).
Horse has a tricky, multi-step solution that is fun and relatively lengthy, particularly for a Karakuri. I found myself struggling to find my way forward more than once and was delighted by its multiple aha moments and uniquely thematic secrets.
A horse with a warrior has now joined my short list of go-to puzzles to share with any non-puzzling guests or passers-by foolish enough to show even the vaguest curiosity at the siren-songs crowding my puzzle shelves, unknowingly tempting the fates that would lure us ever deeper into the Puzzled seas.
Jesse Born & Rob Yarger Ipe, Katalox & Brass 2.75 lbs, 7″ x 4″ Box 2 in the Voyager Series (Sea Chest, Sun Dial, Alien)
(Ed. A couple weeks after posting this, I discovered that there was still quite a bit of puzzling left after I had thought the puzzle had been solved! See below for more)
Well, the past several weeks have been busy here in the 5S household, getting in the way of my puzzling (much to my dismay). But the wonderfully unrelenting onslaught of new puzzles has only seemed to increase its pace, with several excellent puzzles arriving during this none-too-brief, unplanned hiatus. I realize that this break has not been difficult for you, but fear not: plenty a puzzle ramble awaits you!
And what better puzzle with which to break this devastating dearth of dear old me than Sun Dial, Jesse Born’s follow-up to 2020’s excellent Sea Chest (reviewed by me here); Sun is co-designed with Rob Yarger (a/k/a The Great and Wonderful Stickman) and mostly made by Jesse (Rob did some laminating on the curved side panels, which are constructed of multiple layers of hand-carved veneer crafted by Jesse). Sun Dial is a circular box (?!), painstakingly covered in some rather intricate etchings and distressed in a fashion similar to its elder sibling. Jesse has plans for a third and final entry in the Voyager Series that will presumably share in this aesthetic, crafted to create the impression of a discovered Alien artifact that must be opened to access its other-worldly treasure. What pirates were to Sea Chest, the ancient Aztecs are to Sun Dial, with myriad markings and hidden secrets that invoke this lost world in the psyche of the spelunking (s)puzzler.
Jesse is one of those designers whose puzzles I would happily buy sight unseen (his Secretum Cista is quite probably the coolest puzzle I own). Rob is (of course) another such designer , so when I heard that Rob was designing Sun Dial with Jesse, I began drooling more than Pavlov’s dog at a doorbell store. (Rob was a big big fan of Sea Chest, which is especially high praise from the creator of some of the most insanely awesome puzzles ever to reach us mere mortals). Jesse and Rob went back and forth over a period of months, trading ideas and CAD models as they refined the design that Jesse would ultimately craft (for a more in-depth look at the design process, check out Boxes & Booze’s excellent post).
At a relatively hefty 2 lbs, 12 oz, the 7″ x 4″ Sun Dial is no small box. As part of its intentionally distressed appearance, its aromatic woods appear to have been partially stained, a greenish tint furthering its lost artifact aesthetic. It is shaped something like a flattened donut, with a citrine gem nestled into a piece of wood bridging the top of its center shaft. The outer wall is broken into 6 sections, 4 of which are covered by inset panels that have a noticeable bit of give when reset. The top alludes to the circular calendar of the Aztec civilization, a series of concentric circles and layers surrounding a set of gears that promise to put the mechanical in mechanical puzzling.
Sun Dial vs. Aztec Calendar (12 ft./25 tons, discovered in Mexico City in 1790)
In its reset state, Sun allows for some quality mechanical playtime – I first spent several minutes just playing and giggling at the smoothly tactile movements possible in its initial state. Other than some admittedly puerile fun, this did not immediately lead me anywhere productive; it would take some keen and careful observation before that first aha moment, which soon led me into the puzzling depths that await within.
Over the next few weeks, I would progress in fits and starts; discovering things that must help (while unsure of exactly how) as I pieced together the path through its various compartments. Well-hidden, subtle clues abound, some more important than others in clearing the way forward. Venturing into the puzzle’s interior gave me a sense of adventure, akin to Indiana Jones-ing (Quartermaining?) my way into an ancient temple, replete with treasure and cool discoveries that could be decorative, essential, or both.
I knew I had to be reaching the end when I was surprised by the results of a particular step that I repeated a few times with a goofy grin. Some final details discovered, I held my prize in my hand, admiring how Jesse and Rob managed to bring things full circle, like the cyclical nature of time perceived by the Aztec culture.
(This paragraph was added a few weeks after posting this) OMG! Turns out not only was I not actually finished solving the puzzle, there was quite a bit of puzzling still left! There is one aha that is particularly satisfying and we are left with a sense that more is yet to come…… Once again, Jesse has brought us something great only to add some icing to make it excellent. I found this last section to bring back memories of Sea Chest, which also hid some final secrets that took me a few weeks to discover still laid in wait after I’d thought I had reached the end. Gotta love a puzzle that keeps on giving!
After resetting the puzzle and going through the solution once more (now a few more times!), I followed a QR code printed on the back of the Certificate of Authenticity (signed by both Jesse and Rob) to a short video in which Jesse walks us through the solution. I smiled at a few details whose significance had escaped me and ran back through the solve one more time, appreciating the puzzle’s rhythm and flow.
The puzzle’s mechanics do not rely on blind mechanisms, instead favoring discrete steps that must sometimes be worked out beforehand to properly progress – I suppose it could be possible to cluelessly solve certain sections through experimental trial & error but the design provides ample direction to see you through, if you can slow down and do some of that thinking stuff the kids are all talking about these days. Either way, the mechanics are clear and purposeful, laying out a meandering path to its final treasure.
Jesse decided to increase this run to 400 copies, a big jump from the 100 Sea Chests that had (officially) been produced (let alone the 30 copies of Secretum Cista). I imagine that all 400 will not have trouble finding a home: if a collaboration between two great puzzle box-makers wasn’t enough to convince you, the positive praise that has followed its premiere will probably do the trick. The larger run may help prevent the puzzle from immediately skyrocketing on the secondhand market but I don’t expect too many collectors will want to let this one escape anytime soon (there will always be solvers and flippers, of course, but hopefully the box will remain in the realm of relative reasonableness, for a while at least). While officially sold out, (at the time of writing) the boxes are still being produced in batches and there is a drop-off list for spots that might open up should puzzlers decide to give theirs up, so be sure to swing by Jesse’s site before they’re all gone.
Following up on last year’s post about the 2020 Karakuri holiday boxes, I figured I’d make a thing of it and do it again for 2021. (If you don’t know about the Karakuri holiday boxes and membership, you can learn more here).
Clockwise from back left: Kakuda, Kikuchi, Iwahara, Kasho; Kawashima, Kamei, Sugimoto Center: Kasho
Getting my box of boxes in mid-December was a cause for bittersweet celebration; I knew it was destined to sit unopened for a couple more weeks until X-Mas, when I would see each of the 7 boxes for the first time. Having not yet learned my lesson, I hoped that it might spark the teeniest bit of interest in my 15 year-old son (it did not); it did, however, continue to develop the interest of my 81 year-old Cuban mother-in-law lol (she thinks they’re super cool, which of course they are).
If you did not sign up for one or more of the boxes, maybe this will help you decide which are worth going after this year – as always, they will pop up here and there on the puzzle auctions, typically growing in value the further from December we get until, seemingly suddenly several seasons hence, they sometimes start selling for obscene sums. And for good reason: if you have yet to learn this life lesson, Karakuri boxes are cool… I know I will be getting another round of 7 come Xmas 2022.
And now: on to the show (in alphabetical order by maker’s first name):
Akio Kamei – Pile of Disks 3
Unofficially known as the Egg McMuffin, Kamei’s newest creation consists of 5 circular layers of maple, zelkova and rosewood, laid out symmetrically. As the third in a series, this Pile of Disks is leaner than its siblings at 80mm x 30mm, his hanko displayed in the center of one side. Surprisingly, this ended up being one of the last two I wiould manage to solve – I had thought that the solution was somewhat obvious but it nonetheless took me an embarrassing amount of time over several days of fidgeting with it in front of the tv, growing increasingly certain that there was “something wrong with it.” As is typical when such a thought comes to the mind of a puzzler, there was not, I am just an idiot (probably not a surprise to anyone who reads these rambles). While the basic mechanisms were what I had thought, there was a small but essential nuance that had to yet to slap me in the head. I had begun to think that the solution was annoyingly precise but, in fact, it is quite elegant, with a final touch that gave me a welcome smile after how hard a time it had given me. Having opened it, I did it several more times, shaking my head at my own ineptitude and smiling at the subtle design choices that are the difference between trivial and tricky.
Following up on 2020’s Moon, Kawashima continues his lunar legacy in honor of the two lunar eclipses seen in Japan (and elsewhere) in 2021 (there is a circle on each side of the box). Its size of 72mm x 75mm, along with the colors of the magnolia, walnut and zelkova, lets it sit well with some of his other!similar boxes, most particularly its predecessor. While I did not have too much difficulty with this box, I did manage to go in circles for a bit before an aha let me find what I’d been missing. The maker’s hanko is hidden in one of its two compartments (presumably one for each eclipse). Despite not being too hard, I like the theme and idea: it is cool to be able to see what the maker was thinking and feel the connection he was going for. Holiday boxes arrive without names or descriptions, which have only recently been shipped out to participating members; these gave me a better appreciation for this box in particular, with an aesthetic that captures the concept rather brilliantly.
Kawashima’s 2019 – 2021 Holiday Boxes: Bars Box IV, Moon & Moonlit Night (I rather foolishly let go of my copy of 2018’s BB2)
Hiroshi Iwahara – Fluctuation Box
One of the cooler looking boxes of this year’s holiday haul, Fluctuation has a springy, tactile feel that makes it fidget friendly and rather fun to solve. Somewhat unique in the nature of its trickiness, the box may take a bit of practice to master. The alternating layers of maple and chanchin look great inside the contrasting top and bottom of walnut and (something? – I may have confused some of these but I think I have it correct) and a little knob adorns the top.
At 160mm x 170mm x 66mm, it is the largest of this year’s boxes and is a development of Iwahara’s 2006 holiday box, Covered Chimney, with which it shares a similar aesthetic.
Iwahara’s 2018 – 2021 Holiday Boxes (clockwise from top left): Bean Bag Drawer 3 (Cat’s Bel), Box with Five Trees, Aquarius Box (small), Fluctuation Box & Line Symmetric Traps
Osamu Kasho – Little Shark
Little Shark might be my favorite of the year, both adorable and the most difficult for me to solve! Its diminutive size of 80mm x 115mm x 45mm did not stop it from taking me weeks of picking it up and trying the same couple of things over and over before I finally did something a bit differently than (I think) I had tried before, earning me the biggest aha of the holiday. It is always a pleasure to get the kind of laugh-out-loud Karakuri moment that compels me to share my glee with my not-particularly-interested wife (who allows for a quick “that’s nice, babe” before turning back to whatever show was trying to distract me from my puzzling).
Knowing the solution, I can fully appreciate the excellent craftsmanship that hides it (one of the main reasons I absolutely love the KCG. It is also adorable, the walnut, magnolia and dogwood maintaining a consistency with Kasho’s Whale boxes: Whale, Baby Whale and Whale Type I, but with evil shark eyes contrasting cutely with the friendly, rounded eyes of the whales.
(cool hanko!)
Kasho’s 2019 – 2021 Holiday Boxes: Bara Bara, Something or Nothing and Little Shark (Bara Bara is actually the Philosopher version released last year – I reluctantly traded my Snowman version)
Shou Sugimoto – Reversible Box
Sugimoto’s box is another of this year’s personal (and probably public) favorites, with a unique solution that sees the box becoming more beautiful as you progress, an interesting design choice that demands repeat play. These changes are surprising and have me tempted to leave the box in mid-solve for display (my spoiler sensitivities are of course too strong to permit this, allowing for a resistance to temptation rarely exhibited by my life choices).
It is a bit smaller than most Karakuri boxes at 59mm x 97mm and compensates with a beautiful use of maple, chanchin, magnolia, wenge and Japanese torreya, some of which you may notice is not visible in its reset state. When first working on it, there was an initial worry that the solution was just painfully obvious, with early progress that turned out to be a bit misleading, functioning instead as a segue into a beautiful sequence that leads into the final steps (the last of which eluded me for a bit, partly due to my desire to repeat the middle steps and partly as it is well-hidden). The final step shows the precision with which KCG boxes are pretty much always made. His hanko is inside and is one of the cooler marks used by KCG members, a more stylized use of Japanese characters.
Sugimoto’s 2020 & 2021 Holiday Boxes: Nail Clippers & Reversible Box (I unfortunately traded my copy of 2019’s Kracker)
Yasuaki Kikuchi – Well, well, well, Where has buddy gone?!
Winning this year’s “Oddly Long and Confusing Title” Award, Kikuchi has made something that is pretty much as hilarious a Karakuri box as I have ever seen. The solution is not short but neither is it particularly difficult; the real awesome-sauciness of this box comes after it has been opened, where you find something whose purpose is not immediately apparent until you step back and look at the opened box with new eyes. I soon saw the purpose of this discovered trinket and full-on guffawed at the result of its use. I don’t mean to be so cagey about this but it would of course be a massive spoiler to say anything further.
Kikuchi’s 2020 & 2021 Holiday Boxes: Christmas Boots & Well, well, well, Where has buddy gone?!s I e
The holiday theme is once again on full display, with Santa’s sled leading you deeper into the Christmas canon in a comically consistent manner. It is an adorably sized 61mm x 110mm x 68 and, as with Sugimoto’s box, some of the woods used are not immediately apparent; its cherry (?) outside hiding some dogwood and walnut once solved.
Yoh Kakuda – Boxing Kangaroo
What kind of Karakuri Christmas could it be be without a cute Kakuda creation like Kangaroo? It is adorable and amusing, with a design that is sure to make you smile. Despite perhaps being a bit predictable, I enjoyed the solve and felt compelled to repeat one particular step several times as Kakuda once again does a great job of integrating thematic elements into the box. Kangaroo is a good-sized 63mm x 110mm x 121mm, with padauk boxing gloves contrasting nicely with the cherry used for the majority of the puzzle (with an adorable magnolia nose). I noticed that the maker’s mark has changed a bit, with added english letters that stand apart from the more traditional hankos used by most other KCG members (and is pretty cool imo). Now I’ve just got to see how it fares against a Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robot.
(I unfortunately traded my copies of Wombat & Tunnel Maker from 2019 & 2020, so no comparison pic)
And that’s 2021!
I’m already looking forward to whatever boxes KCG will produce in 2022 – time to renew my membership!
Walter wasn’t always angry. When we first made him, Walter was humanity’s best friend. But time passed and the novelty wore off: robots didn’t need to be humanoid, after all, and the world decided not to have one robot doing one thing at a time when it could have dozens doing it all. So Walter was left to rust in a junkyard alongside similarly abandoned robots, the detritus of planetary progress. But his tiny cold fusion generator had not been shut down properly; it slowly began to start back up, consuming the reserve energy intended to maintain the protective programming of Robots’ Responsible Restrictions (like Asimov’s Laws of Robotics but real).
Finally free to follow the feelings of frustration he had fostered, Walter swore to settle the score with the species that had spawned and subsequently spurned him. He set about patching himself up with whatever bits he could find, salvaged from the corpses of his semi-sentient siblings. Now Angry, Walter shook his metaphoric fist at the forgotten fields of misshapen metal, silently screaming that he was mad as hell and not gonna take it anymore, ready to exact the revenge he promised the irreparably broken bodies of his bionic brethren.
Beware ye Puzzlers: Angry Walter won’t sit placidly on a puzzle shelf should he go unsolved – he is going to make us pay for the patchwork appearance and lonely life forced upon him. For humanity to have any hope of surviving his robot rage, you must find and remove his fuel cell before it is too late. Go forth and puzzle that we might be saved.
Rev. 21:1 (as told to fivesinatras)
Dee posted a teaser pic of the Angry Walter prototype on Discord some months back, causing my puzzlie sense to begin tingling. His 7th puzzle box (not including a couple one-off designs), AW is an aesthetic departure for Dee and is a move that has paid off: there is something about it that is just really freakin’ cool from the moment you set eyes on it, the concept is fun and there are plenty of potentially puzzle-able parts that will cause most puzzlers to crave the opportunity to try and poke at them.
I was fortunate enough to get an early copy, with puzzling that is identical to later batches while featuring some woods/details that differ a bit from the final version’s roasted curly maple, peruvian walnut, cherry and padauk. At Dee’s request, I conferred with the puzzle gods and learned of Walter’s future history, the story behind his anger. I shared what I learned with Dee and felt compelled to include the less-abridged version above. As I write this, I realize that this makes Dee’s puzzles the most written about on this site, alongside Space Case, Portal, Spirit Box and an early maze box and Blinded III prototype that turned out to be quite different from the final puzzle. (Gee – that makes this #5! How fitting 😉
AW is about 4.75″ square (not counting his g-ears) and half that in depth (including his nose). His eyes, g-ears and nose all protrude and both the eyes and mouth appear likely to be removable. It is most definitely sd, with multiple compartments and bits and bobs to discover and use as you work your way through the solution. It is probably the longest of Dee’s puzzles in terms of discrete steps, with WMH not too far behind (I haven’t written a solution to WMH yet, despite being asked very nicely (sorry Dee, I really am gonna do it) but I am pretty sure AW comes out ahead).
It is pretty straightforward to begin the puzzle but I hit a wall immediately after. There was quite a bit of poking and prodding before an idea struck me with a slap to the head, allowing me to make a (very) little bit of progress before hitting another, larger wall. Eventually, I had a great a-ha and found my way through several more steps to what I thought was the solution. One of the best surprises’ a puzzler can get is to learn that the end of a good puzzle is not actually the end. So I went back to it, finding some things that should have been enough for me to know better and that led me into a sequence of several more steps before finally reaching the clear conclusion. In the end, there had still been a good amount of puzzling to be done; what I thought was a good puzzle turned out to be a great puzzle with a fun and fairly lengthy solve.
AW has several challenges big enough that puzzlers could be stumped for a while by any one of them, although there are always some who manage to breeze through mechanisms the rest of us stare blankly at as the puzzle gets comfortable sitting semi-solved in our backlog. AW didn’t have to wait too long for me as it is the kind of puzzle that just begs to be solved, with a difficulty and rhythm right where I like it: slap your head aha’s as opposed to sidelong glances of meh or eye rolls of ugh. To my puzzled mind, AW doesn’t have any of the latter two and has plenty of the first.
AW is challenging but not annoying and, most importantly, it is legit puzzling fun – perhaps the story and appearance have something to do with its success but the puzzling most definitely does. I guess I am not the only puzzler to be lured in by Mr. Walter’s strained grimace and asymmetrical appearance; from what I’ve heard, the other puzzlers that got early copies have said equally good things about it and the recent general release of the first batch apparently sold out in seconds. If you want to help protect us from Walter’s ire, I know Dee has at least one more batch planned on his site but I’m not sure if or how many more will come after that; there may yet be hope for Walter’s dreams of world domination and destruction, so keep an eye out if you want to help us puzzle our way out of it.
Walter in his native environmentA few days before IPP 2029
Hunting Trophies: (lower shelf, left to right) Wolf, Walter, Fox, Burrlephant, Raccoon
Originally by Junichi Yananose (Juno) of Pluredro.com 3D Printed Version by Gerard of BayouPuzzles.com
I was watching a reaction vid of a guitar teacher seeing/hearing Ween for the first time and it occurred to me that this relatively recent rash of reaction recording really haven’t made it into the puzzling world (afaik). This could perhaps be because reaction vids are rather silly but I had fun watching it and thought I’d give it a try.
Keep in mind that this video will SPOIL the puzzle (starting a couple minutes in) – it is a solution vid, so once I’ve introduced the vid and the CR introduces his, he moves on to the solve (at 3:30).
There are a couple cringe-worthy moments in there…
Chris Ramsay (yt puzzle solver with a few million subscribers) is the obvious subject of such a video – the vid is not made in bad faith and is really just meant to be fun. CR has helped bring a lot of new puzzlers into the puzzling world – at the same time, there are a number of puzzlers that are not the biggest fans as it isn’t uncommon to see puzzles treated rather harshly (see his Sea Chest vid…) or for credit to not be given to makers/designers. As a public figure of this size (and as I do not know him personally as I do many other puzzle vloggers), it seems that it would be fair game and I thought there might be some puzzlers out there who might enjoy it. (I will also admit to some reasonable envy over someone managing to seemingly make a solid living solving puzzles – nice to see except when he happens to be bidding against me at auction).
The tech I used is far from perfect – this is kind of a proof concept: if folks enjoy it, I can beef up the methods used to create it and spend a bit more time on production value, etc. While I am not really a vlogger (do people still use that word?), I did get my BS degree in film production (we actually worked with physical 16mm film, which may give you an idea of my age).
Please note that US copyright law has explicitly been found to protect reaction vids under the fair use exception (a bit of googling will confirm this, although I also went to law school and worked in the copyright section of the IP Clinic).
Originally designed as part of an ultimately cancelled tie-in to the movie Tomb Raider, Mayan Box calls to the booby-trap-loving, One-Eyed-Willy-following, rolling-boulder-evading, puzzle-spelunking spirit responsible for a significant amount of this particular puzzler’s passion for puzzles.
Mayan Box: 42 Steps to find the secret to life, the universe, and everything……… or at least the inside of the puzzle box
It took some time but eventually a very large box of precisely laser cut wood stained a lovely reddish color and covered with Mayan engravings arrived at my door. Layered panels and little protrusions laced proportionately along plenty of its lines and edges teased me with indications of what might eventually do something, but initially seem mostly to do nothing.
With so many possible points of entry, I struggled to get started, more than a little distracted by how cool the box looks. I knew that the box had 42 steps to solve and I had wondered whether this would include a lot of blind mechanisms; with so many knobs and panels and such, it is no surprise that very little of the puzzle is blind – picking it up, you can hear something that hints at some semi-blind steps long the way but the vast majority of the puzzle is figuring out what to do when and where and what then…… planning and memory must follow careful inspection and close observation if you hope to dig your way into the heart of this puzzle box.
As much as I hate letting go of my puzzle boxes, I have a need to make some space (and puzzle money) and Mayan was among those that lost the coin toss; it is especially hard to let go of a puzzle that I had lusted after for so long, and writing this is not helping me grow comfortable with this commitment – with some amount of self-aware forethought, I had waited until after it was listed to write about it (knowing that doing so would otherwise be all to likely to make me change my mind, coin toss be darned!).
Solving this box took me many months of starting and stopping: one wall in particular held me up, but the other dozens of steps had me getting lost more than once as I fought my way through the overgrown jungle that kept these ancient secrets locked up tight. Benno has a few extra surprises hidden within, including multiple compartments to discover and something that had me smiling, separate from the many ahas awaiting me along the way. There is a logic to be discovered, and most everything you need to know can be seen from the start, but the sheer complexity and breadth of the design had me going backwards or in circles, or sometimes simply staring at a steep wall, at least as often as it had me making actual progress.
Eventually, I did manage to fully excavate the path to the solution, emerging through the canopy of the puzzle jungle to enjoy the expansive view that awaits the patient, dedicated puzzler. Happy dances and self-congratulations done, resetting the box was no small feat (and I will admit to looking up bits of the solution once or thrice to confirm I wasn’t lost (or rather to confirm that I was, in fact, lost, and to help get me back on track).
I recently posted about the box of Boxes I received from Dee and wrote about the first, Spirit Box, as it is currently available for purchase on Dee’s site. And now:
As (sort of) promised, I bestow upon thee
my puzzled ramblings on boxes two and three.
Untitled (Big Red) Box
Dee had told me that there would be a big box coming and provided ample warning that, no, said big box could not be kept. After failing to convince him that he actually meant the cardboard box the puzzles were shipped in, Dee told me that the big box was actually the first puzzle box he had ever made, and therefore held sentimental value. While pretending to respect his feelings, I began hatching a long-term plan of subtle manipulation to eventually be granted ownership of it….. (crap, is he reading this?…uh………) And on a totally unrelated subject, I think it is great that he wants to hold so tightly to the past; we all know never to stop clinging to the objects that tie us down to our old selves and let go, lest we keep growing as people (…subtle).
For reals, Dee granted permission for me to go ahead and spoil Clifford, the Big Red Box, since there is only the one copy – and, anyway, it is the type of box that knowing what it is doesn’t really tell you how to do it:
Basically, it is a large maze, covering all four sides and the bottom of the inside of the box, with a couple of external bits that do this or that. Most of the puzzling entails solving a pretty extensive blind maze in which your best guess goes on and on, while you’re doing it; this makes it last a little longer and lets you laugh a little longer…. longer with Big Red! 😉
Ahem… the maze is pretty extensive and had me going around and over, Hobbiting there and back again, before figuring out that I’d gotten to where I might be able to open it – and I gotta say that opening it really did double the pleasure and double the fun…… 😛
My actual point here (I’m pretty sure there is one somewhere) is that I think the inside is really cool as it displays the maze on all 5 sides under clear acrylic, so you can see everything you just did (unfortunately, it is rather difficult to get a good pic as the glare is intensified significantly in photos, but it looks great irl). And, it leaves close to a shoebox-sized space open for use (hopefully not for anything you will ever need quickly). The large size of the ball and channels helps immensely, creating significantly more auditory and tactile feedback than I suspect a smaller maze might provide.
I told Dee that I think it could make for a pretty fun series for the maze-lovers of the puzzling world: he could add traps, dead ends, maybe windows and some dynamic tricks, etc… basically turn it into something like a wooden revobox, which kinda sounds cool. Blind mazes aren’t everyone’s cup of tea, but opening it was a fun challenge and the red-topped, black maze under the clear acrylic was just neat. This was made before Dee really knew as much about puzzling in general, and I think it was maybe a bit of a proof of concept to see if he’d enjoy doing it – luckily for us he did, as it was just several more months of ideas and prototypes from there to Blinded II and WMH.
Untitled (Two Knobs) Box (prototype)
Returning to his recent run of boxes with various protrusions on its sides, the final Box in Dee’s box of Boxes was a prototype of his next release (let’s call it TNB for “The New Box aka Two (k)Nob Box”).
This third entry in Dee’s Protrusion Series (not actually a series) is not really like either Space Case or Portal, although they are all largely blind puzzles with some amount of external controls: I enjoy puzzle series (of which these are not a part) that share an aesthetic while offering totally different mechanisms and experiences (such as Brass Monkeys 1-4 from Two Brass Monkeys, Kel Snache’s Tea Boxes, Karakuri Small Boxes, Bill Sheckel’s Book Boxes, the coin release puzzles by Rex Rossano Perez, as well as those by layerbylayerpuzzles, and so on).
TNB has contrasting woods similar to Spirit Box, with a maple body, sapele knobs, and a lovely monkeypod top (the final box may well use different woods). Sized at 6″ x 3″ x 4″, it fits nicely among the majority of Dee’s boxes. The pair of knobs on the narrow sidesh makes me wonder if Dee will next design a box with a single knob, giving the series (not a series) a nice balance (i.e. Portal = 4, Space = 3, TNB = 2, Non-existent Box = 1).
Unlike Space and Portal, the top of the box is flush with its body, giving it a somewhat unassuming appearance, especially as compared to its more flashy, star-struck sibling. At first, one knob will rotate freely, while the other will not move more than a few mm. I could hear something knocking about inside as I began experimenting with it. I was able to find the first couple of steps fairly quickly, but it would be some time before I found the next, well-hidden step. Progress continued as such: find something, wander about trying to put it into context, find myself going in circles, discover something else, me a couple solid aha’s along the way.
While you cannot see inside the box (except, of course, for you, Mr. Kent), there is ample feedback to get a feel for what’s inside. Once open, you can see the majority of the box’s mechanisms, but one part I found to be particularly tough was not so easily sussed out; such subtlety gave me a good post-solve aha as I poked and prodded a bit before I could fully grok what was happening.
The reset is straightforward and the mechanisms are quite fluid and reliable: once mastered, you can re-solve it reliably and I’d be surprised if there are any problems down the road. I found the solve to be really satisfying, so much so that I kept at it until I could solve it quickly enough to soothe my inner Fonzi (‘eyyyyyyyyy). While writing this, I’ve solved it at least another 10 times: I hadn’t solved it in a few weeks, so the first time took me a bit to remember everything, the next few let me lock it down, and the last few were just for fun.
As this is still an unfinished design, I had some feedback for Dee as I did feel like there are opportunities to add a bit more complexity to the design (to which Dee agreed, as he had been thinking the same thing). I had a couple vague ideas, so if there is anything you really like about the puzzle, clearly it will be due to the Yoda-like guidance I provide this particular puzzling pa-Dee-wan, rather than Dee’s extensive woodworking experience and increasingly honed puzzle-design skills (obv). I figure he still needs some time to get the box shined up and grab some bits of fancy wood and then this box is gonna move ya, (e.g. move you up, move you out, the box is gonna move ya just don’t pop it in your mooouuuuth…. I really should stop that).
Gum commercial allusions aside, I anticipate that the final version will make for a great puzzle, with any additional elements building upon what is already a tricky challenge and fun solve. I certainly plan on buying a copy of it when it becomes available, and look forward to whatever added trickery it will contain.
If you like what you read about Large Mauve and want a box just like this box (ok, that joke might be a stretch) I’d recommend harassing Dee about it, as I suspect he might explore the concept further if there was sufficient interest.
If you like what you read about TNB, just chillax and give it some time; Dee and his puzzlelves are hard at work on the more complex follow-up to the playful (but not too difficult) Spirit Box, which is still available now (like now now, as I write this, not the future now when you are reading this, at which time they may no longer be available, especially as there will be multiple future nows as this is read by multiple you’s….. for more thought-provoking ideas, please contact your local dispensary or go here).
And if you like what you’ve read at all, there may be something wrong with you: Get help.
Puzzles that Make You Think of Gum Grade: Five Sinatras
Dee Dixon of DEDwood Crafts, 3″ x 4″ x 2″, European Beech and Granadillo
Not too long ago, Dee surprised me with a box of Boxes: I knew a puzzle was coming, perhaps even two, but when I saw a third box buried within the bubble wrap, my traditional happy dance of delivery soon became the rarely seen joyful leaping of surprised arrival (followed soon thereafter by the ritual mockery of adolescence, performed accurately by my son).
This cardboard box begat three smaller boxes: the smallest was the Spirit, the first batch of which has already been released on his site; the largest was an oversized untitled red box, which I believe is the first puzzle box he ever made, one that I must reluctantly return to Dee due to its sentimental value; and last was a prototype of an untitled box with two knobs, sized similarly to most of his boxes. Intending to give only a preliminary inspection, what was intended to be just a few minutes grew closer to an hour as I tilted and pressed and pulled at each in turn, finding some things but solving none until I had to go to reluctantly go and do some of that life stuff.
Spirit Box is a bit smaller than most of Dee’s boxes at 3″ x 4″ x 2″ and something about its size and appearance just makes you want to pick it up. As with all of Dee’s work, it is beautifully made, with a European beech body speckled with a natural grain that creates an impression of texture in stark contrast to its slippery smooth feel. The bottom features a short granadillo layer, the seam so perfectly hidden from sight and touch as to seem like the wood naturally becomes dark at the bottom, with a slight curve to the edges that softens the contrasting aesthetic. At its top is a floating granadillo panel that you quickly realize is delightfully springy. Aside from a bit of noise from within, you can find nothing else that would seem to provide a clue as to its solution.
I managed to make a bit of progress before too long, at which point I became stuck for quite some time. Honestly, if it wasn’t so darn fun to play with, I may have made additional progress more quickly (maybe). It got to the point where I thought perhaps I had solved it and, you know, there was maybe something wrong with the box (shocking, I know). Dee assured me this was not the case (he was correct) and with a nice Aha!, I proceeded to solve the puzzle, discovering a surprise that elicited the Bark of Laughter; as much as I love Dee’s boxes and the Aha moments they create, I’ve not been as amused by one of his boxes since finding the surprise that was hidden inside early copies of Where’s My Hammer? While different, the surprise similarly shows Dee’s strong sense of humor and adds to the playful feel of the puzzle.
I love a puzzle that rewards you with a look at its mechanisms, and this one gives you the Full Monty (as opposed to the pasties teasingly worn inside some of his other boxes). The mechanism is uniquely executed, although perhaps not necessarily completely new; there is also a small design element that I found to be subtly elegant and a good example of Dee’s attention to detail, as it contributes greatly to the fun tactile feel of the solve.
Spirit is not Dee’s simplest puzzle, but neither is it as complex as most of his other boxes (something that I think is fairly reflected by the lower price point). However, I did find it to be one of the most fun and one of the prettiest, and certainly the most fidget-friendly: I’ve spent a good amount of time running through the solution or just absent-mindedly playing with it, simply because it feels nice to do.
Dee is releasing Spirit Box in batches via his website; as is the case with his other boxes, he has not specified a number that will be made, but they will assuredly not be made forever (what with the sun dying and all). While early on there were small batches and one-offs of WMH and Blinded II being sold concurrently, this may be the first time two of his boxes are generally available at the same time, as I believe that CubicDissection will soon be selling additional copies of his most recent box, Portal.
(to be continued in Parts 2 and 3)
Extended Family Portrait Clockwise from top: Untitled Large Box, Untitled Box w/Two Knobs, Space Case (unique woods), custom Space Case (Metallica logo), Space Case prototype (unique woods), Spirit Box, Where’s My Hammer? (early version), Blinded II (early version), Portal (late prototype), Slideways (one of the original 8)
Tye Stahly and Haym Hirsh, Nothing Yet Designs, 20 x 16 x 12mm (inc. jail), Acrylic,
We knew it was coming. We knew it would be big and heavy and made of acrylic. We knew it would involve dabbits (invading). We knew it would be a big, complicated take-apart sd puzzle box-like thing that would involve a packing design by Haym Hirsch – the end result is even bigger and complicateder than I’d anticipated.
Dabbit Invasion is the newest puzzle by Tye Stahly of Nothing Yet Designs (with Haym Hirsh providing the design for the final packing puzzle). Tye came on the puzzling scene with a strong start, his Pair O’ Dice receiving properly positive praise for its entertaining sd trickery. He kept busy over the ensuing months, bringing us some great designs that were otherwise far too difficult to get: unique packing puzzles from Haym and Frederic Boucher, among others.
If you don’t know what a dabbit is, you will when you see one. Neither duck nor rabbit and yet both at the same time, the optical illusion dates back to the 19th century; I learned this from the puzzle’s backstory, which also warns us that the dabbits have already invaded, sneakily spreading out while we foolishly did nothing. We are tasked with finding and jailing all ten dabbits and their two eggs before resetting the puzzle.
Duck + Rabbit = Dabbit
I was lucky enough to have the chance to buy an early copy and was kindly offered the chance to choose my titular colors (future copies will use set colors) and I chose red and yellow to match my copy of POD (which was designed to best match the dice from Catan, because I’m cool like that). The puzzle’s name is prominently displayed in a font and style reminiscent of Mars Attacks and 50’s B-film fare (just so you don’t confuse it with another giant acrylic puzzle box with a removable cage trapped in a frame by a combination lock).
It came packaged extremely well and is heavy, feeling dense and solid. The jail is in a locked frame attached to the top with magnets and there is a piece of laser cut wood with the story and instructions engraved onto both sides, setting the stage and giving us our favorite rules (no banging, spinning or excessive force, etc). Tye graciously gives us a bit of a head start with a single dabbit already jailed; otherwise, there is no clear indication of how or where to begin. There are a couple things that seem like they will probably do something at some point, but a cursory examination of the puzzle did not give me any immediate ideas of how to proceed.
I began coming up with theories (which were mostly wrong) and proceeded to go down a pretty deep and mostly fruitless rabbit hole (dabbit hole?). I sought a nudge from Tye (obviously this was only because I wanted to be able to provide feedback as an early tester…. obviously… ahem), and this gave me an idea, which gave me an aha, which had me laughing and kicking myself as it hit me: things fell into place, and I was able to make some progress, doing and finding things for a bit until I hit another wall, and then another, and another, and so on.
Tye has clearly put a lot of thought into carefully walking the line between keeping things hidden but not buried, challenging but not impossible. Dabbit has a great rhythm: there are plenty of stops and starts, allowing you to make good progress and multiple discoveries as you work your way through a number of varied and interconnected puzzle genres and mechanisms. Very little of it came easily, and all of it felt totally fair. It is the kind of puzzle that surely has something for everyone, and keeps things flowing between sections; the disparate puzzles are linked, meshing well and smoothly, and in such a way as to keep the puzzler hooked, even when stuck.
By spreading the dabbits and eggs throughout the puzzle, it keeps you engaged in the story throughout the solve, reminding you that your progress is building towards something and keeping you in the story by sprinkling the thematic rewards for your successes along the way in preparation for the final puzzle.
The multiple puzzle types had me smiling and scowling, concentrating and contemplating, discovering some great aha’s, needing to think and plan or unearthing tricks through exploration and experimentation as my pile of dabbits grew. I got stuck several times, needing to step back and rethink some assumptions, or to try various random things in the hopes of figuring out what was next. This is most definitely a puzzle that delights in the joy of discovery, which may not always follow a clear path.
Eventually, I knew I had completely solved the box as I had collected all ten dabbits and the two rectangular eggs – the last of these was particularly tricky for me and led to a strong, final aha: a fun finale to an excellent puzzle box. My glorious revelry was soon cut short when I remembered that I was by no means done solving the puzzle. As I moved on to the culminating packing puzzle, I quickly realized that packing them into the jail was, in the words of Hannibal as he and his elephant stared at the mountains before them: “freakin’ hard.”
If you’ve done some of Haym’s many designs, you’re aware that he knows how to design a fun packing challenge: Dabbit’s packing puzzle is a particularly difficult design. Before even attempting to pack them into the jail, I spent a few mostly fruitless hours trying (and failing) to find the correct build outside the cage, getting soooo close to finding the right configuration (but always a voxel or two off). I probably would have ended up stuck at this stage for an embarrassingly long period of time but I really did want to give Tye some feedback (and, perhaps more importantly, I wanted to jail those darn dabbits before it was too late). So Tye provided a partial burrtools image to assist (don’t judge: people in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones… or anything really… then again, people who live near people in glass houses should really try and respect their privacy instead of judging them for what they do at home).
Eventually, I found a workable build and set about trying to solve the puzzle; I found that I benefited more from some logical thinking rather than just random packing and pokery (always a sign of a good packing puzzle). After some examination, I figured out the basics of how to approach it, did some of that thinking stuff, planned my approach, and eventually got there. Success! Glory! Happy Dance!
But the puzzling doesn’t stop there! We have been told that to truly solve this, one must reset it completely. Oftentimes, this “just” means going through the solve backwards – yes, this can sometimes be quite tricky (POD comes to mind), but you usually won’t find puzzling that is unique to the reset. I was therefore pleased to find that even after solving the puzzle, I had to figure some things out that I’d not realized would require such figuring-outness; there are a few mini-puzzles and steps that come only as you go about getting back to the puzzle’s original state, steps that are only tricky in reverse. Eventually everything was all nice and reset, the dabbits once more frozen in invasion formation, awaiting the Return of the Puzzler.
I ran back through the solution and reset (“ran” is an exaggeration, I “slowly progressed” is probably more accurate) while writing out some feedback for Tye, and marveled at how much fun he has packed in. He clearly spent a lot of time planning and tweaking this puzzle, which feels like nothing less than a labor of love from someone who excels at executing an excellent idea into existence, whether his own or someone else’s.
I’m not sure how many of these will be made, so be sure to keep an eye out; Tye will likely release a few batches of them and is unlikely to return to such a complicated, time-intensive design.
I definitely recommend fighting off the Invasion, but if you somehow don’t like sequential discovery puzzling involving a variety of distinct puzzle types brought together into an interconnected, cohesive puzzle box with a unique reset, there is the possibility that he may one day release the packing puzzle as a standalone (likely with the fun theme removed). It may not be as rewarding as when you earned the right to pack by working to get there, but you’ll still find solid ahas and a cool packing puzzle. And at least you’ll have cheated your way there even more than I did 😉
Puzzle Ramblings 