Anyone else feels like he doesn't have enoguh hands while solving this puzzles? I'm pretty sure that I have figured out the solution for Donuts, but I'm struggling to align everything correctly.
Had marble in my amazon cart and it randomly dropped in price to like 6 bucks, so I ordered it! (as of this writing, it's still super cheap). Excited to mess around with my first mechanical puzzle, especially given the praise specifically for marble in this thread.
Dammit, I like fiddling with stuff and these are cheap.
I got the Delta, because it looks neat and isn't supposed to be too hard.
My friend actually had the NEWS and I didn't know it was part of a series. She showed me how to solve it right away though so that's ruined forever for me, haha.
Well, I bought a level 3 because I've never been too good at these things before, but solved in in about 90 seconds.
It's a cool little thing to have on my desk at work though. Gonna order a 6 to hopefully get something challenging.
I got marble yesterday- felt like the perfect difficulty level and was very satisfying (the eureka moment when you understand the mechanism is really great!). Any recommendation for what to get next?
Delta was kinda easy. It took me about 5-10 minutes? Then about 15 to learn how to do it consistently.
Once you understand how it works it's more of a dexterity test than anything else.
Yeah, from what I tried so far, the difficulty levels up to 3 seem like a "You will solve these after 5-10 minutes of fiddling" kinda deal, whereas 4 is still doable, but in the 30-40 minute range and then 5 and 6 are "many people might never figure these out" territory.
I was currently playing around with Rings II and (level 5) and I have no clue how that is even supposed to work. Going to try Equa or Padlock first now I think.
I just grabbed Marble, Cylinder, and Rattle because they were 4's (plus Marble was a 6 dollar add-on item on Amazon which meant I had to get 2 more) and seemed like a decent step up while still being solvable for me.
I kinda really wish I never had NEWS spoiled for me. Question below in comments for those who solved it.
Are there any other puzzles similar to it that have a very non-obvious solution? I've heard it's unlike all the other Hanayama stuff, but I'd love something that has a simple mechanism that takes forever to figure out.
Got Quartet. Took it apart quickly. Cannot come close to putting it back together yet.
It's the only one of these I've ever tried that actually feels like a slog to work with. I'm not enjoying it at all.
I need a new Level 6 to wash the taste out of my mouth. Suggestions?
Thanks for the thread. I had no idea so many of these existed. My wife loves this stuff, so you've just solved a bunch of future gifts for me.
Also:
Ordered the Dot Box from an individual designer:
http://www.puzzlemuseum.com/puzzles/dot-box/dot-box.htm
Please dont spoil any solution if you read up on it, or just wait for my impression in case its something you might be interested in as well.
Cost 50 GBP, yeah, I know its steep, but I am really curious as its also one of the puzzles that won first place in the puzzle competitions.
This looks really interesting. Be sure to let us know what you think of it once you get it. The product description on the website is so vague and pretentious that I can't even begin to imagine how to solve it, or even how to really interact with it.
I ordered the Cast Marble and Cast News yesterday due to this thread.
I just solved the Marble in around 30 mins. It was really fun but a bit easy although the solution was quite different from what I thought it would be. So I was definitely wowed for a moment.
I'm looking forward to the News!
Are there puzzles like this that consist of more consecutive steps? More than one trick involved? That maybe take months to solve?
Where can you buy these dot box puzzles?
I sent you a private message as I am not sure posting email adresses openly is all that nice. Fair warning though: I have not received any further confirmation yet and there is no store/tracking whatsoever. I gave this guy money out of blind trust and I cant vouch for anything yet. I will report back here once I received it, though.
NEWS seems like a good choice for you then. I am currently playing around with Padlock, which I find really amazing due to its multiple states. Gonna write more once I solved it.
There are people who are stuck on some of the harder Hanayama puzzles for years, but it depends a lot on the person. I am currently pretty happy with the level 5 puzzles (Padlock, Equa, Vortex), which I havent solved after 1 hour on each yet. If you want something that takes you ages to solve, you might want to take a look at the bigger brethren, like the Revomaze.
The Revomaze looks good but it's pretty expensive. Can anyone of you tell a bit more about it? Is it worth it? The product video suggested it's base on a lot of twisting...
Its basically a hidden maze, where you twist the individual components and need to remember sequence and path and if you go the wrong way, you need to start at the beginning. The easier ones can be solved in 20ish hours, the harder ones in 80. I dont have one myself yet, but I definitely plan on grabbing one eventually as they seem to get pretty good impressions from buyers.
I just found a couple of blogs that also do reviews of these kinds of puzzles. The Revomaze must be really hard and fun to solve. I hope to get one sooner or later.
I don't know if it's okay to post this here but this is a nice blog doing reviews of lots of hanayama puzzles. They also state their solution time which is very helpful when deciding what to purchase.
Mobius is fine. Nothing spectacular, took it apart in about 20 minutes, not hard to put back together either.
Given that I only own marble so far, is there something you'd recommend instead of mobius?
My personal favorites are twist, chain, and elk (increasing order of difficulty)
Just ordered 10 more as I'm going to be on a 20 hour flight later this month
Elk is interesting. Eventually you solve it and have no idea what you did differently than you've been doing. Takes 3 or 4 full solves before you "get it".
I like twist because the way it moves around itself is really unique. Think of those internal mazes except that it's an external maze where the two halves move around each other
Reminds me of Cylinder, which I can only recommend if you havent tried it yet.
I wasn't crazy about cylinder but I might not have stuck with it long enough. One piece came off and then I lost it.
In general though I don't like puzzles where the internal mechanism is hidden. Same thing with news and nutcase. With twist every little minutiae is visible
My personal favorites are twist, chain, and elk (increasing order of difficulty)
Just ordered 10 more as I'm going to be on a 20 hour flight later this month