Karakuri Cube No.1

Now for another of my favourite puzzles! I know I'm reviewing these Cubes in the wrong order, but I bought number 3 separately before buying the other three.

This is the Karakuri Cube No.1 from the Karakuri Creation Group in Japan:

This is the first in a series of four Cube puzzles, and don't be fooled by the fact that all four of them look very similar because they all have very different opening mechanisms. This Cube is made out of keyaki, maple and katsura woods, and once again is beautifully finished to the point where you cannot distinguish one side from the other at all.

Personally I found the No.1 Cube to be the easiest to open. All of the Cubes have relatively simple mechanisms, so none of them are particularly difficult, but I felt that this one had the solution which was the easiest to find and implement.

A total of three steps are required to open this puzzle box, and the mechanism (although simple) is pretty satisfying to solve.

So far every puzzle from the Karakuri Creation Group that I have come across has been nothing short of amazing, and this one is no different. The four Karakuri Cubes are puzzles that really take pride of place in my collection at the moment, and I would highly recommend them to anybody.

I bought my Karakuri Cubes from Wil Strijbos who (as you may remember from my earlier review) made the Aluminium Cylinder puzzle. Wil makes regular trips to Japan and brings back all kinds of goodies, so if you're after anything in particular it can't hurt to drop him an email.

See also my review of the Karakuri Cube No.3: HERE

Village Games London Puzzle Meet-Up

Hello all!

Here's another one of my puzzle related rambling posts, but I think it is definitely worth a mention. Especially for you fellow puzzlers here in the UK.

Thanks to Brian Pletcher I recently heard about a puzzle gathering that occurs on the first Wednesday of every month at the Lockside Lounge in Camden Town (London), and as I had never been to a puzzle related gathering before I decided that I would really like to go and see what it's like.

I believe that the puzzle meet-up is arranged by Ray and Barbara of Village Games, which is an amazing little puzzle shop hidden away in the chaos that is London's Camden Town, their address can be found HERE.

The shop itself is really tiny, but I could not believe the amount of great puzzles that were crammed into every corner! In fact I was a little bit overwhelmed when I first went in as I hadn't ever been into a puzzle shop with such variety before. Some of the puzzles included the Aluminium Cylinder by Wil Strijbos, loads of Hanayama Cast Puzzles, some puzzles by Constantin and several puzzles by Vinco. I left after buying a couple of Vinco's wooden puzzle cubes and the Cast Amour, all of which I will review here later on.

When I first visited the shop in the early afternoon (I was in London all day with my other half) Barbara was there running the shop. She was very happy to answer any of my questions, and she really knew what she was talking about. It was really nice to talk to someone who had a real interest in the items that they were selling. She made us feel very welcome there, we got to try out a few of the puzzles and I cannot wait to go back and see what other things I can find to add to my collection.

Later in the evening (19:30) we headed over to the Lockside Lounge for the meet-up. There we probably around 20 or so people there, and although this was our first visit they were extremely welcoming! It was a very informal setting, we just pulled up a chair and started chatting with some of the regular visitors. Everyone was chatting, having a drink and passing around some puzzles that they either brought with them or bought on that day from Village Games. I had the opportunity to try out some puzzles like the Karakuri Acorn Box, Cast H&H, Mindjewel and many others.

I had a really great time, and rather surprisingly so did my girlfriend who isn't particularly into puzzles. So I'm really looking forward to attending some of the meet-ups there in the future. Hopefully I may even meet some of you there!

Soon I'll be writing about the next puzzle gathering that I'm attending on Saturday (05/02/11) which has been arranged by the guys over on the Revomaze Forum, so hopefully I'll have a load more interesting puzzles to tell you about when I return!


Oli

Prison Block

This is another nice looking aluminium puzzle from Eureka, and it is called Prison Block:

I do like the look of this one, which is probably what drew me to it in the first place. It has a good weight to it as it is entirely constructed from aluminium. There are two primary pieces to this puzzle, and they are the silver colour frame and the black central rectangular block with the purple block attached to it.

The goal is to remove the black and purple central piece from the aluminium frame. The central piece will rattle around quite freely within the frame but it seems physically impossible to make it pass through. If you pay really close attention to the two pieces then you won't have too much difficulty solving it, however I did hand it around at a puzzle gathering today and many people there were unable to do so.

I think it took me approximately 10 minutes or so to solve Prison Block, which is a pretty decent amount of time, but I reckon it could easily take longer with puzzlers who are not too familiar with these types of puzzles.

I got hold of this puzzle from Sloyd in Finland, and I honestly cannot praise them enough. I recieved my order from them two days after I ordered it, and that's including the international post!

Dual Tetrahedron 9

For the first time since I started this blog someone else will be writing this review! Chris is a friend and fellow puzzle collector from the UK who I recently got into contact with through my blog, and as he has acquired a puzzle that I really would like myself I asked him if he would like to do a review of it for me, and he has kindly obliged.

So here is the review written by Chris, and thanks again to him for taking the time to write it and for supplying the pictures:

This Dual Tetrahedron 9 is a wooden puzzle by Václav Obšivač, (Vin&Co). Vin&Co produce exquisite puzzles from a variety of wood such as maple, plum, ash, walnut etc. This one is made from waxed and polished elm and maple and currently costs 55 Euros. The quality of craftsmanship is excellent and the puzzle is of a very reasonable size at 77mm.

This puzzle consists of 4 interlocking parts which when assembled create a solid self supporting structure. The sensuous feel and the warmth of the wood makes a very tactile and beautiful puzzle. I found this puzzle to be of moderate difficulty and I would recommend one (or more) for any collector of wooden puzzles. I certainly will be buying more in the future.

You can view and purchase other puzzles by Vin&Co at their site here: LINK

There is also a variety of Vinco's puzzles available for purchase at Puzzle Master.

Chris.

Cast Chain

Now this is one of the Hanayama Cast series that I found to be the most difficult. This is the Cast Chain:

The Cast Chain is one of Oskar Van Deventer's designs that has been manufactured by Hanayama. It is another good looking puzzle that feels very well made as it is quite heavy. The Chain is made up of three very similar looking almost 'c' shaped pieces that are made from a nice and heavy cast metal which have been coated in a very nice dark metallic finish which is very befitting of it's name. The objective is to detach the Chain into it's three separate parts. If you look very closely you can see that the pieces are actually numbered using dots to depict which piece is which (1,2&3), showing that they are not exactly the same.

The difficulty of the Cast chain is rated as 6 out of 6, the highest difficulty that Hanayama has to offer, and in this case I am more than happy to concede that the rating is spot on. I was not able to solve this puzzle myself, and as much as I hate doing so I had to look at the solution. Depending on how you count there are somewhere between 15 and 20 steps which need to be done in correct sequence to solve this puzzle, it really is pretty difficult. I understood the movements that I had to make with the pieces pretty quickly, but it's the sequence that I couldn't quite get the hang of.

All things considered I think that this is a really great puzzle. And if you're out there looking for a real challenge then I'd say that the Cast Chain is a good way to go, especially considering the low price.

This puzzle was loaned to me by a friend, but it is readily available from many good puzzle shops, including Puzzle Master and Puzzle This.