Twisted Gem

Here is another puzzle sent to me by Puzzle Master, so thank you again to them for making this review possible!

I took this puzzle straight out of it's box expecting to put it straight back after a couple of seconds. Oh how I was wrong.

This packing puzzle is called Twisted Gem. It is one of Puzzle Master's own puzzle creations, and it really does look extremely simple. The puzzle itself is made up of seven wooden pieces which are stained in four different colours, and rather than the usual box to pack them in this is supplied with a wood and metal wire stand. I quite like the stand as I think it is great that it displays the full puzzle rather than a box which would display only the top pieces.

Now when I saw the Twisted Gem on the Puzzle Master site I couldn't help but be surprised. The puzzle looked so easy and yet it was being displayed as a level 9 puzzle out of a difficulty rating of 10. I wasn't convinced about the difficulty rating, I opened up the box and tipped the pieces out from the stand, mixed them up and set about putting them back in again. Five minutes pass and the puzzle is still in pieces. Ten minutes pass......still going. By this point I'm pretty surprised, I expected to have it done by now. In the end I think it took me a good 20-25 minutes to solve it, and if I scrambled it up again now it would probably still take me ages to put it back. Because the angles on the pieces are all the same there are many ways to feel like you are on the right track when you are in fact not right at all.

All in all a pretty good puzzle! Definitely a good one to have on the table when you have people over, just don't let them leave till they've put it back together again.

The Twisted Gem is available directly from Puzzle Master for the very reasonable price of around $12.