Dreiecksbeziehung. Now that’s a mouthful! Can you pronounce it? – Dreiecksbeziehung (German for triangle relationship) is another great design by -Who else?- Jean Claude Constantin. The name of the puzzle is a well fitting description to understand how the triangle properties relate to the actual solution.

This Packing Puzzle is made from laser cut wood and it’s comprised of nine identical triangles. It is relatively small, with the frame measuring just over 10cm (about 4″) and each triangle measuring exactly 2.6cm (1″). The packing area is an exact square with 6cm in length. Inside the frame there [Read More...]

Here is another cool Hanayama Cast puzzle called O’Gear by Oskar van Deventer.  I received it from Puzzle Master and you can find the solution on their webpage.  I really wanted to get my hands on this puzzle but I was kind of surprised with the size of this one.  I was expecting something that could easily fit in my pocket.  A bit of a disappointment but the puzzle is still a bucket of honey.  This is an interesting puzzle because the “gear” that you are suppose to detach from the cube looks as if it could easily come off.  [Read More...]

Philos, a German puzzle manufacturer, has a very interesting series of original wooden sliding puzzles designed by the Japanese Hirokazu Iwasawa, the Jam Puzzles. I chose to review the easier of the four, the Triangular Jam Puzzle.

What I like about Philos’ puzzles is that they’re very high quality. The tray and the pieces are very well built and polished for a clean and smooth surface. This particular one is made from Beech wood, tray and the three lighter pieces, and the darker triangle is made from Cassia Siamea wood. The dimensions of the tray are about 15cm [Read More...]

Double Maze is a series of 40 maze puzzles. As you can see, the object is to get both orange balls to the white target at the same time.

Notice the yellow lines? That enables you to move one ball while the other ball is held in place.

Double Maze is not terribly hard. I’ve solved all of the levels. #40 was very difficult.

You have the option to create your own levels and share them. I have not explored this too much. But I have noticed that some people created levels that were humorously too easy.

Gary at� [Read More...]

The puzzle I’m going to talk about today is the Cast Keyring. Oskar van Deventer designed this puzzle and I received it from Puzzle Master. If you need the solution then check out the Puzzle Master solution webpage. There is also a video solution on youtube. Please note that you can also find this puzzle at other online stores. The Puzzle Master store rates this a 6 out of 10 as far as difficulty. In other words, it’s not super hard. I would agree that it wasn’t very difficult but that doesn’t mean it isn’t fun. The [Read More...]

Today’s puzzle is a little different in a sense that it’s not really a puzzle, albeit it puzzles your mind just as much as any other puzzle. It’s not a magic trick either, although some folks will think of it that way. It’s called the Wide and Long Puzzle and it’s simply an optical illusion that plays with perspective very well.

There has been many versions of this puzzle, but the one I have here, made of wood, was manufactured by Jean Claude Constantin and looks stunning. The concept is no more than two pieces of wood, part [Read More...]

The object of Twin Beams: plant 2 trees in every park so that each row and column has exactly two trees.  Also, two trees cannot be adjacent to each other – vertically, horizontally or diagonally. I’ve seen this type of puzzle before.  Most recently in ’63 Logic Games’ which is another puzzle app. They call that game Parks. Nicola Salmoria contacted me recently about his new app Twin Beams with a really long explanation of everything: how much time he put into it, how he borrowed the concept etc. Bottom Line: there are 10,000 levels: 2500 at each level.  The easy levels are [Read More...]