In this video I talk about 5 extremely difficult puzzles in my collection that I couldn’t solve yet. I realized I don’t have that many unsolved puzzles, so that means they’re REALLY tough.
Their hidden mechanisms and tricky moves seem to elude my thoughts. Well designed, or just tough?
Time will tell.
Read on for a written post, or watch the video instead.
Without further ado, lets start with puzzle #1:
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Extremely Difficult Puzzle #1 – Ansel by Brandon Wolf
Ansel is a sequential discovery puzzle by the puzzle blogger PuzzledWolf, who later became a designer too. This is the first puzzle he realeased.
It’s made of laser-cut wood and some other components.
The goal with this puzzle is to open the camera viewfinder.
I have Ansel for almost half a year now, and I still couldn’t find the first step. It’s crazy. I tried so many things already.
Now take a moment to think what’s the dumbest thing you’d do with a puzzle.
Take your time.
Got it?
Most likely, I already did that exact thing you think about now.
I think the reason I struggle with it so much is because I’m not that good at deducing hidden mechanisms. Well, I hope to solve it by the end of 2021.
Extremely Difficult Puzzles #2&3 – Hanayama Cast Enigma and Hanyama Cast Vortex
Usually in puzzles you eventually find the correct moves, you feel the progress and understand the mechanism more and more the more time you invest in them.
Here are Hanayama Casts Vortex (which I disassembled) and Hanayama Cast Enigma(which I disassembled and is now somewhere inbetween assembled and disassembled state). The object of both is to disassemble the puzzle to three pieces.
What’s similar in these two puzzles is that I have no idea of what i’m doing in both.
I feel like all I can do is to fiddle with them until they solve themselves or until I find a move and remember it.
This is very frustrating, but with patience I feel like I can do it.
Fun fact – they’re both among my first puzzle purchases. And when I say first puzzle purchases i’m talking about more than six years ago!
Yeah you read correctly –
Six years ago!!!
That can say two things – either I’m not patient enough…
…or they are really difficult and nonsencial.
Extremely Difficult Puzzle #4 – Pachinko Box by Wil Strijbos
Now the next puzzle is one of my most prized possessions. It was a unicorn of mine so I traded a Brian Young’s Big Ben for it – and that happened somewhere in the end of 2020.
The legendary Pachinko Box by Wil Stribos is a huge, heavy block of cnc-machined aluminum.
It’s a sequential discovery puzzle box where the object is to extract a coin, open the box and then find another coin.
So far I could only remove the first coin. It was quite enjoyable and I am still subconsciously solving the second part.
Again there are some tricky mechanisms inside and you can’t see everything that’s going on, so that’s a big part of the challenge for me.
I’m not rushing this one because it’s such a gem and i want to stretch it, to enjoy every moment.
The Notorious #5 – Revomaze Lime by Chris Pitt
Those of you who talk to me on Discord know what’s my favorite puzzle series – it’s Revomaze!
If you don’t know about the series, my friend Revodeity made an elaborate guide about them. If you want a briefer explanation – check out my Revomaze Aqua review.
The goal here is to navigate through a hidden maze…
…But with a huge twist that makes this the best maze series ever! And i’m not exaggerating!
Anyway, this last puzzle is my biggest nemesis. In this series this was the first Revomaze i ever touched around 8 years ago – and it’s still completely shut!
This is the Revomaze Lime and it’s an absolute BEAST.
It becomes more daunting every day but I know i’ve got to solve it. The thing with it is that even if you know what you’re doing – it’s crazy difficult. And after all the experimenting I did… I’m still not completely sure what I’m doing!
I think I have around 95 percent of the mechanism figured out. But still, there’s a small piece of information I’m missing to align the dots. And when I solve it I’m going to throw a big party.
Or a big giveaway.
Or both.
Conclusion
So far these were five really difficult puzzles that I have to solve. I hope to solve most of them by the end of this year.
Maybe Vortex and Enigma will take a little more than that…
Anyway, thanks for watching folks and i’ll see you guys next time!