List of Physical Puzzles I Own

Last update: Jan 26, 2007

Type: Dis/Assembly These are puzzles where a number of pieces have to be put together to form a single shape. These are some of my favorites, especially when the pieces are as similar as possible and the overall shape elegant. Some variations have a large number of dissimilar pieces, in which case the puzzle becomes more of a sequence/pattern puzzle. Dovetail Burr I initially dismissed this puzzle as a boring sequence once, because it came apart into 8 dissimilar pieces. It lay around on my table for a while after that, without me being interested in solving it. Eventually, I looked at the instructions so I could put it together to donate it. However, it became apparent (as I was putting it together) that it was supposed to be 6 pieces (3 identical). Two of the pieces had been broken on arrival. By then, the solution was spoiled, so I finished it from instructions, and am still planning on donating it. I don't recommend this puzzle, just because of the poor workmanship/quality, but if it were better-built, it would be pretty good. Acquired: February 2007 Difficulty: 4/5 Rating: 4/10 Wooden Nest / Locked Nest One of my favorites, just because of how it looks when assembled. Pro: Despite the haphazard appearance, the construction is not too complicated, provided you can make a basic start. Con: Takes time to rebuild, even once you know how to do it. Acquired: 2006 Difficulty: 3/5 Rating: 9/10 Star Box Although this is a one-piece-is-the-key puzzle, it's not obvious how to put it together and there are several steps needed to operate the key. Good balance of challenge/elegance. Acquired: 2006 Difficulty: 3/5 Rating: 8/10 Star Puzzle Similar to the 6-piece burr, and in fact, the outer shape is identical to the transparent-plastic version. However, whereas the above 6-piece burrs have 3 types of pieces, this puzzle's pieces are all identical. That means there is no 'key' piece, and so the solution is not quite as obvious. It's somewhat more loose than the 6-piece burr, and pulling on any two opposite pieces causes the thing to expand and fall apart. It can then be put back together in two ways - the hard way (by reversing the expansion, which requires quite a bit of dexterity), and the easy way, which is fairly elegant. Acquired: July 2006 Difficulty: 2/5 Rating: 7/10 Yin Yang Not as appealing as the picture, and the pieces don't fit tightly together (in fact, it's their looseness that permits a solution). The solution is inelegant and almost purely alignment-based. Acquired: October 2006 Difficulty: 1/5 Rating: 3/10 Third Dimension From 'Brain Benders' by Pavilion. One key, the rest of the pieces are identical. Pretty simple once you figure out the desired shape. Requires some dexterity to assemble, and it's poorly made, so doesn't really hold together. Acquired: August 2006 Difficulty: 1/5 Rating: 4/10 Pentagle Woodchuck From 'Brain Benders' by Pavilion. Several types of pieces, two keys. Looks imposing when you see the number of pieces, but actually pretty simple. Requires dexterity to assemble, poorly made. Acquired: August 2006 Difficulty: 2/5 Rating: 4/10   Subtype (of Dis/Assembly): Kumiki Barrel Barrel / Barrel (variant) Pieces are dissimilar, but out of necessity for the shape, not just for the sake of confusion. Reasonably elegant solution overall, easily repeated once known. Fairly well-balanced in terms of challenge / elegance. Acquired: 2005 Difficulty: 2/5 Rating: 8/10 Riddler Solves the same as Barrel. A bit more challenging because the pieces are more similar to each other, and the overall shape not obvious. Unfortunately, the pieces do not make a very tight fit. Acquired: June 2006 Difficulty: 3/5 Rating: 5/10 Subtype (of Dis/Assembly): Diagonal 6-Piece Burr This is a simple puzzle, and makes a nice shape when done. The examples here all have the same construction method, a fairly simple one. Wooden 6-Piece Burr / Similar to This Given to me by parents. Nice-looking 6-piece Burr. Acquired: May 2006 Difficulty: 1/5 Rating: 6/10 Transparent 6-Piece Burr A variation of the 6-piece burr made of transparent plastic, and with the outer shape of Star Puzzle. It's pretty, but shoddy due to its age. Acquired: 1990s Difficulty: 1/5 Rating: 5/10 Spherical 6-Piece Burr / Soccer Ball Plastic 6-piece burr. Mine is from some convention, with a company logo. Acquired: 1990s Difficulty: 1/5 Rating: 4/10

Type: Dis/Entanglement These are puzzles where you have to free, extricate or otherwise separate several (typically two) pieces (and then put them back together). Commonly, the goal is to remove a ring from a larger assembly of parts. Some of these can be very good, and are typically a lot of fun to play with. The downside is that it's hard to find ones that look good, seeing as they are commonly a mix of mismatched parts. As with assembly puzzles, there are variations which end up being sequence/pattern puzzles (see below). Jailbreak Decent puzzle, and fairly attractive. Simple, but requires a reasonable amount of insight. Acquired: February 2007 Difficulty: 2/5 Rating: 7/10 Cast Nutcase From the Hanayama Collection. Very pretty and well made. Unfortunately, it's quite frustrating, partly because (necessarily) the alignment needed is not flush with the edges of the bolt. Nevertherless, I think they could have made the bolts identical without taking away from the puzzle. The solution does have an aspect of insight I like, however. Acquired: January 2007 Difficulty: 4/5 Rating: 8/10 Cast Spiral From the Hanayama Collection. Very pretty and well made. Pro: Not too difficult to take apart, and the solution for that part is elegant. Con: The pieces are dissimilar, so to put it back together, you have to get them in a certain order. That makes for an annoying sequence puzzle. My recommendation is not to mix up the pieces. Acquired: August 2006 Difficulty: 3/5 Rating: 8/10 Cast Heart Given to me by sabletiger, tigerprincess. From the Hanayama Collection. Pretty, but the chain means you will need some dexterity. Solution is good, not too difficult if you've done other puzzles of this sort. Fairly elegant overall. Acquired: December 2006 Difficulty: 3/5 Rating: 7/10 Lucky Clover Picture is deceptively pretty: the pieces do not hold together when solved and don't have a high-quality feel to them. Once you undo the arrangement, the thing dissolves into a messy tangle. I've taken it apart, but haven't put it back together, largely because of how much of a nuisance it is. It takes way too much dexterity to isolate the pieces and keep track of the position. (Thus, the difficulty is a guess.) Acquired: October 2006 Difficulty: 5/5 Rating: 4/10 Arch Rival Given to me by mashats, increp. Looks complex, but the solution is pretty straightforward. The phrasing of the challenge is a bit odd, though. Acquired: May 2006 Difficulty: 1/5 Rating: 3/10 Casper / Handcuffs / Horse Shoe / Wire 6 / Old Shackles Given to me by sabletiger, Landon, dnguyen. Basic starter disentanglement puzzle. Forget whom it's from, exactly (it's not from all three). Acquired: 2005 Difficulty: 1/5 Rating: 4/10 Cupid / Jester Given to me by parents. Slight variation on Casper, above, via the addition of two pieces. A bit more difficult, but similar solution. Acquired: July 2006 Difficulty: 1/5 Rating: 5/10 Dinner Bell / Tinker's Bell / Tinker's Bell (different) Given to me by sabletiger, Landon, dnguyen. A complex disentanglement puzzle, somewhat confusing because it's not obvious what is allowed and what isn't. Interesting solution. Forget whom it's from, exactly (it's not from all three). Acquired: 2005 Difficulty: 4/5 Rating: 7/10 Name Unknown Two circles with string, from 'Metal Madness' by Pavilion. Very basic disentanglement, almost not a puzzle at all. Acquired: August 2006 Difficulty: 1/5 Rating: 2/10 Subtype (of Dis/Entanglement): Alignment This is a type of disentanglement puzzle where the pieces (commonly made of nails or very thick wire) have gaps in them such that the goal is to align the gaps with one another to be able to separate the pieces. The pieces are often identical. I'm not a big fan of this type of puzzle, since it often boils down to just fiddling with the thing, but some are better than others. Cast Baroq From the Hanayama Collection. Pro: Beautifully made and the solution has some very aesthetically pleasing steps. Con: Halfway through, there is a step that requires non-negligible force. Presumably due to manufacturing imperfections, but unfortunate. Acquired: August 2006 Difficulty: 4/5 Rating: 8/10 Cast Elk Given to me by tigerpricess, sabletiger. From the Hanayama collection. Very pretty and well made, the solution is elegant, the challenge is good. Pretty much the only negative is that there are four directions to attempt, and only one yields the solution, but it's a minor quibble. Acquired: December 2006 Difficulty: 3/5 Rating: 9/10 Double G From 'Metal Madness' by Pavilion. Basic two identical pieces alignmnet, two steps. Acquired: August 2006 Difficulty: 1/5 Rating: 3/10 Double Twist From 'Metal Madness' by Pavilion. Three-step alignment (have to get the small piece from one loop to the middle to the other loop and then out). Acquired: August 2006 Difficulty: 1/5 Rating: 3/10 Eights From 'Metal Madness' by Pavilion. Moderate alignment. Acquired: August 2006 Difficulty: 1/5 Rating: 3/10 Twin Tangle From 'Metal Madness' by Pavilion. A rare interesting alignment puzzle, this is the only one in the 'Metal Madness' set worth getting/playing with. Acquired: August 2006 Difficulty: 1/5 Rating: 6/10

Type: Sequence/Pattern These are puzzles where you generally know what to do, but not the order in which to do it, or have to put a number of dissimilar pieces together into some shape. Solving these is usually a combination of trial & error and working through the right sequence of steps. Some of these can be good, but they are not my most preferred. Cast O'Gear From the Hanayama Collection. Very pretty, and has an interesting motion. But the solution (or arriving at it) involves mostly guesswork, and is not too difficult. Acquired: January 2007 Difficulty: 1/5 Rating: 6/10 The King Decent-looking, but the solution is of the 'find the right alignment by guessing' sort. Not very interesting. Acquired: February 2007 Difficulty: 2/5 Rating: 4/10 Star of David Given to me by parents. This is a Magen David broken up into six pieces (~1990s). While it is ostensibly an assembly puzzle, it is pretty obvious what needs to be done, all the pieces are dissimilar, and arriving at the solution is just a matter of figuring out the proper arrangement, which is why it falls here. Acquired: 1990s Difficulty: 1/5 Rating: 4/10 Varikon This is a decent sequence puzzle - there is a basic sequence of steps that quickly leads to the solution. I think it's the least frustrating sequence puzzle I've seen. Acquired: 1980s Difficulty: 4/5 Rating: 5/10 Porcupine Given to me by grandmother on my mother's side. From the IQ Collection series. The manufacturer's description states that this puzzle is "genius-level" and encourages you to "manipulate wooden rods" (yay juvenile humor). This thing is challenging because you can't see the interaction of the rods, and memorizing them really would take a genius. Fairly easy to solve with a sheet of paper and some time, though. Con: Too big. Acquired: May 2006 Difficulty: 3/5 Rating: 5/10 Six-Piece Burr From 'Brain Benders' by Pavilion. Assembly puzzle of the six piece burr, similar to the examples of Diagonal 6-Piece Burr above. All the pieces are dissimilar, so solving it is a matter of figuring out the right combination. Annoying. Plus, it's poorly made, doesn't really hold together. Acquired: August 2006 Difficulty: 2/5 Rating: 4/10 Rubik's Cube / Square One Both of these are good examples of sequence puzzles - the available steps are immediately obvious, but figuring out a solution takes a long time. I figured out how to solve the Cube in college and have since forgotten the method. Never did solve Square One. Acquired: 1990s Difficulty: 5/5 Rating: 6/10 Jigsaw Puzzles These are pretty much by definition pattern puzzles. We have a few, and they fit nicely into the 'sequence/arrangement' category, so I figured I'd include them. I'm okay with them, but don't really seek them out. Difficulty: 3/5 Rating: 3/10 Subtype (of Sequence/Pattern): Chinese Patience This is a classic sequence puzzle - there are only two discrete operations you can perform on a number of rings, and the order is the key to the solution. With each ring, the length of the needed sequence doubles, so a blind search is futile. These are all disentanglement puzzles, but due to the nature of the solution, they fall here rather than above. Desperado / Steps Given to me by Landon, diana_nguyen. Nice looking, and the setup makes it look suitably impossible. Acquired: 2005 Difficulty: 3/5 Rating: 7/10 Centipede / Catacombs / Patience Given to me by mashats, increp. This is the classic version of the puzzle. Requires a good bit of dexterity, which is one of my less honed skills. Acquired: 2005 Difficulty: 3/5 Rating: 5/10 Tree Puzzle Given to me by tigerpricess, sabletiger. This has the distinction of being the most complex of my three (7 steps, I think, which is to say, 27-1, I think) Chinese Patience puzzles, and the one that requires the least dexterity. Acquired: 2006 Difficulty: 3/5 Rating: 6/10

Type: Dexterity These are puzzles which require nimble hands to be able to put something together or balance it, etc. I dislike most such, though some aren't that bad. Cast News From the Hanayama collection. Pro: Aesthetically beautiful, and the real solution is very elegant. Con: There's no way to arrive directly at the solution. Too much of a leap of faith involved. With a hint, it could be fantastic. The hint (rot13'd): Gur gjb cvrprf ner vqragvpny. Rnpu cvrpr vf flzzrgevpny nobhg gur gjb cynarf crecraqvphyne gb gur snpr (nfvqr sebz gur qrpbengvir yrggrevat ba gur fhesnpr). Nofbyhgryl ab sbepr vf erdhverq. Jvgu gur pbeerpg fbyhgvba, gur cvrprf yvsg ncneg sebz rnpu bgure. Acquired: June 2006 Difficulty: 4/5 Rating: 7/10 Sandpiper Given to me by mashats, increp. Balancing puzzle. The official solution is interesting, but there are more ways to solve it than that. Acquired: May 2006 Difficulty: 2/5 Rating: 4/10

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