New to mechanical puzzles? this is the guide for you!
Mechanical Puzzle – “a physical object with a certain objective, without obvious right steps to achieve this objective, where the solver will have to use wits and logic in order to discover the steps.”
This may sound scary or daunting, but you should know that there are tons of interesting puzzle types – and with such a huge selection, anyone can find the best puzzle for himself. Inside those types will be even more categories.
You don’t have to love everything – but you should try and find the type of puzzles you like most, so you don’t have to waste time and money – find the puzzle that brings you the most “bang for your buck”.
My goal is to help you find your perfect puzzle. If after reading all the guides you still don’t know what to choose – send me a message and we’ll work it out.
In the Overview I’ll explain you the basic puzzle categories – puzzles will be assigned at least one category from those, always. And yes – puzzles can be of more than one category.
In the next posts I will also dive deep inside each category, for those who are curious to know exactly what’s their preferred type.
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Put-Together / Assembly Puzzles
Simple Concept – Challenging Solve
The most basic puzzle type is Put-together. There is no way you’ve not heard of them. Did you ever assemble a Jigsaw Puzzle? Well, that is a type of Put-Together puzzle. See the pic on the right? this one is a Tangram – you get some pieces, usually triangles and squares, and you have to use them to assemble a certain shape.
What’s interesting is there are very unique assembly puzzles today, for example a plastic jigsaw puzzle with only corners and without an image, that you have to fit inside a limited space, or even 3D put-together puzzles. If you ever liked Jigsaw puzzles or Tangrams – you should check out this category.
A Put-Together puzzle needs spacial thinking, and sometimes makes find creative ways to fit the pieces. Mostly, these puzzles will look simple – but solving them might prove otherwise.
Take-Apart Puzzles
Looks Can Be Deceiving
Look at the picture. Do you have an idea of how to take this puzzle apart?
Great. Now, use all your mental powers to imagine this puzzle disassembled. Try to see the process in your mind.
Well, even if you managed to imagine the solution – your solution is probably… wrong. these puzzles are not what they seem. They tend to look easy to solve, but they’re designed intricately to be locked in creative ways. These puzzles change the rules of the game.
What’s nice about Take-Apart puzzles is, they are basically 2 puzzles in one. Because when you take it apart you have to put it back together! For the brave of heart – put it aside for an hour when it’s in solved position, come back and what?? You’ve forgot how you took it apart? Yeah. That happens a lot, and it’s part of the fun.
Wait. What is the difference between Assembly and Take-Apart puzzles, if you assemble both puzzles? To keep things simple – ask yourselves – What is the challenge of the puzzle? Is it the assembly, or taking it apart? – If it’s only the assembly then it’s an Assembly puzzle. If it’s taking the puzzle apart, ot both – It’s a Take-Apart puzzle.
This category is overflowing with sub categories.
For starters – Hanayama’s Cast series are amazing, and provide a lot of puzzle-value for their price.
(By the way, the puzzle in the picture is Hanayama’s Cast Donuts)
Maze Puzzles
Cool and Fun Until You Lose Yourself
In Maze puzzles, your goal is to navigate your way outside a maze. Everyone knows mazes! Some of us even had them in child’s magazines.
But being popular does not mean being easy. When we start looking in the direction of a 3D maze, we immediately know that things are getting complicated fast.
In the picture you see a puzzle named Inside3. Inside3 is a cube with numerous layers of a maze, in which a small ball bearing travels. The challenge – when you move the bearing from it’s starting position – it disappears from sight! You must navigate the ball to the end of the maze, using gravity, and there you can see it again.
What’s nice about mazes is that they many times include more features than only being a maze. In this example, the imagination you need to find your ball mentally in the Inside3. There are also mazes that require dexterity or even writing a map to just understand what’s happening inside.
Impossible Objects
“Why is This Possible?”
The last category I’ll tell you about today is pretty amusing – Impossible Objects. These are real objects that have no logic whatsoever and seem like they do not belong to this world. A normal person who sees such objects would usually say – “How can this even exist”.
These puzzles can be solvable, or unsolvable. There are impossible objects that can be taken apart, and there are some that are meant to confuse your friends.
Just imagine a person coming into your room or office, seeing thr bottle in the picture. The poor guy won’t know what kind of sorcery you conjured to make it.
Impossible Objects are very creative, logic-bending puzzles. It’s a small category, but so unique that it deserves to be a main type.
Recap
So far we’ve learned about 4 of the different puzzle types: Put-Together, Take-Apart, Mazes and Impossible Objects. Each of these types have even more sub-types, like Puzzles Boxes, Locks, Disentanglement, Packing Puzzles – there is no end to the creative ways puzzles challenge your brain.
In part 2, we’ll talk about the 3 remaining puzzle types, and a special attribute puzzles have that makes them absolutely adored in the puzzle community.
See you in part 2!