When I was younger I never really liked or understood how the Rubik’s Cube worked. I guess I still don’t understand it at all, but anyways. I now have an appreciation for the rotational puzzles. Looking at so many of them and seeing how they are made has given me an appreciation for them. I have even been able to solve the 3x3x3 and the 5x5x5. Of course it took me a long time but I still solved it.

This is something completely different.  The gear cube rotates on gears.  There is no internal mechanism that has pieces attached to [Read More...]

Category: All Puzzles, Rotational / Twisty Puzzles

Arrow Command is a set of 120 maze puzzles. The Big Red Arrow must get to the red circle, while picking up stars along the way. You must place little red arrows to guide the Big Arrow home. We’ve seen this type of puzzle before. Galaxy Express comes to mind. Arrow Command has a few nice features: 1. Multiple colored arrows. The very easy levels have just one Big Red Arrow to get to its destination. Other levels have blue and green arrows that must get to their respective circles. 2. Wormholes: we’ve seen this before. 3. Toggling Arrows. Suppose 2 Big Green Arrows both [Read More...]

Category: All Puzzles, iPhone/iPad Puzzle Games

I have always been a fan of optical illusions.  In early 2011, I began working on an optical illusion art book project with puzzle writer Terry Stickels.  Our efforts eventually led to the publication of the book titled The Art of the Illusion:  Deceptions to Challenge the Eye and the Mind.  The book features a foreword from renowned puzzle creator, computer game designer, and artist Scott Kim and showcases more than 200 of the finest deceptive images from around the world.

The cover of the book features a beautiful painting from Canadian artist [Read More...]

Category: All Puzzles, Optical Illusions

Today I’m going to talk about a puzzle that in my opinion is very difficult.  It is rated a 10 out of 10 in difficulty.  This puzzle is called the Cast Quartet and is designed by Mineyuki Uyematsu.  He entered this puzzle in the 27th International Puzzle Party competition.  The objective of this puzzle is to take the four pieces apart and then put them back together.  The black metal finish looks cool and the puzzle has a solid construction.  This puzzle chewed me up and spit me out.  This puzzle is very hard.  I know this puzzle is solvable [Read More...]

Category: All Puzzles, Metal Puzzles

The Karakuri Creation Group make some seriously incredible puzzle boxes, a few of which I have written about before. Many of them also come with a pretty hefty price tag to match their beautiful craftsmanship, however they do make a series of smaller than usual puzzle boxes that due to their size are also much cheaper.

They are all part of the Karakuri Small Box series which is made up of eight separate boxes, all of which have very different opening mechanisms despite their similar appearances. They all have unimaginative names, but at least it makes it easy [Read More...]

Category: All Puzzles, Wood Puzzles

This is a well know optical illusion created by L. Hermann. It has black squares, gray lines and white dots. What our eyes see is something different. They see the white dots turn to black or gray dots and appear to blink as you move your eyes around. The picture never changes or blinks at all. Letting your field of vision get wider you will see that they are all white dots. This is somewhat tricky to do without moving your eyes but can be done.

Optical illusions like this are easy to make but cause us to think of [Read More...]

Category: All Puzzles, Optical Illusions

Despite my earlier experience with Bits and Pieces not having very good quality products, I was happy with the way they handled my issues and decided to place another order with them. I got six boxes: Secret Chamber, The Elegant Kamei Bow Box, Secret Rectangle Box, Eclipse Box, One Panel Treasure Chest, and Secret Enigma Box. Most of them were on sale, so they were even cheaper than usual!

Of these boxes, Secret Chamber was probably my favorite and the most challenging. It is based on a design by Jean Claude Constantin and made out of walnut and [Read More...]

Category: All Puzzles, Wood Puzzles