Can an Idiot Solve...?

 End of an era.  I am very thankful that I never set out to post once a week here. I honestly don't know how those other guys keep churning out quality content. It's been a month since my last post.  The discord group have a rule (quite rightly) to refrain from any spoilers regarding the Karakuri Christmas presents until after Christmas itself. Some people like to wait and open them on Christmas day, I rip open the box like a maniac the first chance I get. So I had the idea back in early December to write a 'spoiler-free' review but just treat it as a joke. It would've been full of things like -  Kawashima's - ▇▇▇▇ it was so▇▇▇▇▇▇windy ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ saw a ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ chicken ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ lay the same ▇▇▇▇▇▇ egg twice ▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇▇ But then the Epstein files thing happened and suddenly there were redacted jokes all over the internet, and then I got the flu and then it was Christmas and then it was 2nd Christmas and then it was hogmanay and then I was so. Very. Very. Ti...

 Last time I wrote about my first puzzle (not really but sort of) so I figured I would follow up with my most recent. These days, most of what I buy is either Hanayama or Karakuri, with the odd Pelikan or Wood Wonder (and hopefully soon Ars Aenigma) scattered in for variety. I almost miss the early days of buying anything and everything indiscriminately, but now I know what I like and I generally stick to it. I leave the high-end metal SD chasing to others, and the small-run, list-based releases of Stickman & the like will always be out of my reach, I think. I like the bits-of-paper-in-a-hat, equal-opportunity approach of the Karakuri lotteries. I'm not really one to chase unicorns either. The rarity and value of older pieces only leads to disappointment (that said, everyone that knows me knows I desperately want a Karakuri Rose, I solve Allard's copy every time I'm down there,ut there are many, many things I would desperately want if I allowed myself to, the Ferris Whe...

 Gateway drugs.  This is the one that started it all for me.  I had bought puzzles before, a traditional Japanese box back in two-thousand-and-something, a couple of Constantins from an ace wee toy shop in Glasgow, but none of them had led me into Narnia. It was stumbling across this and ordering it online that made the advertising algorithms kick into gear. Suddenly I was seeing videos by Mr. Puzzle and Chris Ramsey, which led me to blogs more established and far better than this one. I drooled over the gallery pages of Pelikan, Wood Wonders and Cubicdissection. Eventually, I found some spare cash behind the proverbial sofa-cushions (this was mid 2020, the early days of the pandemic, and my industry was completely shut down) and put in my first CD order (for Pin Block Case).  I'll never forget the email Eric Fuller sent along with my order confirmation. Ordinarily, I would never dream of replying to such an email, but there was something so personable, warm and invi...

 Oooooh, ooooh that's a nice move. ...  Smoooooth.  ...  Why do I feel like playing some Barry White? ... Mmmmmmm, that's a lovely move too ...  Maybe I should light some candles ...  Can I take a puzzle in the bath, is that weird? ... It's sliding all slippery like ...  That's a new configuration, very pleasing.  ...  Anyway. It's late, I'm going to bed,  ...  aaaaand I'm taking this puzzle with me.  ...  Fondling under the covers ...  Ooh, that's nice ...  I love you, Radix Can an idiot solve Radix?  How the hell should I know?  I haven't solved it yet, it's too much fun. The moves are just so satisfying to perform that I don't want to solve it prematurely. I want to savour this and make it last as long as possible. 

There is a purity to interlocking puzzles. Just a few wooden blocks, glued together in the right way, can can produce confusion greater than the sum of its parts.   Unlike more complex SDs, boxes & locks, there is no trickery, no fakery, no blind manipulations, no guess-what-the-designer-was-thinking, no I-can't-tell-if-that's-solved-or-not. There is no amiguity and there is nowhere to hide.  There are, however, flippin' loads   of them out there. It takes something very, very special to rise above the crowd but, when one does, they can be counted among my favourite puzzles. Daedalus, Kuchenstuck, Push Button, the best of the many, many TICs by Crowell, Sharma and more. They are all highly praised but, for some reason, Dinlas doesn't receive the same amount of reverence.  Designed by Terry Smart (who, incidentally, lives just over the river from me, one of very few Scottish puzzlers that I've met), there are only 50 of these Cubicdissection builds out in the...

 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 p...

So. Many. Holes.  Holes can be wonderful in puzzles. You can stick tools, fingers or no-don't-do-that   in them, you can catch tantalising glimpses of whatever's inside, they almost always signify something, even if that something is unknown. It's hard to think of an SD puzzle that doesn't use some kind of hole somewhere in its solve.  The sheer amount of holes in this lego-built box from Josiah1221 (which may or may not be his full legal name) is, at first, intimidating. They can't all do something, can they? With so may options, so many possibilities, the obvious starting point is to try all of them and then be annoyed when that doesn't work.  Can an idiot solve Holey Box?  Probably, yeah.  There's a particular move early on that had me stumped for a while, and I did solve it with my brain, but it could conceivably be overcome by some lucky or exhaustive poking. It doesn't mean much to say that this is the best Lego puzzle I've ever done, as I'...