blinded – Puzzle Ramblings

Menace
Dee Dixon, 5.25″ x 3.5″ x 2.5″ (available in Black Limba & Quarter or Flat Sawn Shedua)

It has been an eventful last few years: I lost my hammer, went blind, felt my way through the darkness of space, fell through a portal, went blind again, suffered being haunted, and survived the Walt-acalpyse……. all this only to have Dee send me something truly menacing. Needless to say (not that this ever stops me), I have gratefully enjoyed every moment of it as DEDwood Crafts has consistently produced some of the best puzzle boxes to grace my shelves.

Flat Sawn Shedua in the Front & Black Limba in the Back

Following up on Angry Walter is no small thing: it has received consistently positive praise from puzzle box enthusiasts new and old (here is my post on that beaut of a box). And yet Dee has managed to keep putting out beautiful, challenging boxes since WMH appeared just a few, long years ago. So it should not surprise anyone to hear that his newest box once again succeeds at bringing us a fun in a pretty package.

Menace uses a single wood to create a clean, sleek aesthetic that may be his prettiest box since the totally different, asymmetrically complex style of WMH. I first got a prototype in Shedua that is just gorgeous in its apparent simplicity: no protrusions, buttons or panels… just a locked lid inset into the top with a small hole to one side. Picking it up, there is no clear indication as to how one can begin to open it and I spent quite a bit of time searching for whatever first step Dee had designed.

I began developing some assumptions (quite likely as Dee intended) that would (unsurprisingly) prove incorrect, something that I would repeat a few more times before I would discover the box’s final secret. After discovering a well-hidden aha, Dee teases you with the idea that you may have already solved the puzzle; of course, this turns out to be well before the puzzle has actually been solved (which you would know if you had actually read the brief instructions….. duh). The puzzle’s length is more or less consistent with the majority of his boxes but fell into the trap of thinking I had reached the end before realizing I had not: the instructions tell us that we must find some sort of prize and, since no such prize had been found, clearly I was not yet done.

Experimentation will only get you so far with this one – I had to take a step back and rethink what I was doing and what I was trying to do, questioning my assumptions and trying to look at the box in a new way to see what else I might be able to do. With a good aha, I realized something and began following that trail to eventual success. The final compartment is pretty ingenious and most definitely sneaky – not what I had been expecting, which is always a welcome finale to any puzzle.

The prototype’s “prize” was not really all that much of a prize lol (perhaps more of a placeholder) – not that I needed the added incentive, but this did help me to justify my “need” for a copy of the final puzzle (in a different wood, of course – I’m not (totally) crazy). I had been out of town for a while and had not solved the box in long enough that I already found I had forgotten which of my many assumptions had proven incorrect! I know that I don’t generally make claims to brilliance on (or off) these virtual pages but this was a bit ridiculous (and perhaps not the greatest thing for my on-again, off-again relationship with confidence). Fortunately, it did mean that I got to repeat an aha or two, albeit it with more a sense of relief at not being a complete idiot than at the typical puzzle-solving feeling that I was the greatest mind of all time for having made a piece of wood move a few inches that way.

The prototype and final are mostly identical – Dee did tweak one thing that makes the solution’s finale a bit more difficult to do. In doing so, some of my methods worked against me – I found that the slight change makes that last bit require a better understanding of what I am trying to do, forcing me to approach the puzzle more carefully, looking back at some hints I had previously missed before I would get that final aha (enough reworking that I did indeed feel a brief bit of brilliance before coming back to reality.

The final surprise legitimately made me laugh out loud – Dee has given us another taste of his humor as in some previous boxes (Spirit and the original run of WMH, in particular). I re-solved the box several more times to marvel both at my mastery and the design…. not to mention to grin a few more times at that last laugh.

Menace will be available July 2, 2022, on the DEDwood Crafts site. It may not last long but I suspect Dee may do another run or two before moving on to whatever the next bit of fun he has planned for us.

Space Case
Dee Dixon, Canarywood and Bloodwood, 5.5″ x 4.25″ x 2.25″

Dee Dixon burst onto the puzzle scene in 2019, and his 4th box, Space Case, is set to be released on CubicDissection in August. He made a huge splash with Where’s My Hammer? (WMH), a great puzzle box that has been pretty much loved by everyone who has gotten their hands on one, and proved he was no one-hit-wonder with his follow-up box, Blinded II.

I am fortunate enough to have an early (Etsy) copy of both WMH and Blinded, the woods or designs of which are a bit different from what was ultimately released on CD (WMH in particular had a few more rectangular bits of exotic wood on top and were made out of different woods for a unique, semi-custom appearance). Fortunately, their amply attractive aesthetics could well accommodate the slight concessions made for the sake of getting them into the hands of more puzzlers.

Dee’s first box, Slideways, was made in 2019 – there are not many established makers who can come out with four solid puzzle box designs in less than two years. With this kind of prolificity, it makes sense that he was able to start working on puzzles full-time, much to our collective benefit. There were only 8 copies of Slideways released (one of which sits happily among its siblings on my shelf) – it is a beautiful box, purple with some asymmetric strips of yellow wood (canarywood, maybe?) on top. While the simplest of his designs (just 2 or 3 steps), the concept is well-executed and shows Dee’s nascent puzzle-designing chops.

WMH is an especially excellent puzzle: it has plenty of misdirection, tools, and a tempo that I love to find in a box, with some relatively quick success at first, followed by fits and starts until you have found everything there is to find at which point you must actually think before you can hope to solve! The last step took me a few weeks of letting my subconscious work on it before I awoke one morning and somehow just knew the solution (admittedly following some conversations about it that had helped me eliminate some wrong moves) – I went upstairs, grabbed it, and bam! it worked! Super satisfying and very fun to re-solve. All in all one of my favorite puzzles boxes (although it does have one middle step that uses a mechanism I don’t love and may cause some puzzlers to need a nudge to find).

Blinded II is another excellent and attractive box and shares some similarities with WMH: there are misdirections that left me spinning my wheels for longer than I’d care to admit. With the first two or three steps finally found, it was not too much longer until I worked out the last half of the solution.

However, this is (supposed to be) about his newest release, Space Case, a canarywood box with a bloodwood figure on three of its sides: an alien head, a rocket, and a flying saucer with a tractor beam. Some of these figures will move off the bat; I don’t think I am giving anything away by saying that some will spin freely….. at first (in fact, this is the state in which I believe you can know it is fully reset).

I managed to get an early copy prior to its upcoming release – it is a 10-12 step puzzle box that requires close and careful observation to solve. You will need to develop an understanding of what is happening inside before you will have much hope of opening it.

Trial and error will help at first – if you’re not paying attention you may start to think that this is a blind solve but there is plenty of feedback inside and outside the box to let you know when things are happening. It quickly becomes apparent that manically shaking the box isn’t going to get it open. Instead, with some patience and focus, you will begin to get a picture of what is happening, helping you to build up a mental blueprint of each successive step until you can finally get it open.

Once open you will be rewarded with some clarity and it may yet take several resets to fully grok how it all works. This only adds to the fun as you can continue to work on the puzzle even after opening it – the full solution means making sure that each step is understood in detail, allowing you to open it quickly thereafter. Space is quite different from his previous boxes and highlights Dee’s ability to approach a puzzle box in different ways – while it is different in its mechanisms, it still features the practical attention to detail that makes his puzzles work reliably. As with all his designs, it has a wonderful aesthetic, using contrasting woods to create an excellent look. It also adds a bit of whimsy and fun to your collection that looks great on display.

I should add that I have the pleasure of possessing a copy of a metal prototype of Space Case (I pun – it has the Metallica “M” etched into its wonderfully dark wood). As it remains unsolved, I am not yet certain as to how it differs from the final version – I am not sure of whatever steps diverge from its improved offspring, but as a completist I’m grateful to have lucked out to get it from a fellow puzzler.

I look forward to whatever Dee comes up with next – we are fortunate that the appetite we puzzlers share has allowed him to eschew his workaday life to focus on what is really important: giving me more puzzles (us, I meant us: giving US more puzzles).