Mechanical Puzzles – the Ultimate Guide : Overview, Part 2

Welcome back to the ultimate mechanical puzzles guide – the place to find your challenge.

In part 1 we learned about four of the basic puzzle types – Put-Together, Take-Apart, Mazes and Impossible Objects. If you haven’t read it yet, it’s pretty close. Right here actually 🙂

So without further ado, let’s dive in.

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Combination Puzzles

Are you an organized, logical person? Try them

To solve these puzzles, which are also known as Sequential Movement puzzles, the solver has to be very organized. You need to find how the puzzle reacts to different combinations, and plan the solution ahead to succeed.

Every wrong move may fatally hinder your progress – therefore you should concentrate on the moves and keep the goal in mind, every step.

The Rubik’s Cube might be the first combination puzzle you’ll think about, but it’s far from the only one.

A famous example for such a puzzle is Rush Hour, a classic board game in which you have to free a red car from a highly populated parking lot, by sliding cars on the board.

If you happen to know and love Rush Hour, you should check out this category.

Interlocking Puzzles

Is it possible to hold 20 wooden pieces locked together without glue?

Good question, but a better question would be – why would you want to?

Taking spacial thinking to the extreme, these puzzles will blow you away with the sheer amount of imagination needed for a full solution.

To solve an Interlocking puzzle, you’ll need to take it apart, and put it together.

Wait, what? Isn’t this the same as disassembly puzzles?

No it’s not! What’s special in Interlocking puzzles, is the way they are locked. Each of those puzzles are held exclusively by wooden pieces, which lock themselves together in a tricky manner – thanks their structure.

In the picture you see a 6 piece Interlocking puzzle, assembled. Nothing moves, at first glance. But to take it apart – something has to move, isn’t that right?

The more you move the pieces, the looser they get, until you can take out the first piece. After that – taking the other pieces is relatively simple. In most cases, that is.

The real challenge though, is to put it back together. Many times, assembling an Interlocking puzzle is hard.

And when I say hard, I mean insanely hard.

There are some Interlocking puzzles that practically can’t be solved by mortal humans.

Interlocking puzzles are not always harsh and evil. Most of them are possible, with enough will power and dedication. In the future, I’ll write about finding an Interlocking puzzle that suits your needs, and also – I’ll explain about the life-saving program, for Interlocking puzzle solvers that lost their way – BurrTools

Dexterity Puzzles

Surgeon’s coordination put to the test

You won’t believe the moves these puzzles make you do. Don’t be surprised if you find yourself spinning them like a top.

If you’re looking for planning, logic, strategy and thinking – you’ll get them here, albeit in lower volumes.

If you’re a musician, sportsman, or perhaps even a pilot and you think you know to control your body – you just found something that might prove you wrong.

A good Dexterity puzzle will first and foremost challenge your dexterity. It’ll tag along your concentration skills, your hand-eye coordination, and sometimes challenge your chill in stressful situations.

Sometimes you’ll need to pass the hardest parts of the puzzle while your heart beats very fast, from the stress of failing that part 50 times prior.

Other times you’ll have to stay concentrated the whole way, and try to have fun from each step.

There are lots of options here as well, which aren’t best for everyone. Still, it’s so easy to have fun with a Dexterity puzzle, which can even serve as a therapy of sorts.

Dexterity can also be added to other mechanical puzzle types – if you time your Rubik’s Cube solution, your dexterity will suddenly be more important than your logical reasoning. And who decided you can’t time other puzzle solutions?

Mechanical Puzzles Basics Complete

You’ve completed the first important step.

Now you should have the basic understanding of the general types of mechanical puzzles and what they have to offer. But do we really know everything about them? No.

You won’t believe how much more you can discover.

As a starting point – choose your favorite category so far, and try to explore it on the internet.

But Wait!

There is one important aspect of mechanical puzzles.

An aspect that makes a good puzzle into a great one.

It’s a special type of puzzles, that can co-exist with all other types.

The most unique puzzles are:

Sequential Discovery!

Wow. I don’t even know where to start.

The most intriguing, creative, and challenging puzzles there are today are Sequential Discovery puzzles.

Sequential Discovery take all the puzzle types, and mixes them together.

So what is actually the Sequential Discovery, you ask?

I’ll tell you.

You start in a certain position. From there you solve a problem the puzzle gives to you. In most puzzles, this where you say – “It was a fun puzzle”. But in Sequential Discovery – this is not quite the case.

In a Sequential Discovery puzzle, as you progress with the solution, it will present you with tools, to be used to progress even further.

Each and every step of the puzzle will challenge you, until you get to the final step – in which you must use all the knowledge you’ve gathered from the puzzle so far, and the tools you’ve found along the way, in an extremely creative manner, in order to completely solve it.

It’s an adventure. An insane adventure full of surprises and multiple challenges.

However!

It’s very important to know that –

Sequential Discovery puzzles are extremely challenging.

They are the perfect challenge for the experienced solver. You won’t regret trying them.

If you don’t feel like you’re experienced enough – try the basic puzzle types for a while, before you tackle the sequential monsters.

You can find simpler Sequential Discovery puzzles, but – hey! Don’t worry we’ll get there.

This whole hobby is like a huge sequentially discovery – the simpler puzzles will give you the tools and knowledge to solve more complex puzzles later.

Summary

Here you have them – the general mechanical puzzle types.

Click on the title of a category to read a more detailed post about it.

And don’t forget – if you need help choosing your puzzle, send me a message!

I bet the wild readers are already searching the internet for Sequential Discovery puzzles… Don’t read my post about them!