A Small Puzzle Can Still Be – Epic

EPIC is a 3D apparent-cube packing puzzle designed by Václav Obšivač from VIN&CO.  It is rated at a level of 5+, which is VIN&CO’s highest level of difficulty.  It consists of a box and 6 pieces that have to be packed in the box.  The 6 pieces are all identical - well almost identical.  Each piece consists of a square plank with a cube attached to a corner and one of the pieces has a misaligned cube.  I don’t know how this got past quality control.  Speaking of quality control, the box is far from being cubic and slants quite a bit in all directions.  In other words, it’s an oblate trigonal trapezohedron.

I’ve always been intrigued by the look of Epic and jumped when I had a chance to acquire one recently.  The skewed shape is what makes this puzzle interesting.  Although it shouldn’t, the shape has a tendency to throw your perspective off.  It’s a nice touch to a clever puzzle.

Since the puzzle arrived assembled, I quickly took it apart without paying attention to the details. As usual, I’m so successful at this that I need to start with determining what the solved configuration looks like.  And in this case, it’s not too difficult to determine what shape the apparent cube needs to be.

Each side of the box has a rectangular opening that allows pieces to added.  All that needs to be done is to determine how to construct an apparent cube and then feed the pieces through the openings into the box.  Once I got past the skewed perspective, I was able to quickly construct the apparent cube within the box albeit with my head cocked at an odd angle.  For a 5+ level puzzle, I found this one a pretty quick solve aside from the torticollis effect.  However, it’s well done and I’m glad I picked it up.