C’est Ludique – Minima Ludique

 

J’aime la série de puzzles Minima.  Chaque casse-tête est un petit défi et ludique, surtout le puzzle du jour – Minima Ludique.

Minima Ludique was designed by Frederic Boucher and made by Nothing Yet Designs.  The puzzle consists of 4 Wenge and Mahogany V shaped pieces that have to be packed within a holey frosted acrylic box.  The packaging for the puzzle is well-thought out and holds the box with 3 pieces trivially packed inside with enough space leftover to place the 4th piece on top of the box.

Apparently you don’t have to worry about the apparentness of this puzzle.  It goes without saying that this puzzle is an apparent rectangular parallelepiped since the 4 pieces are comprised of 12 cubes that have to be packed into a 12 voxel space.  This lets you know that the last piece will simply slide in through the only 2 voxel opening in 1 move.  All you have to do is find out how to pack the other 3 Vs in preparation.

And therein lies the dilemma.  Getting those first 3 pieces into position takes a bit of thinking.  There are 2 tricky moves involved.  The first wants to happen and will pull you along with it.  The second will be less obvious and will attempt to resist you.  However, once you’ve accomplished it, it’s all over.

A few weeks after solving it, I looked at it and decided to put it back in an unsolved state.  Unfortunately, after the first piece dropped out, I couldn’t immediately determine how to release the other 3.  It’s not as if there are a lot of moves that you can make.  And then I saw it.  As during the initial solve, the key move doesn’t lend itself to being easily discovered.

Minima Ludique is a fun puzzle with some replayability for guys like me with no memory capacity.  Maybe I should design a Minima puzzle with lots of holes in the box – Minima Cerveau anyone?