Chemin is by Enrique Brandariz:  http://www.enriquebrandariz.com/chemin/CheminEN/Home.html

You are given numbered red squares – already fixed in the grid. Your task is to till the missing numbers so that there is a snake pattern from start to finish.  By the way, the word Chemin means road in French.

The grid sizes are 4×4, 5×5, 6×6 and 7×7.  25 levels per grid size. I raced through them and completed everything within 2 days.

The concept is not new. Marilyn vos Savant, supposedly the smartest person in the world, calls her version Numbrix. So I’ve been doing these for ages.

Chemin’s user [Read More...]

Category: All Puzzles, iPhone/iPad Puzzle Games

I have been intrigued by puzzles of all sorts ever since a young lad over 60 years ago. Since that time I have found many and have several hundred in my collection. I enjoy hand held mechanical puzzles, into which I place this one. I also love puzzle books of all kinds. One of my favorite are mazes. What the Money Maze puzzle does is combine mazes with a hand held box which is to be opened. There is no tricky secret to this puzzle, as is often the case. All it takes is a bit of [Read More...]

Category: All Puzzles, Maze Puzzles

The Lion’s Lair is an interesting wire or disentanglement puzzle. I chose my title from the fact that this puzzle actually goes by at least two names. On Amazon, it is offered as Mantis Wire puzzle, by Winshare. Actually, I kind of like that name. It’s natural to give these wire puzzles names, and that is often very difficult. In this case, when you look at the puzzle spread out, it does resemble the face of a lion. However, it just as well resembles the face of a Praying Mantis. So, pick your choice–I guess. It is well [Read More...]

Category: All Puzzles, Metal Puzzles

The Cowboy’s Hobble  is a relatively simple brainteaser. It is quite attractive and has the element of looking simpler than it is. It is made of a heavy, nickle plated wire, a nylon cord and wooden ball. However; the ring opened up on mine, if it ever was welded; so the ball could pass through it with very little force. Since this defeats the purpose of the ring, I managed to force and epoxy it closed. Not a major problem, as long as it is that the ball is not supposed to pass through the ring. It presents [Read More...]

Category: All Puzzles, Metal Puzzles

Today, I realized I’m writing the 35th puzzle review from Jean Claude Constantin. That’s way more than any other puzzle designer. I still have in my collection several more of his creations that haven’t been reviewed yet, which most certainly takes the total number to well over 50. And the sad part is that I don’t even have half of his puzzles.

My latest addition is Get Charged, a very original puzzle with a clever hidden mechanism. There are countless puzzles in the hidden mechanism family, and if you’re familiar with them this [Read More...]

Category: All Puzzles, Wood Puzzles

Have you played  Tile’M All and Jelly Blocks? I love them both.  They are rock solid challenging puzzle apps where the object is to get all the colored shapes together.

I’ve been told that the original concept was known as Denki Blocks.  It’s not new. And it’s a bit expensive at $4.99. But I think it’s well worth it.  Most of the puzzles have 2 objectives: first to get all the colored shapes together. The second, more challenging goal is to make each final shape identical.

There are over 100 levels.  I have not solved them all. I’ve done about 70 [Read More...]

Category: All Puzzles, iPhone/iPad Puzzle Games

The Cyclone Puzzle is a very entertaining, challenging and beautiful product. It comes with a suggestion of a difficulty level of 7 or 8 out of 10.However; I think that is a little high and lessens once one gets some idea of how it fits together. First of all, the pieces are all identical in shape. In this case, there are several different colors. It can be assembled with the colors as shown, or any which way you desire. This one produced by Lagoon Group is of very good quality. They have [Read More...]

Category: All Puzzles, Put together Puzzles