Craftsman: Eureka
Designer: Marcel Gillen

Long overdue post but here it is 1 month late =)

The same size as the King but with a slightly different solution. The Queen also harbors a secret, and in this case… a girls best friend.

King And Queen

Craftsman: Eureka
Designer: Marcel Gillen

Long overdue post but here it is 1 month late =)

Designed by Marcel Gillen in 2002 and reproduced by Eureka.

A fairly large piece about 15cm (~6 inches) tall. Not a very difficult puzzle but different.

All Kings has a Queen by their side, and she is a wee bit more difficult to find, but available here.

Can you find the hidden coin?

There were a lot of discussion about this new puzzle from sonicwarp in different forums.

The guys at the forum hadn’t solved it right away (or at least didn’t announce it before I ordered one), so it couldn’t be too easy anyway, so I figured why not give this one a try.

It’s priced a lot less then their regular range (Isis & Ramisis) so I got one from Puzzle Box Direct .

It arrived today so I was keen on getting my hands on it. Apparently getting it out of the box was accordingly to sonicwarp supposed to be a small puzzle itself. Its Not =)

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

One of the first thing that is going to hit you is the size. It’s about 4cm / 1.6 inches in diameter. In the comparison picture below you can see some references:
1 Euro, a Canadian “twoonie” (2CAD) and a Casino chip sitting on a dollar bill.

I had no problem solving this one, it took only a few minutes actually. Not because I’m all that smart, rather some dumb luck was involved. Even though, I solved it and could take a good look at the internals, it ain’t breeze to repeat the feat.

Kuku size reference

Apparently there seems to exists two versions of the Kuku. Medium and Hard, and unless you ask for the hard one they will ship the medium. (I didn’t know this before I had ordered mine) As far as I know there is no way of telling the two apart on the outside.
This is not something I have verified so if you got more details regarding this please let me know.

However once you have opened your kuku there are tells, that indicate that it can be made harder.

The Kuku itself is made of brushed aluminum and displays very nicely in it’s acrylic case.

As far as value for money I’m a bit torn, since the initial playtime was kind of short… though there is replay value and (maybe) the possibility to modify the difficulty once you open it. However if you are good at decrypting you could easily get your moneys worth IF you manage to solve the vault game that the token inside the kuku gives you access to. Demo of the vault game can be found here.

Edit: I have confirmed that it’s possible to make a medium puzzle into a hard one. The reason why they shipped “mediums” was because they didn’t want to make the initial kuku deliveries impossible to solve. I haven’t tried the “upgrade” yet, but it’s supposed to be much harder then the regular/medium. I know that some pretty good puzzlers out there has been stuck on their hard version for over an week now.
So I’m toning down my conclusion a bit. =) Will update you on how the hard works out for me once I get started.

Conclusion: Get the hard version and nothing else if you are an experienced puzzler.

[[Visit blog to check out this spoiler]]

Garden-Hose-(Gartenschlauch)-by-Roger

Craftsman: Roger
Designer: Roger

Here is another one of “Roger’s” contraptions, about the same size as the plug (stecker). It also shares a few other elements with stecker other then it’s size. It has a real piece of gardenhose attached and no visible clue how to solve it.

The nozzle is made from two solid pieces of aluminum, of which the front can be rotated. The second piece of the nozzle has a small ball bearing on top of it. One would expect it to be spring loaded, but it want move.

CloseUp Nozzle

The front of the nozzle has a hole where one can see a part of something that looks like the business end of a bolt.

CloseUp Nozzle2

My guess on the goal here is that the front nozzle should be detached.

Alcyl by Hirokazu Iwasawa

Designer: Hirokazu Iwasawa
Found at: Eureka

I have not been able to open this one yet. One can hear that there is something loose inside (like a nut), and it moves almost completely free with a few exceptions. There are no direct indications on where this puzzle should open.

More info can be found on Jeff’s blog

Lighthouse-by-Eureka

Found at: Eureka
Hoffman

A clever little puzzle, quite easy but mainly due to some quality issues.

Karakuri-Small-Box-#8-(KK-8)-by-Karakuri-Creation-Group

Craftsman: Karakuri Creation Group
Designer: Karakuri Creation Group

This box requires some multitasking skill to open. Not as good as the previous two though.

More reviews on Karakuri small box series (1-8 as of now) can be found at Jeff’s and Brian’s blog

Karakuri-Small-Box-#2-(KK-2-4)-by-Karakuri-Creation-Group

Craftsman: Karakuri Creation Group
Designer: Karakuri Creation Group

Great box from Karakuri small box series.
A longer review =) can be found on Brian’s and Jeff’s blog

Karakuri-Small-Box-#7-(KK-7)-by-Karakuri-Creation-Group

Craftsman: Karakuri Creation Group
Designer: Karakuri Creation Group

Great little puzzle box, doesn’t give away to much on how to open it.
A longer review =) can be found on Brian’s and Jeff’s blog