Cast Marble
Updated: 2010-12-31 19:32:00
: skip to main skip to sidebar Brian's Damn Puzzle Blog A chronicle of my descent into the realm of the . puzzle-obsessed December 31, 2010 Cast Marble I actually got Hanayama's Cast Marble about a year ago and forgot to write my review of it . Oh well Better late than never It was designed by Bram Cohen and Oskar van Deventer It has a very interesting appearance , with a silver marble embedded in an obsidian-colored block . The marble protrudes from both sides slightly , and both pieces have unusually shaped cuts in . them Despite the fact that I had a pretty good idea of how this one should work , I think it took me a good 10 minutes to actually get it to come apart . I think most will find this to be quite challenging , so the 4 6 difficulty rating seems appropriate . It is difficult
: skip to main skip to sidebar Brian's Damn Puzzle Blog A chronicle of my descent into the realm of the . puzzle-obsessed December 28, 2010 Bits and Pieces Puzzle Boxes Part 4 I ordered this next batch of Bits and Pieces puzzle boxes during a sale they were having this month . Even though the puzzles can be a bit hit-or-miss see part 1 part 2 and part 3 I'm always curious enough to keep buying them . Sometimes you can stumble across a real gem at a good . price Of this order , I think Secret Drawer Box is my favorite . Bits and Pieces does not say who designed it in the description , which is a bit unusual . It has a nice appearance and a good finish . I tend to like the look of boxes with drawers , and the dark wood knob is . cute The solution to Secret Drawer Box is not too tricky to
: skip to main skip to sidebar Brian's Damn Puzzle Blog A chronicle of my descent into the realm of the . puzzle-obsessed December 27, 2010 Bits and Pieces Puzzle Boxes Part 3 I actually purchased this set of puzzle boxes from Bits and Pieces way back in January but never got around to writing about them I recently got a few more and was getting ready to write about them , but figured I should write about the older ones first . Check out my first and second post about other Bits and Pieces puzzle . boxes My favorite of this batch was The Elegant Kamei Ribbon Box shown here . As you can see , the appearance of this one is quite striking . The bow on the top looks nice , as do the splines on the . sides Fortunately , on top of looking nice , it is actually a pretty good puzzle . It is a
: skip to main skip to sidebar Brian's Damn Puzzle Blog A chronicle of my descent into the realm of the . puzzle-obsessed December 26, 2010 Perplexus For Christmas , one of the puzzles I received from my parents was this cool 3D maze puzzle called Perplexus Thanks Mom and Dad Unlike most of the puzzles that I have where the goal is to either take it apart or put it together , this is a dexterity puzzle where the goal is to navigate a ball through an obstacle . course Just reading that description doesn't sound all that interesting , but as you can see from the photo , the obstacle course is very elaborate There are 100 different barriers' to overcome to reach the end , so it is quite a challenge . I'm saying obstacle course rather than maze since there aren't really any dead ends , it is a
: skip to main skip to sidebar Brian's Damn Puzzle Blog A chronicle of my descent into the realm of the . puzzle-obsessed December 21, 2010 Solitaire Chess This year , ThinkFun launched a new puzzle called Solitaire Chess designed by Vesa Timonen . Tanya Thompson was kind enough to send me a copy for helping them test out another puzzle they are working on . Thanks Tanya The idea of Solitaire Chess is to set up the pieces as shown one of the challenge cards and , by capturing pieces with every move , end up with only a single piece remaining on the board . In this way , it is similar to the peg-solitaire game that became so widely known . The standard movements of the chess pieces apply . However , there are no black and white pieces , only blue , so there are no alternating turns like in
: skip to main skip to sidebar Brian's Damn Puzzle Blog A chronicle of my descent into the realm of the . puzzle-obsessed December 12, 2010 The Pentangle Puzzle About six months ago , Kellian and I visited the Higgins Armory Museum out in Worchester , Massachusetts . After touring the museum which is quite cool we stopped by the gift shop . As usual , I did a quick scan around for mechanical puzzles . Much to my delight , there was a series of tubes that contained disentanglement . puzzles It was a bit hard to tell what they were due to the tubular packaging , so I just grabbed the most difficult one which was four out of four stars labeled Genius' and hoped that it was something I hadn't seen . It didn't actually have a name other than Puzzle Drum Mindgame Collections on the packaging .
: skip to main skip to sidebar Brian's Damn Puzzle Blog A chronicle of my descent into the realm of the . puzzle-obsessed December 11, 2010 Chain Gang Chain Gang is another puzzle sent to me by Puzzle Master to review . This puzzle was originally designed by Dick Hess name Outrageous Rings and was adapted for Puzzle Master by Allan Stein , one of the owners of Puzzle Master . Dick Hess is a very prolific designer of wire puzzles that can be quite difficult . One of them , The Yak took me about a year to solve , you can read about that here : My Puzzle Nemesis Vanquished This one wasn't quite as difficult , but still had me stumped for quite a while . It is nicely crafted out of sturdy wire , with a big heavy ring on one end . The object is to get the oval ring . off If you look closely at
: skip to main skip to sidebar Brian's Damn Puzzle Blog A chronicle of my descent into the realm of the . puzzle-obsessed December 9, 2010 Rik's Egg Balance and Around the World Rik's Egg Balance and Around the World are two more of the 2010 IPP Exchange puzzles I borrowed from George Bell Rik's Egg Balanced was presented , designed , and made by Rik van Grol at Buttonius Puzzles Plastics You probably know Rik from his publication Cubism for Fun a booklet published three times a year with articles written about . puzzles The goal of this puzzle is pretty classic : to get the egg to balance on its short end . This type of puzzle has been done a number of times and as Rob Stegmann notes the U.S . Patent Office devotes an entire sub-class to Balancing Ovoids ccl 273 154 This one is made out
The Charity Christmas Puzzle , set by Gordon Gray to raise money for charity , since 1991. Download Previous Years Rolls of Honour Your Results Blog Christmas Puzzle 2010 Winnie-the-Pooh This year's annual Charity Christmas Puzzle has now been posted , and is available to . download This , the 20th annual Puzzle that Gordon Gray has set , has a theme designed to help completion and will appeal to people who enjoy doing Crossword puzzles , such as in the Daily Telegraph though it is not a Crossword puzzle Puzzlers have plenty of time to find the answers and Puzzles should be returned , with donation , by 23 January 2010. Gordon posted Puzzles on 7 December , so those already on the distribution list should receive their copies by 9 December . Anyone else who would like a copy of the Puzzle