Off With Her Head! Part 2 - Skull

Not long ago, I reviewed Guillotine, which posed the threat: Off With Her Head!  This review picks up where that one left off and addresses the aftermath of the successful execution of that task. 


It’s frightening how many pieces there are to this crushed Skull - 48 in total.  It’s almost like a puzzle!  In the post on Puzzle Complexity, the number of pieces was offered as a potential indicator of difficulty.  However, a counter example of jigsaw puzzles was offered as a case where the level of difficulty may not increase exponentially with piece count.  This is the case with the Skull puzzle, where you can determine from examining the pieces that it is essentially a 3D jigsaw puzzle.  Not only is it a 3D jigsaw puzzle, but all the pieces are edge pieces.  Armed with this information, I figured that this would be a piece of cake and jumped right into the pile.  This is how all horror movies start - bright smiles and lot of optimism!


In no time at all, I had discovered the key piece.  This was largely accomplished by the fact that it had “KEY” stamped on it.  However, I was haunted by the thought that I didn’t know what to do with it as I was assembling the puzzle.  I failed to notice that the back of the box had “Skull Assembly Hints” that indicated exactly what needed to be done with the key piece.  My recommendation is to try to avoid the hint and discover it yourself.  You’ll certainly figure it out in less time than I did.


The fact that the pieces are clear with no drawings or patterns means that you are putting the pieces together by shape and being a skull, there are no easily recognizable ear, eye, or nose shapes to look for.  I also avoided looking at the picture on the box for any clues.  Yes, it was bit intimidating to find a starting point amongst all those ghostly pieces.  In the end, I ended up working from both ends and ended with sandwiching the 2 end assemblies together. Once I had the process underway, it was not that difficult to construct the Skull.


It should come as no surprise that the Skull has quite a bit of empty space between where the ears should be when fully assembled.  You could add something inside … like … maybe … a small battery and some LEDs and/or a little sound generator?  What would Chinny do? 


Skull is one of the Original 3D Crystal Puzzles from BePuzzled and has a difficulty rating of 2 out of 3.  It is available from Puzzle Master in black like I have or red.  Double check your order before buying or you may end up with something you didn’t expect like me when I tried to purchase a Puzzle Skill.

Happy Halloween and take some time to enjoy a spooky puzzle!