Oskar van Deventer has invented so many puzzles over the last thirty years that he could fill up a museum with all of his creations. The one that I’m reviewing today is another great design by him, which consists of four mazes that need to be solved simultaneously.

The Medallion (originally called Four D), was initially made by George Miller in acrylic and was Oskar’s exchange puzzle at the 23rd annual IPP (International Puzzle Party). It was later picked by Hanayama for mass-production and is now sold at PuzzleMaster.

The puzzle bears a slight resemblance to [Read More...]

Category: All Puzzles, Maze Puzzles, Metal Puzzles

The object of Arrow Point is to place 16 tiles in the middle of the grid so that the numbered squares on the perimeter have exactly that many number of arrows pointing at them.

Look at the first image. Notice the tiles all have 1 arrow and they are orthogonal.  Now look at the second image. The tiles have two arrows and they are orthogonal and diagonal. Tough!

Look at the squares in the perimeter. See the yellow one that says 2/3. The top number indicates that many arrows should point to it. The bottom number indicates that 3 arrows [Read More...]

Category: All Puzzles, iPhone/iPad Puzzle Games

Gone Buggy is a packing puzzle consisting of mostly 1, 2 & 4 sized tiles in the shapes of bugs.

The objective is to fit them into the grid.

If you can’t do it, then you can fry a bug into smaller bits with the magnifying glass.

As you can see, there are 99 levels. I’ve played Gone Buggy for about 4 hours and solved 44 levels.

I normally eschew this type of ‘fill the tray with pieces’ puzzle. Gone Buggy has a certain flair. Perhaps it’s the fact that it gives you 1 piece at a time. I think [Read More...]

Category: All Puzzles, iPhone/iPad Puzzle Games

Welcome back puzzle fans! Today I have the Cast Starfish designed by a famed Japanese puzzle designer by the name of Akio Yamamoto and manufactured by Hanayama. This is only one of several sea life puzzles that Mr. Yamamoto has made over the years. The goal of the puzzle is to free the ring (which is two mackerel fish) from the starfish. I picked this one first because it reminded me of the time I visited Monterey Bay in California. The main reason I took a trip to that town was for the aquarium. If you have not been there, [Read More...]

Category: All Puzzles, Metal Puzzles

This is my first bottle puzzle. It is simply called Bottle 4 and was manufactured by a Belgium puzzle company called Eureka. Wil Strijbos designed the puzzle. The goal of this puzzle is to remove the metal ring from the bottle. Puzzle Master rates this puzzle an 8 out of 10 as far as difficulty. Getting the ring out was not that difficult but putting the ring back took a little longer. There is a way to get the ring out without following the proper solution method. This puzzle is a cool addition to my puzzle collection and I look [Read More...]

Category: All Puzzles, Glass Puzzles

SEQ comes from Thomas Castel and is an interesting puzzle app! The object is to draw paths, counting down,  from each colored number to any of the zeros on the grid. Here’s where it gets interesting: some squares can/must be used by both sequences. And the key is figuring them all out. SEQ has 160 levels: I’ve done 122 levels so far.

The first 40 levels are free. I enjoyed them, so I paid .99 for the next batch, and then another .99 for the remainder. Definitely worth your time. SEQ could land on the list of Best Puzzle Apps of 2012. Tom Cutrofello [Read More...]

Category: All Puzzles, iPhone/iPad Puzzle Games

Puzzle designer Jean Claude Constantin from Germany has an extraordinary collection of mechanical puzzles with his name on them. Ranging from Packing Puzzles to Wire Puzzles, he has such a wide variety of original designs, I bet you have one in your collection that you probably didn’t even know it was designed by him.

Mad in China (no, it’s not a typo), pun intended, will drive you mad and it’s one of those examples of Constantin’s genius.

The puzzle is a classic Packing problem, where you have to fit a given number of pieces into a tray, when [Read More...]

Category: All Puzzles, Wood Puzzles