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...]

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...]

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...]

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...]

I like this one a lot. It looks like the whole picture is moving around. I know they are just staying in one spot but they sure do look like they are moving. I will get my eyes checked later.

For more optical illusions like this go to eyetricks.com.

Happy puzzling.

The game is called Unblock Me Free.  The game can be played on either the Android or the iPhone systems.  There is also a non free version for the iPhone.  In this review I will cover the Android version.

Since I like challenging puzzles of any kind, I was drawn to games like this.  For me there is nothing like sitting down and finding a few pieces on a board with one challenge to be solved.  Take the one piece and move it out of the play area.  This all [Read More...]

I remember seeing a man who had made an optical illusion into a wood carving.  It was much like this one but not as complicated.  Took a lot of looking to figure out just how he did it.  I tip my hat to anyone who can make this into reality.  Happy puzzling.