Pelikan spring release - coming 17th April 2pm CEST I do apologise to all of you and especially to Jakub and team about spreading the reviews over 2 weekends! I was just too busy to work on all 6 in one week and have any chance at all of solving and understanding them. It did not change Jakub's intended release date but has inconvenienced him by being late getting my reviews for him. Today I finish off the final 3 and they are something else in terms of complexity and difficulty. They are also very beautiful! Euklid for Bernhard Euklid for Bernhard - simply gorgeous This f ..read more

Pelikan offering for April Hello again everyone! I'm a bit behind with my puzzling this week - it's been a bit hectic and I have had to do extra work to cover sickness and other "stuff" at work. I was hoping to have all the reviews for the latest offering from Jakub, Jaroslav and team all done in a week but I will have to split it up into two posts. We have some terrific challenges on offer here: From the back left: Euclid for Bernhard by Dr Volker Latussek Stefka-flop from Dr Volker Latussek SISU by Benjamin Heidt YLEM by Benjamin Heidt Airlock by Pit Khiam Goh Xmas Stocking by Osan ..read more

And He Is Right Yet Again! MiBinity 1 A collaboration between Michel van Ipenburg and Jack Krijnen Quite a long time ago, Michel sent out an email to a group of his friends telling us all that he has been working with Jack to create something that anyone with an interest in N-ary puzzles would be delighted to own: "would we like to buy a copy for our collections?" I think that about a nano-second went by before I emailed back to say that I was in! As you know, I have a bit of an addiction to N-ary puzzles (I still need to order some of the latest ones from Stephan Baumegger but ..read more

Clutch 1 by Girish Sharma When Brian Menold offers new puzzles then I jump at the chance and place an order. Now, I am sure that a whole lot of you will be about to say that the Clutch 1 puzzle is NOT a new puzzle and you would be absolutely right in shouting that at me. I noticed way back in 2022 that the Clutch 1 was the winner of a Jury Honourable Mention award in the IPP design competition. I took note that it looked like Brian's beautiful work and then promptly forgot about it. Shortly after that Brian began to offer it up for sale and I was either busy or ill or away or somethin ..read more

The CubeTwist Bandage Cube Set Incredible value for money Yes the 3x3 cube in the photo does look very easy - no stickers or tiles and all black. Even a 3 year old could solve that but above it in my nice little organiser is a complete set of tiles for it in all the usual colours. It includes tiles that are 1x2, 2x2, 2x2 and 2x3 cubies in size. The whole point is to make a bandaged cube of your choice. I mentioned this puzzle many many years ago and feel that it is worth showing it off again because there is now something available for you all to help you with solving it and finding ..read more

Oleg's Wardrobe from DEDwood Crafts A few months ago Dee Dixon notified the world of the next puzzle in his never ending series of sequential discovery puzzles and I duly placed the release date in my task manager app with a reminder to go online on the dot of the release time and be ready with my credit card. I was very lucky to be quick enough and complete my purchase because all 65 copies went in under 5 minutes! My goodness the market for these has gone through the roof. Luckily for all of you who missed out, there will be another batch of 50 being released within a few weeks. Bel ..read more

Brass Monkey Sixential Discovery Puzzle (aka BM6) AT LAST! I have absolutely adored the Brass Monkey burr series (which are not burrs) - I have reviewed them (along with a whole bunch of their other releases) over the last few years and some have been awkward to solve whilst others have made me laugh out loud as I did silly things to solve them. This one, the last in the series, made me frustrated, made me laugh and made me gasp in disbelief. It has taken me weeks and weeks to solve!  I am delighted to be able to show this one off on the same week that my pageview count to ..read more

Icosaminx with my own colour scheme Don't they look great? This is a fabulous puzzle - both in looks and in solving but I am writing about it with a heavy heart...I had not actually intended to write about it this weekend. I have to admit (yet again) that I'm not terribly bright! I have spent weeks on my solving odyssey of the Brass Monkey Sixential Discovery puzzle and really thought that I had it beaten (it took me 3 weeks to find the first step!) and whilst uploading my photos and looking at what I had done and the pieces I had found (OMG there are so many pieces!), I had ..read more

Soon to be released by Pelikan At  the beginning of the week before last I took delivery of a VERY large box from Jakub and Jaroslav containing 7 puzzles and a request to have reviews as quickly as possible. I am just human and with my simple brain cannot possibly solve all of these in that short time (especially when you realise that there are hundreds of challenges here and some are really very difficult indeed. Here we have: Back row:     Matchbox Playground - an extension of Oskar's original design by Péter Gál Middle row:     Filling V by Dr Volker ..read more

Total Eclipse from PuzzleMaster I have had the Total Eclipse puzzle sitting on my desk next to me in my, ahem, "backlog of puzzles to solve" for an embarrassingly long period of time. It has been there for over a year! First it was unsolved because I was too busy, then it remained unsolved because I couldn't work it out, then it got, BLUSH, buried in other puzzles to be solved and finally unsolved because I kept going round and round in circles. Yes, I am not very bright and I often use the Einstein's madness approach of doing the same thing over and over again until something chang ..read more