...Enigma

 Naming a puzzle something so on-the-nose as Enigma is a bit like Ferrari naming a car 'LaFerrari', or a parent naming their child 'Parent's Name Jr', or naming the sequel to the greatest movie ever made 'John Wick 2'. You just have to damn well hope that it lives up to the name. 

Good thing, then, that it's entirely deserved in this case. This is a genre-defining puzzle, an easily-accessible masterpiece that all of you should own

It's been around longer than I have (which is saying something). I will never understand how ye olde-timey folks designed things like this without computer assistance. They were most definitely not idiots. Two of the shapes are delicate, sinuous spirals, while the third is a lumpy blob, shaped the only way it possibly can be for the moves to work. The whole thing is a Giger-ish blend of devilish precision and elegant harmony


Can an idiot solve Enigma? 

Surprisingly, yes. 

Weren't expecting that, were you? At any given point, I think what you have to do next is relatively obvious, even if doing that thing initially seems impossible. From there, because it's metal, there aren't a whole heap of wrong options . It can't get hopelessly knotted like a rope puzzle. It's confusing, yes, but it's not insurmountable. 

It still took me a good few hours over several days to solve, but I would rank it lower than Hanayama's maximum difficulty. 

 

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