Nothing Yet Designs Release: 13 January 2025, 12:00 PM EST

The first puzzle release of the year from Nothing Yet Designs (NYD) will be this coming Monday, 13 January 2025 at 12:00 PM EST.  Don’t forget to put it on your calendar and set your alarm.

Recently, I received a box full of puzzle goodness from NYD with the puzzles for the upcoming release.  They all came nicely wrapped with NYD’s signature packaging that is now easily recognized in the puzzle community.  The release consists of a variety of puzzle types that I’ve had the pleasure to play with for several days.  And now it’s time to share these puzzles with you

Artefacts – Frederic Boucher

It all started a decade ago.  A puzzle designer named Frederic Boucher submitted a puzzle called Artefacts to the Nob Yoshigahara Puzzle Design Competition at the 35th International Puzzle Party (IPP) where it won ... nothing!  However, a clever craftsman with a keen eye for great puzzle designs by the name of Eric Fuller (Cubic Dissection) recognized the brilliance of this puzzle and made a run of less than 50 the following year.  You can find the blog on it here – Digging Through Puzzles – Artefacts.  Cubic Dissection (CD) was planning to make another run in 2020 but it never came to pass.

The CD version had a single frame with 4 challenges – pack the pieces in the frame with the peg lying on its side (3 solutions) and pack the pieces in the frame with the peg standing up in the round recess at the bottom of the frame (unique solution).

Frederic Boucher modified the design for his exchange puzzle at IPP39 by flattening the pieces and making the packing frame double-sided.  The first side supported the original packing problem with the standing peg changed to a fixed disk mounted in the frame.  Since the pieces were flattened and the disk permanently attached, the other 3 packing problems were lost.  However, the reverse side had a different frame where the objective is to pack four of the pieces flat in the frame and you had to determine which piece needed to be left out.  

Fast forward to now when NYD is bringing Artefacts back in all it’s glory.  It has a double sided frame with the original 4 challenges on one side and the additional challenge on the other.  The double sided frame is made from acrylic with a nice matte finish with the name of the puzzle and the logos for NYD and Frederic Boucher debossed on one side.  The 5 pieces are nicely made from exotic hardwoods.  And the peg is no longer just a peg but a totem peg.  It looks awesome with a different face on each hemisphere depending on your mood.

There is a lot of puzzling packed in Artefacts with 5 challenges.  The pieces fit nicely in the frame within the frame and are nice and snug for the challenge where the totem peg is standing since the frame is specifically sized for this packing challenge.  Although the pieces are not loose in this solved configuration, you’re not permitted to tilt the totem piece in its resting place.  I’m soooo tempted to give you a hint.  Just a wee tiny piece of advice.  But nope, can’t do it.  Good luck!

Comparing all versions, it’s apparent that it’s all about the peg.  Frederic squashed it, CD weaponized it, and NYD made it art.  Those artistic touches are what I really like about NYD’s puzzles.  The decision to make a totem out of the peg to align with the theme of the puzzle is awesome.  And they made it out of 3D printed it out of Rosewood wood filament to keep the aesthetic.

Minima XIII – Frederic Boucher

Who knew that a 2x2x3 packing format could be so fruitful?  The Minima series of puzzles by Frederic Boucher and other guest contributors has put any doubt to rest.  This series continues to supply many awesome puzzles with no end in sight.

NYD has produced many puzzles of the Minima series and is now making lucky number XIII available.  The first thing you notice about Minima XIII is that it’s 3D printed.  The second thing you notice is the reason for the first thing.  Not all of the cubes are cubic.  3 of the 4 pieces have a cube with an angled cut.  And to continue the discovery process, you will notice that the Z piece has a dot on one end to match the box.

Minima XIII was designed by Frederic Boucher and made with a sparkly dark gray box and red pieces.  It should be noted that the box is very nicely made and printed as a single piece.  To complete the color scheme, the name of the puzzle is highlighted in red on the box and the dot on the Z piece uses the sparkly dark gray.  The pieces move very nicely within the box even though you may be tempted to wonder if a little force is warranted.  It’s not.  Don’t be tempted.

The object of Minima XIII is to pack the 4 pieces in the box.  Oh, and you have to ensure that the little dot on the Z piece is not visible in the packed configuration.  This helps you know where that particular piece needs to be placed.  It can be viewed as either a gimme or more appropriately as a gotcha since packing the pieces with the dot showing is trivial.  You can even store the pieces that way when you are done.

Since this particular Minima puzzle had a 4-cube piece, I placed it in the box first and started to work out ways that the other pieces could be added.  And then I remembered that 3 of the pieces had malformed cubes that must serve some kind of purpose.  Thought I had it – nope.  Thought I had it again – nope.  This is the time where you need to refrain from the temptation to force a move and rethink.  During one of these sessions where I was doubting my underlying assumptions, I discovered that one of those assumptions was indeed wrong and that the misshapen cubes had opened up another path.  Once that hurdle was cleared, the function of all the misshapen cubes eventually (note I didn’t say immediately) became apparent and with some fiddling, Minima XIII was packed.  Awesome!

Frederic Boucher is puzzle wizard being able to create so many of these amazing packing puzzles.  If you enjoy 3D packing challenges, don’t miss getting this one.  And if you’ve been collecting the Minima Series puzzles, you certainly won’t want to skip this one.

Ace of Diamonds – László Molnár

In 2020 László Molnár entered a 2D packing puzzle called 10 of Diamonds in the 2020 IPP Nob Yoshigahara Design Competition where it was in the top-10 in voting for the Puzzlers' Award.  It was also used by Gergő Prémecz as his exchange puzzle at IPP40.  The goal was to pack 10 diamonds, 5 pairs of 2 conjoined diamonds into one of the 2D frames on each side of the puzzle.  Although the original competition copies where made in wood, later copies utilized more colorful acrylic with a white frame and red diamonds.

László’s new puzzle, Ace of Diamonds, follows suit with another diamond level challenge.  It ups the ante by being a restricted 2D packing puzzle with the goal to make a red diamond on a white background.  Not only do you have to find a configuration for the pieces to fit in the tray, but you need to determine how to add them through the restricted opening.  And with 68 possible piece configurations, you not only have an issue finding one but finding THE one and recognizing that it is THE one is a bit more of a challenge.  That’s what makes the puzzle interesting.  I don’t recommend that you try to find solve this puzzle by finding and trying all 68 possible configurations.

Ace of Diamonds is made from laser-cut acrylic.  The frame is white with a clear acrylic top providing visibility as pieces are moved inside.  The name of the puzzle, designer, and NYD logo are provided around the border in red on the underside of the clear top, which really stands out especially after the puzzle is solved and there is a nice red diamond in the center.  Of course that red diamond is composed of 7 red pieces that need to enter the restricted opening in the top and moved into their correct position.  Initially, I thought that they pieces were made from triangles but silly me, they’re diamonds and half diamonds.  

As with many puzzles, Ace of Diamonds looks daunting upon initial inspection.  This initial phase is when your brain is trying to find a handhold to start the climb to the solution.  I’m here to confirm that such handholds exist and there is a route to ace this challenge. I found that applying a little thought morphed the solving process from an endless lets try every combination process to more of a where does the next piece go approach.  This approach starts with identifying the location of a couple of key pieces and the rest start to fall into place from there.  Finding and exploiting those opportunities are what makes puzzling fun and interesting.

I usually work on these types of puzzles with the pieces outside and when I think I have a solution, test it with the frame using the sequence of insert, rotate, move, tilt operations to get everything in place.  Everything worked great with Ace of Diamonds without any binding of pieces but if you find yourself in trouble, you can always remove the fasteners and take the top off.  Just make sure you don’t loose the spacers between the top and the rest of the frame that permit the pieces to move freely.

I really enjoyed solving Ace of Diamonds and found 2 solutions.  So there’s a double challenge for you.  I’m looking forward to seeing what’s in the cards for the future!

Blast-Hedron 4 & Blast-Hedron 6 – Nan Ma

These puzzles are a blast, figuratively, no literally, maybe a bit of both.  These are both a take-apart and a put-together challenge.  The AHA moment for solving this puzzle is awesome – if you know, you know, if you don’t, you don’t but you’ll love it when you do.  If you’re not in the know, you’re pretty much obligated to get at least one of these to join the knowers.  I used the term solving casually above since you’re only half-way there after you take it apart.  The second AHA (pronounced Uh-Oh this time) moment comes in play when you realize that you have to reassemble it.

I originally thought that the numbers in the names were associated with their placement in a series but quickly realized that it identifies the number of pieces in each puzzle.  BH4 is a regular octahedron, although it is rather special here, consisting of 4 pieces and BH6 is a truncated octahedron consisting of 6 pieces.  The pieces within each set are identical and remind me of flowers.  My wife said that it’s OK to leave those pieces laying on the living room table.  That’s one way to solve the reassembly problem.

Of course the elegant disassembly process does not require any external tools and I was specifically warned that this included fingernails.  So I dutifully cut my nails before taking these apart the correct way, AHA!

Assembly takes a little dexterity, but I didn’t really have an issue with either although BH4 is a little easier with only 4 pieces.  Both puzzles are 3D printed and operate exceptionally well.  Between the design and the implementation, I was impressed how impossible it seems to take them apart.  I believe that one of the contributing factors to how well it operates and feels is the addition of the extra inner shell.  And it certainly adds to the how nice the pieces look.  For the versions that I received, BM4 uses vibrant contrasting colors and BM6 uses color changing filament.  I think they both look fantastic and I still can’t decide which one I like best.

Even if you know you know, you may want to consider picking these up.  They’re really good!

2025 Puzzle – George Sicherman

I always start the year with a George Sicherman puzzle.  George has provided a New Year Puzzle since 2017.  This year’s New Year’s challenge utilizes 4 pentominoes to make a rectangle.  The pentominoes are P,L,T, and Y and together they provide PLenTY of challenges – 4 to be exact.  Each challenge is to build a rectangle with a specific number of holes in the interior of the rectangle.  0 holes, 1 hole, 2 holes, and 3 holes.  The holes can be any shape and separate holes may have touching corners.  And yes, you can turn the P, L, and Y pieces over to use their mirrored forms.  You can think of them as being 2-PLY.

Although not difficult, this puzzle provided a nice warm-up to a year full of puzzling.  It’s amazing how 4 simple pieces can be so engaging.  What surprised me most is that I solved them in order, 0 to 3 holes.  I assumed that after the solid rectangle, I would stumble on the others randomly but that was not the case.  It makes a nice to carry around in your pocket for challenging others.

New Tiles –  Frederic Boucher

There’s no getting around it.  New Tiles is a scary looking 2D packing puzzle.  Simple looking frame, simple looking pieces, exudes a sense of easy victory – all signs of a great challenge to a veteran puzzler, especially from a designer like Frederic Boucher.

Frederic Boucher originally designed New Tiles in 2016 but ramped up the difficulty for NYD’s release in 2021.  Comments from solvers on the MPD indicated that Frederic had successfully increased the challenge.  NYD is now releasing another run for those who may have missed out on the first one.

New Tiles has a classy look with it’s black and white motif.  It is made with laser cut acrylic with white pieces on a black tray with matte finish.  The name and logos debossed on the tray are highlighted in white to match the pieces.  The 9 pieces are rectangles of various sizes with 2 opposing corners chipped off to make the packing easier – Bwahahaha!

I was able to spend a little time working on New Tiles but can’t tell you how I solved it since I haven’t.  I can attest to the fact that Frederic has certainly made it challenging.  I’m looking forward to solving this one and will let you know when that happens.

Muñiz Bundle – Alexandre Muñiz

It’s simple math: 2, 2D packing trays + 4 sets of piece = 10 challenges.  How are they? –  They’re great!  How are they to solve? – Haven’t solved a single one.  Zip.  Well mostly zip.  I did get one of the warm-ups before the challenges.  Maybe it was a mistake to save these for last.

The Muñiz Bundle is made from laser-cut acrylic.  Each of the two 2D packing trays are white and support 2 different sets of pieces with the debossed names on the tray color-coordinated with with the pieces.  The smaller tray fits nicely in the larger one and each set of pieces comes in it’s own bag.  Each set of pieces also has an instruction card with the directions for the challenges.  The 4 sets are:

• Slash Mob
• Little Pypsum
• Big Pypsum
• Symmetrominoes

Slash Mob

Slash Mob consists of 8 red pieces that need to be packed in the smaller tray.  These 8 pieces are divided in half to provide 4 unmarked larger pieces and 4 smaller pieces marked with daggers.  All the pieces have angled cutouts in them that are addressed in the challenges.  They are also all cut off at an angle on one end through the cutout leaving one half of the cutout where the cut is.  For all the challenges the daggers must be face up.  The direction that they point in is not important.

Each of the challenges requires the configuration of the pieces within the frame to meet a symmetry constraint.  They are 1 – reflection symmetry along the vertical axis, 2 – reflection symmetry along a diagonal, 3 – 180 degree rotational symmetry.

 

Little Pypsum

Little Pypsum uses the same tray as Slash Mob.  You just need to rotate it 180 degrees.  It consists of 6 purple pieces divided into 4 L triominoes and 2 dominoes.  Each square of the pieces also has 0, 1, or 2 pips.  There are 2 challenges: 1 – pack the pieces so that each row and column has 3 pips, and 2 – pack all the pieces so that each row, column, and main diagonal has 3 pips.  Of course successfully completing the second challenge also completes the first.

 

Big Pypsum

Big Pypsum is the big brother of Little Pypsum and uses the larger tray.  It consists of 9 dark blue pieces with 4 L triominoes, 4 straights, and a single square.  Each cube of the pieces also has 0, 1, or 2 pips.  It works exactly like Little Pypsum except everything has to sum to 5.  So the challenges are now: 1 – pack the pieces so that each row and column has 5 pips, and 2 – pack all the pieces so that each row, column, and main diagonal has 5 pips.  And again, successfully completing the second challenge, completes the first.

Symmetrominoes

Symmetrominoes uses the same frame as Big Pypsum.  It consists of 12 pieces in 3 different colors with 4 pieces each, which are made from blue, green, and orange transparent acrylic.  Each set has 2 L and 2 Straight pieces.  No wait, The orange set is malconfigured with 3 L’s and 1 Straight.  Each piece also has laser-cut markings that are used to support the challenges.  These markings restrict how you can place a piece in the tray by requiring that all pieces of the same color have all their markings in the same orientation.  The markings are configured such that blue pieces can be rotated 180 degrees, green pieces can be flipped over but then need to be rotated 180 degrees to align the markings, and orange pieces can be flipped over but then need to be rotated 90 degrees to align the markings.

Symmetrominoes comes with a warm-up in addition to 3 challenges.  Normally I scoff at warm-ups but decided to try it anyway.  The warm-up was to simply pack the pieces in the frame ignoring colors and markings.  Did I mentioned that there was a malformed set resulting in an odd number of L’s and Straights.  After several minutes of being scoffed at by this warm-up, I finally had them all in the frame.  Whew!  At the conclusion of this grand success I was out of time and had to start thinking about putting out a blog.

The 3 main challenges for Symmetrominoes are: 1 –  Place all the pieces in the tray with the markings of the pieces of each set in the same orientation, 2 – Same as 1 with the pieces of each set forming a connected group, and 3 – Same as 1 with no 2 pieces of a set touching along an edge.

Although I didn’t get very far in solving the Muñiz Bundle challenges, I definitely think that they are well thought out and made.  There is a lot of value in this 10 challenge bundle and I’m looking forward to a deeper dive after this blog goes out.  These seem like they will be serious challenges.