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

Hirokazu Iwasawa is a regular participant at the annual IPP since 2004 and is known for his superb designs, some of which have won awards, like last year’s Puzzlers’ Award winner, the Square in the Bag. The puzzle I’m reviewing today is not from the IPP competition, but it’s definitely worthy of the same recognition.

The 3M Puzzle, as the name suggests, consists of three M-shaped pieces that need to be packed inside the box. It sounds easy enough. It’s just three pieces, right? – Well, these three pieces are all you need to test your patience, [Read More...]

Category: All Puzzles, Wood Puzzles

This time I have a review of the four Karakuri Cake Boxes, 1 through 4. I picked these up from PuzzleBoxWorld.Com a family run business specialising in puzzle boxes.

Each box is an inch wide by 2 inches long, so none of these are big boxes, and by Japanese measurements would be considered as 2 sun boxes.

In general all the boxes are superbly made, and each has it’s own unique opening mechanism, making all of them worth having. None of them are difficult to open, requiring no more than 3 moves, so I had each of [Read More...]

Category: All Puzzles, Wood Puzzles