Tag: plastic puzzle box

Rabbit Season! Duck Season! Rabbit Season! Duck Season!… Dagnabbit Dabbits Done Did Invaded

Posted on by fivesinatras in Dabbit Invasion, Nothing Yet Designs, Packing, Puzzle Box, Sequential Discovery, Take-Apart, Tye Stahly

Dabbit Invasion

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 😉

Grade: Five Sinatras

(click here for more information on the Sinatra Scaling System, (c) John Maynard Keynes, 1944)

Twisted: Box of the Celts by Matt M.

Posted on by fivesinatras in Box of Celts, Froodloops, Numbskull Puzzles, Puzzle Box, Sequential Discovery, Take-Apart

Box of the Celts

Matt M., Numbskull Puzzles, 5″ x 5″, PLA

Matt M. (FroodLoops on Discord & Reddit) teased an sd puzzle box on discord about a year ago – I’d been fortunate enough to see it right away (ok, “obsessive enough” might be more accurate) and politely began harassing him with the occasional friendly poke to make sure I was still on the list (yes, I may have forgotten whether I’d asked – in my defense, I believe that the design changed significantly at some point along the way and pretty much became an entirely new puzzle).

Anyhoo, a few weeks ago I got word that the puzzles would soon start rolling out; a couple weeks later and there it was: bigger and heavier than expected at about 18 oz. (Matt had forewarned of some significant puzzling being inbound, and I was nonetheless pleasantly surprised and more than a little impressed). Big and green, Box of the Celts is a cylindrical printed sd puzzle box that integrates a number of different puzzling types in ways that are, I believe, wholly unique. It managed to expand some of my puzzling horizons while posing a significant challenge, not to mention a helluva lot of fun and puzzling value.

This is the type of puzzle that just begs to be finished – it took me several hours over the course of a few days to make it through (with perhaps a nudge or three along the way). It has a great rhythm: several puzzling phases, each with distinct and varied puzzle mechanics that link and overlap through the transitions, all posing multiple challenges with legit aha’s to be discovered in order to progress.

These are a few of my favorite rules…

As I mentioned, this is a plastic print of a puzzle and I want to be clear that it is a quality plastic print of a puzzle. The print does not skimp in any way, with high density and layer height. I am sure this means a lot of time in the build process but it pays off (the biggest piece alone apparently takes about 36 hrs to print!).

Not only is there a lot going on in there, but there are some elements that were downright impressive in Matt’s ability to safely produce the needed parts in plastic: strong enough to comfortably withstand what needs to be done, sometimes to my surprise as the nature of some aspects would seem to pose a significant challenge to the maker – at no point did I actually need to worry as the print is dense and feels more than solid, and even the parts that seemed like they might be flimsy due to their comparatively slight appearance turned out to be quite strong.

At many points along the way I was also impressed by some of the nuanced design elements that were included – honestly, there are some small but signifcant choices that I found to be pretty sophisticated, especially considering this is his first design (afaik). I know some came as a result of play-testing, but still…. some small additions ensured that even the most challenging parts kept from ever feeling unfair or annoying (assuming you’re paying attention – I definitely spent some time hitting walls before realizing I’d missed a clue).

The first phase could easily be a standalone puzzle in itself and helped me to appreciate a type of puzzling I don’t have much experience with; I got lost on this early part for quite some time, thinking I’d be making progress only to end up in the same place (or backwards). It took a bit of thought and planning to make it out and was super satisfying along the way – lots of little ahas just in this first section of the puzzle.

Having made it through this section, I futzed around through a transition to the next: each phase has its own challenge(s), with at least one or two really great steps in each that lead to quality ahas. It feels like he started with a few broad ideas and kept falling onto more comparatively smaller ideas and found ways to integrate them organically. It packs in a lot of puzzling without ever feeling like there are any extraneous steps that are there just to stick something in (which I think is something that even a lot of really good puzzles may sometimes have).

The next phase proved to give me a LOT of trouble, to some extent physically but mostly because it is just really tricky. Eventually, I found a few things that helped as I struggled to find my way through this challenging section, oftentimes progressing and exposing more information, only to realize I would need to regroup and backtrack in order to go forward. Some is due to the mechanism itself and some due to the way information is provided bit by bit, cycling through trial & error and observable data.

Finally, I got through this section and could just feel that the puzzle was almost over: while the most difficult parts were behind me, the last section still proved tricky, the puzzle playing with some assumptions that required more thought and observation to recognize and overcome, with the puzzle once again including some subtle design elements that give you just enough info to avoid blindly flailing about. Finally, I discovered something that clearly told me I had reached the end of the twisted, puzzling journey and I basked in the glory of my brilliance 😉

After some moments of satisfied appreciation, I began the process of rebuilding and resetting the puzzle. By now, I had accrued quite a lot of plastic bits and bobs and the puzzle was more than a little lighter than when I had first begun. However, it was clear what went where, despite several days having passed since I had started working on it. This is not to say that it was always easy to go back – some parts were basically just as challenging in reverse, although having made it through once I was able to make comparatively short work of it (key word: comparatively). To me, this just speaks to the substantial puzzling value afforded by this novel creation, as the reset proved almost as satisfying as the solve.

Overall, the puzzle has phases that can be done while watching tv with an npso, fidgeting and wandering about, but then some parts must be done with full focus and close observation, the puzzle goggles having made several appearances to keep progressing.

So, yeah, Box of the Celts: get ’em while (when) you can. I am not sure how many there will be, so if you like what you read, I’d suggest reaching out sooner rather than later – as a great(?) puzzle parody songwriter once wrote: “the list is long, I want on, cyber-stalking you, now it’s on.”

For now I think a discord or Reddit DM is the primary way to find him: FroodLoops, you can also now email him: numbskullpuzzles at gmail.

Grade: Five Sinatras

(click here for more information on the Sinatra Scaling System, (c) John Maynard Keynes, 1944)

“I want to say one word to you, just one word: Plastics”

Posted on by fivesinatras in Uncategorized

Tree Box, Cocktail, and Football Match

Diniar Namdarian

After seeing some of his puzzles floating around the net, I reached out to Diniar Namdarian and, some weeks later, a box arrived, bringing me plenty of plastic puzzling. Even better, Diniar included a few extra pocket puzzles for some extra fun.

I was not sure what to expect, but the sheer variety of puzzles, some classic, some surprisingly unique, has given me hours and hours of entertainment, ranging from fidgety fun that didn’t need too much dedicated attention, and as much frustrated focus as any puzzle can offer.

Tree Box

Tree Box is a combination slider / take-apart box, consisting of a pretty brown and black bonsai design atop a yellow box. Unlike some sliders, this starts in its proper arrangement; the challenge, of course, is to first open the box and to then reset the tree (the latter part containing the hardest part of the challenge).

The pieces have a tongue and groove on its edges, keeping them firmly in place (except one piece, which Diniar made the excellent design decision of keeping as the same color rather than an empty spacer). It is no trick to find this piece, and once you do you set about finding your way clear to get the pieces out, granting you access to the box beneath.

Of course, the tongue and groove edges keep you locked in and you must start messing up that pretty tree to find a way to properly remove a piece. The build is excellent – the pieces are not going anywhere until and unless you find the intended way of doing so.

I highly recommend mixing the pieces up once you’ve removed them; I let it sit for a day to allow my terrible memory to work for me, and came back to it clueless as to how I ever got them out.

It is NOT a trivial matter to get these pieces back in, at least not in a way that will then allow you to get the tree back in its original condition. The shapes and sizes of the pieces brilliantly prevent you from getting all pieces in just anywhere; it takes some thought to find the seemingly single arrangement of pieces that will allow you to successfully replace and rebuild.

This was an excellent and very unique challenge. Not a good place to hide anything you may need quick access to, but the box is plenty big if you wanted to hide a surprise for someone. It’s also confusing enough that you could certainly replay it, but don’t expect multiple challenges as with many of Diniar’s puzzles.

Cocktail

Cocktail is another wonderfully unique puzzle. I think of it as a reverse hedgehog: you must get a single ice cube into your drink by finding the correct orientation of three turning panels with partially overlapping polygons cut into their centers. The ice cube, as one would expect, is cut in seemingly random and certainly complex angles that make this a challenging task.

Trial and error may afford you success, and the fantastic fidget factor will allow you to be entertained while doing so, but without some luck it is unlikely to be anytime soon. Instead, it is beneficial to spend a bit of time examining your options to decide which orientations of the cube are most likely to afford you success.

Once again, the design feels intentional – these angles are not haphazard but made so as to minimize the window of success – I suspect there is only one possible way of getting the cube in, and, once found, force is unnecessary.

As with any good hedgehog, finding that one perfect angle is so satisfying. Here it is even more satisfying as you had to find multiple, overlapping angles of perfection before the cube slides right in.

The cage comes apart easily, allowing you to examine what worked and appreciate the solution, before resetting the puzzle for another go. An excellent twist that made me enjoy a type of puzzle that’s generally not at the top of my list.

Football Match

The last puzzle from Mr. Namdarian that I will share is more of a classic slider, but it carries a few novel additions that make it particularly enjoyable. I am currently about halfway through the 22 challenges, which range from 50 to 100+ move solutions, and I am still enjoying myself.

The puzzle is not overly large, about 18 voxels, including 2 spacer squares. The goal (sorry, couldn’t resist), is to get the “ball,” a white half-sphere disc, to go from one goal to the other, each located on either side of a narrow rectangle.

Interestingly, you do not just slide the ball through, as in a maze, Instead, there is one piece with a cutout on the right that must grab the ball and then “pass” it to a single piece with a cutout on its left, that can then carry it to the other goal.

For added difficulty, the cutouts are not centered, causing you to need to find a way to have your players pass by the goal vertically, before they can catch or release the ball.

The challenges definitely range in difficulty and ramp up quite well (except for one of the early ones, that I still cannot find my way through); the minimum required moves steadily increasing as you work your way through the challenges.

Once again, Diniar has taken a classic puzzle and made it especially interesting by adding his unique take on the medium. As an added benefit, as with most of his sliders, it comes with a top, allowing you to bring this one on the go and try and make it through one more challenge.

Grade: Four Sinatras