Coral Reef

Today’s puzzle is again brought to you by Smart Games.  It was made by Raf Peters. This one is a magnetic puzzle game with only 48 challenges.  The game is again for only 1 person.  This one is set for younger players starting from age 4.

We bought this one in Maui Hawaii at a toy store on the main strip. We went in looking for something local and came out with something fishy.  As it turned out, this shop was very good for us in terms of puzzles.  We were able to pick up quite a few puzzles I had been looking for. They were higher priced than I expected to pay, but beggars can’t be choosers.  We had initially planned to purchase many of these when we hit Asia but that was not meant to be.  

The object of each puzzle is to put the 4 coral pieces on the game board so the sea creatures are covered except for the animals in the challenge.  There is only one solution per challenge as usual.  With this one, there are also 4 different levels with 12 challenges per level.  Each challenge only gives you one photo of the animals that are to remain uncovered.  The four pieces are each a different shape and have magnets attached to the back so the puzzle is self contained.  

I can’t help but think that this is a new take on an old version of a puzzle made by Smart Games back in the early 2000’s.  At that time there were a large number of "hide the" games that were made.  If I were at home, I could check the books, but I’m fairly certain I’m not wrong on this one.  

Since we are on sea days, I decided to sit down and finish all 48 puzzles in one afternoon.  But before I did that, I gave George the challenge of putting this through burr tools as well.  I watched him sit and stare at the game board for the better part of an hour.  I know his wheels were spinning trying to work out how to solve this puzzle.  Note: 3 hours later he had completely programmed in all 48 puzzles.  I can’t wait to see how this one works.  The burr tools solution can be found here.  He found a total of 3072 solutions.  I'm sure you will see his thoughts on this puzzle in a future CFF.

On that sea day afternoon on which I decided to play with this game.  I discovered that there really is no difference in the difficulty level as I moved through the puzzles.  I solved all 48 in the box within about 2 hours.  The earlier puzzles took no more than 1 minute each, some of the more difficult ones took around 3 minutes.  All in all though, it was an enjoyable way to spend the afternoon.  I would gladly give this box of puzzles to a new puzzler, or a child.  

One thing I really like about this puzzle is the fully enclosed metal tin. The other magnetic puzzles we own that were produced by this company are all in a snap close book.  This is not ideal as the pieces easily fall out and can be lost.  I hope that in future Smart Games keeps this format.

Until next week, Happy Puzzling.

IQ Digits

And now back to our regularly scheduled program.

IQ Digits is a new puzzle game from Smart Games.  It has 120 challenges designed by Alain Brobecker and Studio Smart.  If first hit the market in 2019 although I hadn’t seen it before this past week.  

The game is similar to the Digigrams puzzle designed by Martin Watson. It was initially exchanged at IPP20. I can't help but feel that the Smart Games version is a bit too close to be an original design. 

This one is a standard single player difficulty increasing puzzle game put out by Smart Games.  One difference though is that they give you clues as to how to place the missing pieces.  As an example, in the photo shown below you can see in puzzle number 73 the number 14 inside a box.  This tells us that there are 3 pieces that converge in that corner.  One of which uses 2 sides.  Given the shape of the numbers, that one has to be a 7.  Ok.  I won’t bother you with the logic behind the puzzles.  I’ll let you work them out on your own. 

Each game is laid out in order of difficulty from starter to master with junior and expert in the middle. I sat down and went through the first puzzle of each level.  To be honest, they aren’t that difficult.  I guess over time I’ve just worked out how to do these types of puzzles.  

The original puzzle also allowed for flipping the pieces over while the Smart Game's does not.  Each piece has a specific side as seen by the grooves in the puzzle base, as well as in the pieces themselves.

George came up after me and did the same thing.  Only guess what?  He didn’t solve them correctly.  He hadn’t realized that he needed to use the tiny number hints to solve the puzzles.  To be fair though, it is very tiny print in the instructions that tell us this.  

We bought this puzzle in San Diego at a toy store called Geppetto’s located at the Seaport Village. It cost $17.99 there.  On Amazon it is only $14.99.  I would recommend this one for new puzzlers. It gives you a chance to work your way up to a more difficult puzzle.  At the whopping price of 14 cents per puzzle, you can’t go wrong.  

As is his usual, George wrote a burr tools puzzle to help solve this one.  His solver though does not add in the extra hints. It's just a straight up solver in which you can place the first few pieces and have the computer do the rest.  It can be found here. I'm sure he will have a CFF article about it in the future. 

Until next week, Happy Puzzling.

Viruses Times Three

Today's puzzles are brought to you by the Corona Virus that has been crippling the world this past year.  Whether you had a day without toilet paper and other necessities, became unemployed, or lost a loved one, this past year has affected us all.  It's been one heck of a ride so far and I for one have had enough of the worry of catching a disease there is no cure for.  Living in the US is worrisome. The President thinks that because he had the best medical treatment available and was 'cured' that the virus is under control.  He refused to lead by example and by doing so, has endangered the lives of many Americans. At the time of writing this post, over 9,570,000 people have contracted the disease and 237,000 people lost their lives.  We spend our lives sheltering in place (here at Puzzle Palace, we are fortunate to live on a golf course and have all these puzzles and games to entertain ourselves with), not going out to eat in restaurants, no more concerts or sporting events, no family gatherings, and the obligatory dreaded masks.  If we all do our part and follow WHO and CDC guidelines we can eliminate this virus. 

Which of course brings me to my first puzzle of the day:  Eliminate the Virus.

This puzzle was obtained in 2020 from I have no idea where.  Ebay, Amazon, Taobao?  Maybe it was one of many puzzles that have been sent to me to try. I don't know if it came from China or Taiwan.  I've purchased so many puzzles that I just can't keep track anymore if it isn't written down when it comes in.  The puzzle is a logic puzzle that uses coverup pieces.  It has 6 clear pieces of plastic that are used to shoot disinfecting spray at the many viruses on each of the 60 challenge sheets.  This puzzle is very similar to many others produced over the years.  SmartGames has a number of them from Raf Peters including Down the Rabbit Hole, and the Go-Getter series. 

The best part of this puzzle is not the puzzling itself, but rather the instructions.  They are a public service announcement.  I would like to say this is reminiscent of what I would see on TV when I lived in Hong Kong and assume it is from China.  The only problem is, there is no Chinese on the instructions.  I'd also like to think this puzzle was produced prior to the discovery of COVID-19 but again, I can't be sure.  

The first 15 puzzles have lines drawn as to where to place some of the tiles.  Puzzles 16-24 give the position of two sprayers, 25-30 give the position of one sprayer, 31-35 give either one or two sprayers in a shadowed sort of way  and the final 16 have no clues at all.  

George had a crack at it this morning.  He saw how solution one was done, jumped to puzzle 36, and now he is attempting 60.  All in all, it's a fun puzzle variation on a familiar theme.  I wouldn't go hunt it down purposefully, but if you find it, it is appropriate to the theme of 2020. 

Following on from there, we have Anti-Virus.  Again this puzzle has 60 challenges but this time with 11 pieces that need to be shifted around to get the red virus out of the board.  This puzzle was designed by Oskar van Deventer in 2003 and was brought to market in 2008.

This puzzle was originally designed by Oskar using plastic sheets, and exacto-knives. He then designed one that was tin cast in a laser cut mold!  Ah the technology he used.   The puzzle was put on Jimmy Stephens website as a puzzle called the Bulbous Blob.  Later Oskar designed the wavy board that was ultimately used and George prototyped this one for him. It was delivered to Smart Games and the rest is history.  

As with Eliminate the virus, I really enjoyed the instructions for this puzzle.  It makes one wonder if Oskar could foretell the future.  I later learned through looking at George's stl files that there were googly eyes on the pieces and to me they looked more alive. 

Unlike most puzzles of the 'remove the piece' type, this one has pieces that move on a diagonal instead of the normal left/right, up/down moves one would expect.  I revisited this puzzle this past week and have found this difference in movement to not work well with my simple brain.  I'm just not used to it.  I originally got this puzzle when it first came out and because of my lack of other entertainment I worked my way through the challenges.  I wonder if I found it easier then than I do now.  Perhaps if I were to go through all 60 challenges again I would find the moves to be easier.  And I wish I had access to this giant version! That would look so cool on our coffee table. 

  

The final puzzle of the day is Anti-Virus Mutation. This one was based on Oskar's original puzzle but re-designed by Raf Peters. Instead of 11 pieces, it has only 6.  It is sold as a travel game, and the case for it makes it much easier to take on the road.  The other major change is that the pieces can be moved in that left/right, up/down positions.  It is no longer a diagonally based game.  This makes it much easier for my simple brain. 

Oskar tells me that since the date of release that Anti-Virus has sold 450,000 units at the end of 2019 and Anti-Virus Mutation has sold more than 50,000 pieces between 2016 and 2019.  Who knows what this year will bring for these puzzles.  

Smartgames has this as an online game that can be played here.  You can sign up for free and play for 6 months.  Now that is what I call a deal!

Below is a video of the storage solution we have come up with for this type of puzzle.

 

Christmas day puzzling

While the majority of my puzzle friends are dreaming of sugar plums, I've been puzzling the day away.
Santa was all right. But I would have to say, Christmas Eve present opening was much nicer! Thanks to a silly bug I had a few more presents under the tree than I expected.

So there are a lot in there from Bits and pieces, and a few from Eureka, a Smart Games, a Karakuri, and one from the Juggler.

Now while any and all of these are pretty neat, I would have to say thus far, my favorite has been....oh don't hate me....Oskar's Matchboxes. :-) There is just something mesmerizing about the way those blocks come apart. They have this sliding motion to them that is just plain fun to watch.

Solving wise. Well, the configuration it is in when it arrives is easy to do. I've managed that with the cardboard set I made a while back. Now I've seen somewhere that there are 2 more solutions to this puzzle. I guess I'll have to spending bit of time giving it a think.

What? Not fair I hear you scream out! I shouldn't like a toy I already have? Ok then, this time I'll agree with you.

I'll be serious then. I like all of them and will post later on each of the other puzzles I received, but first. I want to talk about Neil's Unhappy Childhood.

I saw this one and was taken by it. Why? I'm not entirely sure. It's a 5x5x2 checkerboard. Maybe it was the pretty wood. Maybe it was the poor finger. Or maybe it was a temporary bout of the "I think I can solve that" Well, what ever it was, I now have that puzzle in my possession. and it is pretty.

Upon closer inspection, there are 10 pieces each with 5 cubes. The puzzle is simple. Put it back in the box so that there is a checkerboard pattern on both the top and bottom layers. So is it possible? I've been told, but after about 2 hours on it today??? I'm beginning to wonder. And for all you naysayers who think I never muck up a puzzle that is difficult to solve...

Nice of Mr. Coffin to make another devil of a puzzle. Nicer of Neil to remake it. I won't bore you with telling you about the way it was made or anything like that. I've A major snowstorm brewing in my bedroom right now that I need to put an end to. I'll just say I love the box the puzzle is in. Very creative. I wish I knew what the smell was that is in there. It's not the wood that is for sure. And I'll leave you with a link to Neil's page on how he built this thing.

Oh yes, and for those of you who are wondering, there is no blood to be found.