Revomaze Bronze Extreme

Now for a puzzle of truly epic proportions; the Revomaze Bronze Extreme;

As of writing this post, this is the hardest puzzle that I have ever had the pleasure of owning. I have just finished this puzzle now after having it for around three months, and I estimate that it took me around 25 hours of on-and-off puzzling to solve it. The designer Chris Pitt estimates that the average time needed to open the Bronze Extreme is around 40 hours, but it could be a lot more if you haven't solved any of the other easier puzzles in the series.

For those of you not familiar with the Revomaze series, I shall try to explain how the puzzle works.

The puzzle consists of two main parts, these are the sleeve (the bronze coloured bit) and the shaft (the silver coloured bit that goes through the middle). There is a maze engraved on the shaft of this puzzle, and there is a sprung pin in the sleeve. Your objective is to navigate the pin through the maze by turning, pushing and pulling the shaft of the puzzle to the end where you will be able to fully remove the shaft and the certificate that is held within it. Unlike a normal maze however, you are able to 'fall off' from the maze path. If this happens you will hear a click and the pin you are navigating with will fall into a 'trap' path that will return you back to the beginning of the maze. And then you repeat the process remembering which directions not to go in.

Here is a picture of my Bronze Extreme after I had opened it:

I've blurred the image so as not to ruin the experience for any other puzzlers, but you can see that the certificate wraps around the 'draw' which is the far right piece. The draw and certificate then slide into the maze 'shaft' (centre piece), then the two pins go in (one to hold the draw in place and one to navigate the maze with) and then all of that slides into the Bronze sleeve.

The Bronze is the third puzzle in the Revomaze Extreme range. The two puzzles that came before it are the Blue Extreme and the Green Extreme, and these are easier than the Bronze. It is recommended that you start with the Blue and work your way up through the Green, Bronze, Silver and ultimately the Gold. The Bronze is estimated to take around 40 hours to complete, whereas the Gold is rumoured to take an estimated 300 hours to solve. And no....that's not a typo.

These puzzles are not cheap, starting at around £80 for the Blue and Green Extremes, £85 for the Bronze, £95 for the Silver and heading up to over £100 for the Gold. But I can say with a great degree of certainty that you will get your moneys worth out of them, and the craftsmanship is second to none.

I also should point out that Chris Pitt and the Revomaze team are possibly some of the best people you could ever hope to buy from. If you are after any more information just follow the link to the Revomaze site, here you will also find a forum which contains some lovely people who will be willing to help you out with any questions you may have........apart from the solutions.

Also, for anyone interested here is a picture of the full (current) Revomaze Extreme Series I, including the Special Edition Black Extreme and the original Revomaze made by Chris Pitt:

Where I got the Revomaze Bronze Extreme from: Revomaze

Also read Brian Pletcher's review of the Revomaze Bronze Extreme here: LINK