Saturday, September 3, 2022

Play-Boy 2 - Alexander Magyarics by Pelikan


Alexander designs some awesome puzzles but this one with its crazy angles had me wondering why most pics seem to be an optical illusion.  The angles are so steep that I hadn’t seen anything like it since Wayne Daniel was crafting his tetrahedral style puzzles.


Kevin Sadler wrote about it:


“Yet again, we have another puzzle based on a non-rectilinear grid – only Pelikan seem to have the courage to do these sorts of puzzles. Taking the pieces out of the box as it had been packed for transport, I could see just how accurately these had been made – the pieces had sharp corners and I had to be careful not to stab myself. I am sure that you can see it straight away but for me it took a few days for me to realise that this one is also 'just' a 3x3x3 cube to be fitted into a box with a complex entry hole. The special feature is that this box and the pieces have been sheared along the x-axis to make a shape that is also quite difficult to visualise in your head (of course, YOUR head is probably more capable than mine). I worked on this in my usual fashion – assemble the correct shape outside the box and then work out whether and then how it can be placed inside. I am not good with a non-rectilinear grid and just finding the shape took me a little while. There are some big clues as to what is needed in looking at the shapes. The restricted entry is very helpful in limiting the possible assemblies and I was pretty sure that I had the correct one settled on fairly early. Time to work through the disassembly first outside the box and the skewed shape made it hard for me. After about ½ an hour I had it worked out – solved in about an hour? Not so fast! Actually doing the assembly proved an extra fun challenge – gravity has to be utilised just right and a good bit of dexterity. The staff at work had watched me working on it with fascination and were almost as delighted as I was when I stood up and showed them the final result.”




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