Paradigm Puzzles - Interlace Square
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(Click to Enlarge)
I don't know why, but I love laser-cut puzzles. Maybe it's because of their precision cut lines and beauty of the small pieces, which is harder to achieve with other types of puzzles. My latest acquisition deservedly falls into this category.
The Paradigm Puzzles are a really nice small collection of six wooden Packing Puzzles by Family Games America and designed by William Waite. They are beautifully laser-cut into these intricate patterns and vary in difficulty. The one I have, Interlace Square is based on an Arabic pattern and it's the hardest of the six (classified as 9/10).
The puzzle comes with its own 10.8 x 10.8 cm (4.25") tray with 13 pieces, all different from each other. This adds an extra degree of difficulty, as you can't separate them into similar groups. Even though it's hard to solve, there are numerous possible solutions. Finding one may be the trickiest part, though...
I suggest that you spend a couple of minutes just to study the puzzle in its solved state, before dumping the pieces on the table. When you first attempt to solve the puzzle, it's hard to visualize the whole pattern, so that's why it's better to know how the puzzle looks like when solved. You do have a picture of the puzzle, engraved on the back of the tray, but this becomes hard to look at when you're putting the pieces and attempt to flip it.
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There's a few tips you can use to solve the Interlace Square:
- One of them is that each piece appears to be usable on both sides, but that's actually not true. Only the front side of a piece is valid, because the backside doesn't have the lines of the pattern engraved on it, so that's half of the possibilities cut down.
(Click to Enlarge) - Left Pic: Front - Correct Side; Right Pic: Backside
- Another small detail on the pieces that you can take advantage is the natural lines on the wood, which are well defined straight lines and will help you figure out the correct orientation, which will be just two instead of four. If you're stuck and want to find and easier solution, you can disregard this.
The puzzle took me a good 40-45 minutes to solve. Placing the first piece was the hardest part, but after that, you begin to understand how the pieces connect to each other and the rest will follow in no time. I had to solve it a second time later, after I took the pieces again to take pictures and this time around, it was much faster at about 10 minutes. Not bad for a second try...
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Closing Comments:
The Interlace Square is not only a beautiful puzzle to look at, but a good challenge as well. The complex lines on the pattern are what makes it so difficult and at the same time, really fun to solve. Recommended for the Packing type enthusiasts.
The Paradigm Collection can be found at SeriousPuzzles.com for a reasonable $14.95 USD.
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3 comments:
Hmmmm, I bought this same puzzle from SeriousPuzzles.com and just received it yesterday. The back of the puzzle does NOT have a picture of the puzzles engraved on the back of the tray. That is actually why I ended up on this website; I ended up dumping out the pieces while opening the package and had no idea what the finished puzzle was supposed to look like.
Perhaps you bought an earlier version of the puzzle. It would be REALLY NICE if the one I bought had a picture of the finished puzzle on the back of it.
Where can I buy this for my mom she completed the Celtic one
Hi, I believe you can get them from the designer's website: https://puzzlemist.com/store/
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