Sunday 10 July 2011

Triplets

I managed to pick up a couple of relatively modest unusual puzzles on the latest round of Cubic Dissection auctions. One of them was a very plain looking puzzle designed by Jim Gooch called Triplets. This particular one was made in Zebra Wood by Puzzlecraft. 

Perhaps I’m being a bit unfair by calling it plain-looking – but it looks like a simple common-or-garden three piece burr. However, there’s a clue in the name to the fact that this one’s a little different, and a quick glance over at Puzzles will be played – confirms that this puzzle consists of three identical pieces with a rather unconventional shape. 

The oddly shaped pieces are totally disguised when the puzzle is assembled, leaving an unwary puzzler spending half their time pulling or pushing pieces against themselves – evil grin ...

In terms of burr- complexity, this one is about as simple as they get – two moves to remove the first piece and there are only three pieces anyway – but the shape of the pieces will throw anyone who hasn’t seen one of these before off the scent for quite a while ... really cute little puzzle for amusing folks who think they’ve seen one of these before... 

1 comment:

  1. The grain matching on the puzzle pieces here really makes the puzzle. By keeping the grain consistent, the illusion that you have a solid piece is really helped, and the Zebra wood makes that very obvious.

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