Say Hello to – Goodbye

Hello Goodbye!  

Yes, we could have wrapped up this blog entry right there but I felt compelled to add some other details.  Goodbye is a puzzle designed by Tomas Vanyo and made by NothingYetDesigns (NYD).  It’s made from laser cut acrylic with a bolt in each corner to keep it all together and includes a little wooden piece made from Cocobolo.  What really caught my attention was the matte black finish on the face with the white lettering.  It has such a clean look to it.  I also liked the clear mazes but they were a real challenge to photograph.  The little wooden piece was made for NYD by Nedeljko Woodworks.  It’s always nice to see these types of collaborations within the puzzle community.

The puzzle consists of two maze plates that move in opposite directions within a frame.  These maze plates are kept in the frame by the small wooden piece that traps the plates within the frame as well as being trapped itself by the plates.  The goal of the puzzle is to determine how to manipulate the pieces within the frame to remove them.  

Zig, zag, zig, zig, zag, zig, zag, zag … and 181 moves later, you can remove the trapped wooden piece.  It’s not very difficult and you are never in any danger of getting lost.  There is also an Aha moment to be enjoyed – no it’s not the fact that you can unscrew the fasteners to take it completely apart and reorganize it.  

If you want to continue exploring other possibilities with Goodbye, the maze plates can also be placed within the frame in other orientations.  The 181 move orientation that the puzzle arrives with is the maximum number of moves of all the plate combinations.

After the initial release, NYD posted a message on the Mechanical Puzzles Discord (MPD) server indicating that that the puzzle configuration was not optimum for displaying the puzzle after it was solved.  It turns out that the puzzle stands up nicely on the edge of the frame, but the engraved wording on the puzzle would be upside-down.  NYD indicated that this could be rectified by simply undoing the fasteners and rotating the engraved plate by 180 degrees.

I did rotate the faceplate of my copy of Goodbye and it does display nicely in that orientation.  Of course, puzzle orientation is a funny thing.  When you start working on a puzzle, you eventually establish what you consider is the orientation for the puzzle.  Someone else may have a completely different orientation from you and you might find it odd watching someone else solve it.  Since Goodbye comes with the name, designer, and maker on it, it provides a strong sense of which direction is up and which is down.  Having already established an orientation of the puzzle before switching the faceplate around, I continue to solve the puzzle in the same manor – now with the words upside-down.