Brainwright has been issuing lots of great puzzles lately. I commend their creative department for discovering and bringing these magnificent puzzles to the masses, which otherwise could remain unknown for many of us. Fortunately for me, I already know about Kate Jones' work and her fantastic contributions to the puzzle community over the last few decades. First produced by Kadon Enterprises, the Iamond Hex puzzle is now reissued with a new look, more affordable, but all that made it a great puzzle is still present in all its glory.

Made with 12 dissimilar acrylic pieces in three colors (yellow, red and blue), the Iamond Hex  puzzle features all kinds of shapes made possible by joining six equilateral triangles at different angles (hence the name Hex). No two pieces are the same and they all interact with each other in different ways. This makes the puzzle quite versatile, so you can create countless patterns and figures beyond the main puzzle featured in the provided tray.

There are many solutions for the main petal-shaped puzzle. By mixing and combining the colors in different patterns, you can find a total of 55 solutions, some of which are very difficult to solve, like getting all three colors grouped. Kate Jones' puzzles are always a joy to play with, because of their many solutions and possible shapes you can create with the puzzle's given pieces - They give you a lot of bang for your buck, and are worth every penny.

The Iamond Hex comes packed with lots of challenges, like symmetrical shapes and other interesting puzzles using only some of the pieces. For example, with just four pieces you can create double-sized models of each of the 12 hexiamonds. Which pieces to use will of course be up to you to find out. An even more difficult challenge is to make a tripled model of 9 of the hexiamonds, since three of them are not possible. Doing all of them will certainly keep you busy for a while, if you don't give up by then.

The most interesting challenges, however, are the symmetrical shapes you can create out of the tray. There are hundreds of possibilities to discover, and included in the booklet are 15 for you to solve. Be warned, though, these are very difficult, because you won't have the tray to guide you by limiting the edges of your puzzles. This is why the symmetrical shapes are so challenging, but also so addicting.

Finally, if you like to play strategy games, you can play a couple of them, included in the booklet. Rules and explanation of the games are easy to understand, so anyone will be able to enjoy playing with friends.

Closing Comments:

Whether you like to play solo or with someone, you can be certain that you will thoroughly enjoy Brainwright's Iamond Hex. There are hundreds of challenges and solutions here to make any puzzle fan happy for a while, and for under $20, it's difficult to find a better choice to occupy your free time in the next few weeks.

Availability: I got my copy of the Iamond Hex puzzle from PuzzleMaster, which is available for just $16.99. Check out many other interesting puzzles from Brainwright.

Links:

Brainwright's official Website

Kadon Enterprises Official Website

Puzumi is a new website, owned by German Calas, and is the result of a close collaboration with Kate Jones, CEO of Kadon Enterprises, to re-brand their beloved acrylic puzzles towards a wider online market. I reckon you'll be hearing a lot from them in the near future...

The first puzzle from Puzumi I chose to review was the Roundominoes, designed by Kate Jones and created in 1986. This one is a perfect representation of the puzzles you'll see available at Puzumi: hundreds of addicting challenges to solve and many fun strategy games for 2 players. If the included challenge booklet is not enough for you, you can also create your own patterns with all, or just some, of its pieces.

Roundominoes is made from 28 laser-cut acrylic glass tiles in 7 different shapes. There's five different color patterns you can choose from when you order it. The pieces come neatly packed, in a near perfect symmetry, in a 14.5 x 14.5cm (5 3/4") scalloped-edge tray. Here, you can also choose from a black or white tray. As perfectly described by Kate Jones, the pieces have these strikingly beautiful jewel-like colors. Honestly, this is something very difficult to photograph and to make it justice. Only in person you can witness its true beauty.

Building patterns with the Roundominoes is not overly difficult in itself, although there are some pretty tough ones to try. The hardest part about them is to try and solve them with the best symmetrical pattern you can find, which most of the times is extremely difficult. Each of the included challenges always has dozens of possible solutions, but only a fraction of them show a more elegant arrangement. It's up to your patience level to settle with a valid solution or to go that extra mile and find that perfect solution.

To avoid a long and tedious review, I selected a few of the challenges you'll encounter in the included 15-page booklet. They will be more like a tease of what this fascinating little puzzle can do. All of the booklet content is enough to keep you occupied for months. Can't think of a better value for your money when it comes to packing puzzles...

Many of the Roundominoes challenges and the strategy games will only use some of the 28 pieces, and with the irregular-edged tray it can sometimes be a little difficult to know where exactly each piece goes. To help you this, a printed game grid was included to place in the bottom of the tray and show you the exact spots of the 49 circles. You can remove it after you finish a challenge for that extra shiny and transparent look. Below is an example of a strategy game where you use the singlerounds as tokens and take turns with another player to place one piece at a time in the board. The last player to fit a piece in the board wins a token and the first to reach four tokens wins.

Below are three examples of challenges that use less than a full set of pieces. The first, two 3x3 squares, can be achieved with only two types of pieces and a perfect symmetric pattern. The second, a wreath, a tad more difficult, uses a big part of the grid, but leaves empty spaces, which are quite tricky to visualize as you try to get the right pieces in place. I couldn't come up with a good symmetry for this one, but a better arrangement is most certainly possible. Finally, the third is a diagonal stripe. I thought it was best to photograph it with the tray in the diagonal to better showcase its nice symmetry.

Next, you can find examples of two letters from the alphabet, the G and the F - I wonder what these two stand for... They weren't so difficult to solve, but symmetry is hard to achieve with those letter shapes. You can solve any of the 26 alphabet letters and the ampersand, always with less than a full set.

(Click to Enlarge) - Lucky Number 7

Roundominoes, just like the two puzzles I already own from Kate, is among my absolute favorite puzzles in my collection. Having recently surpassed the 1000 puzzle mark, this only goes to show the real value of this magnificent puzzle. Now, with Puzumi, you can expect high quality puzzles at affordable prices, and if you don't already own one, you're missing out on some of the best looking puzzles you'll ever have the pleasure of playing with.

When it comes to puzzles like Roundominoes, I always like to say, your imagination is the limit. Acrylic puzzles never looked so amazing.

Availability: The Roundominoes is available at Puzumi in 5 different color patterns. For an additional challenge and more ways to build patterns, you can go for the Super Roundominoes, which packs four more different types of pieces. To browse other great puzzles from Puzumi, check out their online store.

One of the things that I most appreciate in a puzzle is having multiple challenges/solutions. It gives you something to keep enjoying the puzzle after you've solved it for the first time, expanding its lasting appeal. The Hexiamond, from Brilliant Puzzles, is a nice example of such puzzles.

I don't know much about its origin or who's the original designer, but given the simplicity of the form and concept of the puzzle, it's possible that more than one person came up with the idea independently. Kate Jones from Kadon Enterprises has designed a similar one that uses the exact same pieces (Iamond Hex), so  it's possible that the Hexiamond is based on Kate's design.

The Hexiamond puzzle is comprised of 12 dissimilar polyform pieces, with each one consisting of six equilateral triangles connected at different angles, for a total of 72 units. The puzzle comes already solved into one shape, but included in the instructions are twelve other shapes to try as well.

The design is a classic box and lid, measuring 13 x 13cm (5.12"), and all in hardwood, pieces included. The tray has the outline of the featured shape carved in, so it's easier to solve. The pieces have this distinct appearance, some with a darker tone than others, giving it a nice contrast between them.

The puzzle is rated with a difficulty level 3 out of 5, but the actual difficulty will vary from shape to shape, as some are tougher than others to solve. The easiest shape is probably the one carved in the tray, because you already have its contours defined. I have photographed three other shapes and the harder one to solve was the Fan (photo below).

The great thing about this puzzle is that the twelve pieces can make much more shapes than the ones provided in the instructions. You can attempt to create your own, or you can take a look at this website and explore the countless possibilities. Each shape has dozens, and in some cases, hundreds and even thousands of solutions. As you can see, there's more than one way to succeed. Can you find at least one solution for each shape?

Closing Comments:

The Hexiamond is definitely a fantastic puzzle with plenty of challenges to keep you busy for a while. When you've solved all 12+1 included shapes, you can always visit this website and keep playing. A simple complex, but as we all know, sometimes less is more.

Availability: The Hexiamond is available at Brilliant Puzzles for $12.95 USD.

Last month, I got my first puzzle from Kadon, the Trifolia - You can read its review here. Suffice it to say, I loved the puzzle so much that I immediately fell in love with their line of fantastic acrylic puzzles. A month later, I got my second Kadon puzzle, the Cubits, and to summarize it in one word - Brilliant!

To be more specific, the Cubits is a wonderful and fascinating puzzle which transforms ordinary 2D pieces into mesmerizing 3D shapes and patterns. Invented by Anneke Treep and Christian Freeling, the Cubits puzzle was first produced by Binary Arts (now known as ThinkFun since 2003) in 1994.

Back then, the puzzle was manufactured only in cardboard, which for a puzzle of this nature doesn't do it justice, at all. Now, thanks to Kate Jones, the puzzle returned in its full glory with a stunning acrylic set. The tiles are precision laser-cut with three different colors, handfitted and then inlaid to form 16 pieces in six different types. Along with the puzzle is also included a beautiful 21.6cm² (8.5") white tray, also in acrylic - It may not be noticeable in the pictures, but the acrylic used is so shiny and smooth, it's a joy to play with, and aesthetically speaking, it's like looking at a marvelous piece of art.

(Click to Enlarge) - All 16 Pieces w/ Correct Orientations

The 16 pieces, in groups of one, two and three, are formed of 39 rhombi at different angles, which provide a cascading of cubes and create the illusion of looking at a 3D object. Here, the three different colors play a very important role in making the illusion work. To do that, each color has to be placed at the exact same angle at all times. As you can see from my pictures, grey is always at the top, red at the left and blue at the right. However, the colors don't necessarily have to be in this orientation - You can choose other color configurations and the illusion will still work, as long as you account the same angle for each color. Unlike Trifolia's tiles, the Cubits' are not double-sided, so you can't flip them and change the orientation.

As with most of Kadon's puzzles, you get a comprehensive booklet with dozens of challenges to solve, ranging from beginner to expert. For the Cubits puzzle, the included booklet contains over 100 challenges divided into several categories. I will cover some of them with examples, but I won't be showing solutions for them, as I think it'll be much more satisfying to solve them on your own. The fun doesn't have to stop when you solve all the challenges, though. You can still create your own patterns and shapes with thousands of possible arrangements.

To exemplify how the pieces connect and form these beautiful patterns, take a look at the cube shape below and how the pieces are arranged. Next, see how a small change in the center piece completely alters the perspective.

(Click to Enlarge) - A slight adjustment and the perspective suddenly changes

Next, you can see some simple shapes that use only part of the 16 pieces. It's recommended to start with these before attempting to solve tougher challenges, to get a good feel for how the pieces are joined together in different ways.

One of the coolest things about the Cubits is building Impossible Objects. You might already be familiar with many of M.C. Escher's images that took advantage of this fascinating visual trick. Below are two of such examples.

(Click to Enlarge) - Impossible Objects

Another neat way of playing with the Cubits tiles is to form the letters of the alphabet or the numbers from 0 to 9. It's quite a difficult challenge and some letters are actually harder than others to solve. In this type of challenge, you have to use all 16 pieces to form 13 cubes. Below are the letters K-A-D-O-N, the puzzle's publisher and producer.

(Click to Enlarge)

These next examples need all but one piece, the single-cube tile or if you prefer, leave out the three single diamond pieces. Personally, I think it's easier to use the single diamonds and leave out the single-cube piece instead.

... And last, but not least, I leave you with an example of the Replications and duplications challenge. Here, you also need to omit the single-cube tile and use all the other pieces to form identical shapes. Most of them can be really tricky.

(Click to Enlarge)

There are a few more different challenges to attempt in the booklet with a couple of games for 2 or 3 players as well, but I think for now, you can get a pretty good idea of how versatile the Cubits can be. It's up to your own imagination and creativity what you can build.

Closing Comments:

The Cubits might be one of the coolest puzzles I've had the pleasure to play and write about, so far. From the outstanding flawless presentation to the extremely fun and engaging challenges, the Cubits is a puzzle that can be enjoyed by anyone passionate about puzzles.

While it may not be a cheap puzzle by any means, the Cubits is worth every single penny and more, for its 100+ challenges will keep you busy for weeks or even months to come. Definitely a puzzle to include in my next top 10, when I reach the 300th post... Unless I review 10 more out-of-this-world puzzles, which I highly doubt. Yes, it's that good.

Availability: The Cubits can be found only at Kadon's Gamepuzzles and you can purchase a copy for $55 (ships worldwide - not included in the price).

A Few Extra Shapes:

Trifolia is a wonderful edge-matching puzzle invented by Kate Jones and first published by Kadon Enterprises in 1990.

The puzzle has 24 laser-cut acrylic tiles in two contrasting colors, red and white, and they represent all possible edge type combinations, which is waves, straights, hills and valleys. Reminiscent of a M.C. Escher's painting, the puzzle is also mathematically related to another Kadon puzzle, the Multimatch III.

(Click to Enlarge) - The 24 Tiles

Beautifully presented in a black acrylic square tray, measuring 21.5cm in length (8.5"), the puzzle comes solved in a hexagon shape with a checkerboard color pattern. Within the hexagon shape, you have a staggering 2.3 million solutions. However, only a small fraction of that number allows for color symmetry solutions (see below photos for a couple of examples). From the many possible symmetrical solutions, one of the most obvious, half white/half red, is impossible to solve, as one of tiles has to be placed on the other color half. Even though there are plenty of hexagon solutions to keep you entertained for a while, the puzzle offers you many more challenges with other shapes. Another great feature is that it's also possible to play a few multiplayer games with the set. The rules for these are presented in the included booklet.

As you explore a plethora of interesting challenges in the booklet, you face different types of tasks with specific rules and requirements. The first of these are a set of regular shapes in which you need fewer tiles to solve. The given challenges are presented as a straight-edge shape with straight contours and the hard part is figuring out which ones you need and how the internal contours are organized. In these challenges, it's not required to solve them in a checkerboard color scheme, although some of them do have this possibility. Below, I show a couple of these shapes, one with 16 tiles and another with 22 tiles.

Another interesting challenge that takes advantage of the different types of contours is the "Pieces of eight". You are given several eight-tile symmetrical shapes, where it's possible to solve simultaneously, the same shape with three different contours (straights, hills and valleys). Contrary to what you may think, this is rather tricky to accomplish, even after you separate the types of contours. For example, the shape I selected to solve, a diamond, took in each contour shape, one single piece that didn't have any contour for that shape. In other words, the all straight edge diamond shape has in its interior one tile with two waves and a valley; the all hills edge shape has one tile with two waves and one straight; and the all valleys edge shape has one tile with three waves. You can see this better in the photo below.

(Click to Enlarge) - Diamond Shapes w/ Straights, Hills and Valleys

The next challenge that I've tried was also quite tough to solve, as getting the right tiles for each shape is harder than it looks. "Four of a kind" requires you to use all 24 tiles, except you'll be using them to build four shapes of six tiles each, simultaneously. The interesting part is that the shape you choose has to be the same in all four copies, but each with one of the four types of contours. The first obvious thing in this challenge is to separate the tiles that have the same three-edge contour, as they will belong in their respective group. The rest of the shape within each contour type can have tiles with one or two of the same contours. The booklet gives you three examples, but there are a total of 12 to discover. As seen below, I made the challenge for the hexagon shape.

(Click to Enlarge) - Four of a Kind

A variant of the "Pieces of eight" challenge, the "Double delights" is the hardest challenge I tried. You are given several shapes of 12 tiles to choose from. When you do, try to solve that shape with straight outside edges. The hard part comes next, when from the 24 tiles, 12 are for the same shape with hills around the perimeter and the other 12 are for valleys. These two have to be solved simultaneously. Below, you can see one of these shapes with the above requirements. Note that in the shapes with the valleys and hills, the inner borders have different contours from the outside ones. As I understood, only the outside borders are required to have hills or valleys.

And finally, the last main challenge. This one makes use of all 24 tiles, but the goal is to build different shapes, other than the hexagon. You are given figures with 14 unit edges of perimeter and many others with 16 unit edges. For reference, the hexagon has 12 unit edges of perimeter. Although these are quite hard to solve, I still think that the "Double delights" is the hardest challenge. Below, you can see one of such figures (14 unit edges).

(Click to Enlarge) - 14 Unit Edge Figure

Closing Comments:

If you like to explore puzzles mathematically or to discover new solutions, Trifolia is an excellent puzzle to do this. The figures you see in the booklet are not all the possible solvable ones. There are many more, and finding them out for yourself is part of the beauty in this puzzle.

I have truly enjoyed playing with Kate's Trifolia and solve its many challenges. I know I've only scratched the surface and that there are many more to solve. This is definitely a puzzle to have around and play continuously trying to find other solutions. One of the best puzzles I've reviewed this year.

Availability: Trifolia can be bought directly from the Kadon Enterprises website for $55 USD. You have a choice of bold colors (red/white) or mellow with see-through green and purple. I would love to see other color combinations, but that's probably depending on the available materials. Kadon Enterprises also has a wide selection of other great puzzles.

(Click to Enlarge) - Left: Checkerboard Pattern; Right: Random Solution