Brian's Damn Puzzle Blog

2012 Rochester Puzzle Picnic (Part 2)

2012-11-01T17:58:00.000-04:00

When I left off last time, I had finished working my way through a number of lovely Stickman puzzle boxes that Peter Wiltshire had brought to RPP. After that, I turned my attention to an awesome puzzle that Jim Strayer had brought: The Lost Day, a puzzle chest by Kelly Snache. I had a great time with The Lost Weekend previously, so I was quite interested to see this earlier work. The chest

2012 Rochester Puzzle Picnic (Part 1)

2012-10-16T17:33:00.003-04:00

A few weeks after IPP, I headed off to another awesome puzzle event: the Rochester Puzzle Picnic! Jeff Aurand hosts it at his house each year, and it is probably my favorite event of the year: I like that it is a fairly small gathering, so you can spend more time with folks; Jeff is big fan of puzzle boxes (as am I) so there often a number of new puzzle boxes to check out; and Jeff is an

2012 Puzzle Design Competition (Part 7)

2012-08-27T17:11:00.000-04:00

This is the seventh (and final!) part of my series of posts about the puzzles in the 2012 Design Competition that did not win an award. All of the photos are by Nick Baxter from the 2012 Puzzle Design Competition website. Tritalon - Iwahiro (Hirokazu Iwasawa) This was another one of the puzzles that I was quite interested in trying, since I'd seen some folks posting about it over on the

2012 Puzzle Design Competition (Part 6)

2012-08-26T21:04:00.000-04:00

This is the sixth part of my series of posts about the puzzles in the 2012 Design Competition that did not win an award. All of the photos are by Nick Baxter from the 2012 Puzzle Design Competition website. Rat Box - Sam Cornwell The goal of this puzzle is to disassemble the box and then reassemble it. When I first encountered it, it was already apart, so I tried putting it together. There

2012 Puzzle Design Competition (Part 5)

2012-08-25T18:12:00.000-04:00

This is the fifth part of my series of posts about the puzzles in the 2012 Design Competition that did not win an award. All of the photos are by Nick Baxter from the 2012 Puzzle Design Competition website. Multidodecahedron - Tom van der Zanden This beast of a twisty puzzle contains another twisty puzzle! Turns of the outer puzzle affect the inner puzzle also, and the goal is to solve both

2012 Puzzle Design Competition (Part 4)

2012-08-24T11:55:00.000-04:00

This is the fourth part of my series of posts about the puzzles in the 2012 Design Competition that did not win an award. All of the photos are by Nick Baxter from the 2012 Puzzle Design Competition website. IPP32WDC - Ken Irvine The goal of this puzzle is to pack all the pieces into the frame, and the neat thing is the pieces spell out IPP32WDC. This puzzle I found to be a bit too

2012 Puzzle Design Competition (Part 3)

2012-08-23T14:22:00.000-04:00

This is the third part of my series of posts about the puzzles in the 2012 Design Competition that did not win an award. All of the photos are by Nick Baxter from the 2012 Puzzle Design Competition website. COG-Cubed - Tom Longtin I wasn't quite sure what to expect with this puzzle, it looks like a burr, but it has a pretty unusual construction. Rather than cutting the pieces out of solid

2012 Puzzle Design Competition (Part 2)

2012-08-22T13:20:00.000-04:00

This is the second part of my series of posts about the puzzles in the 2012 Puzzle Design Competition that did not win an award. All of the photos are by Nick Baxter from the 2012 Puzzle Design Competition website. Bottle & Glass - Victor Lam & Kazakh Wong The goal of this puzzle is to separate the bottle and the glass. It is a rather tricky disentanglement puzzle, but unfortunately I didn't

2012 Puzzle Design Competition (Part 1)

2012-08-21T17:24:00.000-04:00

I wrote about the 2012 Puzzle Design Competition winners in my last two posts about the IPP32 Awards Banquet (Part 1 and Part 2), but there are plenty more good puzzles that were in the competition! Over the next few posts, I'll give you my brief review of each. All of the photos are by Nick Baxter from the 2012 Puzzle Design Competition website. 1€ Labyrinth Puzzle - Robrecht Louage This is

IPP32: Awards Banquet (Part 2)

2012-08-20T17:01:00.001-04:00

In my previous post, I went through the Top 10 Vote Getters and Honorable Mentions in the 2012 Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition. Next, I'll go through the First Prize winners, the Jury Grand Prize winners, and the winner of the Puzzlers Award. Jury First Prize Ferris' Box a beautiful puzzle box by Peter Wiltshire. It features triple-miter joints on the corners and his signature

IPP32: Awards Banquet (Part 1)

2012-08-17T09:55:00.000-04:00

Sunday was a fairly leisurely day, I had a chance to sleep in for the first day in quite a while and went to the Spy Museum with Kellian. We checked out the Spy in the City experience, where they give you a little electronic device that guides you on a spy mission. It was fairly fun, but not quite challenging enough for our taste. Still, a nice way to spend an afternoon! Before the awards

IPP32: Washington DC Puzzle Party

2012-08-15T16:20:00.000-04:00

Saturday was the day of the actual "puzzle party" where puzzles are bought and sold in a big room with tables. Again, I had to get up pretty early to make sure I didn't miss out on any of the good stuff! The room opened up at 9:00, and I was ready to go! As you can see, the room was packed with folks rushing around and buying puzzles. First I did a quick sweep of the room to see if there were

IPP32: Puzzle Exchange and IPP Banquet

2012-08-14T17:09:00.000-04:00

After a late night of puzzling, I woke up bright and early Friday morning for the Edward Hordern IPP Puzzle Exchange. In case you're not familiar with the Puzzle Exchange, it works like this: you bring a number of copies of a new puzzle (not commercially available before the exchange) and exchange it with everybody else for the puzzle they brought! So it is a great way to get a bunch of new

IPP32: DC Tour and Founder's Reception

2012-08-13T19:57:00.000-04:00

This last weekend was the 32nd International Puzzle Party in Washington, DC, an invitation-only gathering of serious mechanical puzzle collectors. It is an awesome event both for the excellent puzzles and the chance to socialize with other people who are similarly obsessed with puzzles! Kellian and I arrived on Wednesday around 9:30 in the evening. It was only a short flight from Boston, which

Plums Glass Puzzle

2012-08-07T15:53:00.000-04:00

Plums Glass Puzzle is the next in a series of glass puzzles that the folks at Puzzle Master were kind enough to send me. Thanks! Check out the full set at Puzzle Master here. The goal of this puzzle is to neatly pack the plums neatly into the glass container. The cool thing about this puzzle is that it makes good use of the shape of the container: each plum has a unique shape as if they had

Wasserhahn

2012-08-06T18:54:00.002-04:00

This next puzzle is one that had me stumped for quite a while: I originally found it back in Osaka, Japan during the 2010 International Puzzle Party. It is called Wasserhahn (German for faucet/water tap) and was designed by the mysterious Roger, whose identity is known to very few people. His puzzles are quite rare, so I was really glad to get a copy! As with most of Roger's puzzles, this

Beer Glass Puzzle

2012-08-03T16:19:00.000-04:00

Beer Glass Puzzle is the next in a series of glass puzzles that the folks at Puzzle Master were kind enough to send me. Thanks! Check out the full set at Puzzle Master here. The object of this puzzle is to dump out all the pieces and put them back in such that you are able to rest the foam back on top nicely. All of the beer pieces will form a nice level surface on which the foam can fit.

Stickman Milestone Puzzle

2012-08-02T15:56:00.000-04:00

I recently had the pleasure of acquiring the latest puzzle by my favorite puzzle craftsman, Robert Yarger. It is called The Stickman Milestone Puzzle, since it is the 25th puzzle in the Stickman series and also marks 1000 puzzles produced by Yarger. The puzzle also locks away a copy of the official Stickman Book (edited by Matt Dawson) with 50 pages of color pictures, descriptions, and

Rice Crackers Glass Puzzle

2012-08-01T15:41:00.000-04:00

Recently the folks at Puzzle Master were kind enough to send me a copy of Rice Crackers Glass Puzzle to review. Thanks! Rice Crackers is part of a series of glass puzzles originally produced by Toyo Glass and recently re-issued by Beverly Enterprises. They are likely designed at least in part by Nob Yoshigahara since it is labeled as part of the "Nob Collection". The rest of the packaging is

Triskele

2012-05-14T18:45:00.000-04:00

The Karakuri Creation Group recently listed some new items for sale, and I decided to try out Triskele by Hideaki Kawashima, since he's been coming up with some interesting boxes recently! When it arrived, I was quite impressed with its appearance: the contrast between the dark wenge and the zebra wood is quite striking! The zebra wood is somewhat raised from the surface of the box and beveled

Medallion

2012-05-11T16:34:00.000-04:00

Medallion is another interesting take-apart puzzle designed by Oskar van Deventer and produced by Hanayama. The folks at Puzzle Master were kind enough to send me a copy to review. Thanks! As with many of Oskar's puzzles for Hanayama, this one is a maze, perhaps more clearly so than some of his other work. However, as you would expect, there's a bit of a twist. The way you navigate the maze is

Way

2012-04-04T18:23:00.000-04:00

I wrote briefly about the Way puzzle construction set by Volker Latussek back when I was reviewing all of the puzzles in the 2011 Puzzle Design Competition, and Volker was kind enough to send me a copy of my own so I could more fully evaluate it. Thanks Volker! The puzzle is quite nicely crafted from beech wood, with a very smooth finish. The pieces are generously sized, which gives them a nice

The Yot II

2012-04-03T18:24:00.000-04:00

I reviewed The Yot a while back, and have been wanting to try The Yot II ever since. It looks quite similar, so I wondered how it would be different. The folks at Puzzle Master were kind enough to sell me a copy at a discount to review. Thanks! The Yot II is a bit thicker than the original YOT, but is otherwise identical. It is quite well made out of aluminum and has an unusual appearance that

Washer Cylinder

2012-03-29T16:39:00.000-04:00

Well I finally ended up purchasing this puzzle from Wil Strijbos at NYPP! I had heard a lot about it since Wil was keeping track of who had solved it and sending regular updates to the NOBNET email list. Plenty has been written about it (Allard's Puzzling Times, Oli's Mechanical Puzzle Blog, PuzzleMad, and Jerry's Small Puzzle Collection), but I tried not to read too closely for fear of getting

Schmuckdose

2012-03-28T17:54:00.003-04:00

As much as I love fancy puzzle boxes, I'm always keeping my eye out for ones that are more reasonably priced. Puzzle Master is currently selling the Schmuckdose puzzle box designed by Jean-Claude Constantin, and they were kind enough to sell me a copy at a discount to review. It is a rather innocuous looking box, with a somewhat irregular shape. It is a bit hard to tell in the photo, but it has