Pieceless Puzzles

A Pieceless Puzzle looks very much like your standard jig-saw puzzle. A two-sided standard jig-saw puzzle. Made of some kind of rubbery, foamy stuff, the colorful puzzle is solved by fitting what you might think of as pieces together, just like a jig-saw puzzle. Except they're not really pieces, they're connected to each other, permanently, in one, continuous, many-branching, uh, piece.

Putting one together is a bit like weaving - you start somewhere, anywhere. Like all jig-saw puzzles you probably want to start at a corner or edge. Unlike any jig-saw puzzle, you simply follow the connection - as much as you can - in case the non-piece it's connected to will actually somehow fit into it. Sometimes it doesn't. Which is weird. Which is what makes the puzzle so much fun. Because you have to find another branch.

If you can, try to lay the puzzle flat. This is not as easy as it sounds. It means untangling and untwisting the whole strand. If you're trying one of the more complex puzzles from the "12 and up" series, the untangling, untwisting, flattening strategy can be challenging enough to be a puzzle in its own right.

All in all, we found the Pieceless concept to be a welcome innovation. The puzzles themselves are extremely satisfying to solve. They tend to take a lot less time than a corresponding uh "pieced" puzzle, but the time they do take is a good one - absorbing, visually, tactilely, conceptually pleasing.

And, yes, sure, it's really wonderful that you don't have to worry about losing any pieces. One giant leap for all puzzlekind.

Lonpos 303

Lonpos 303. Lonpos, because that's the name of the inventor. 303 because that's how many different puzzles there are. Puzzles of two different varieties: the rectangular, 2-dimensional variety, and the 3-D pyramid puzzles. There are 12 pieces, each made of a cluster of small balls, each a different color and shape. The shapes are pentomino-like in their variety (different configurations of clusters of 3, 4 and 5 units), so their mathematical properties are noteworthy - notably to mathematicians. All the pieces fit snugly in the case, which also most neatly serves to house the instruction booklets.

I was concerned, Defender of the Playful that I am, that perhaps the 3-D puzzles would be too, shall we say, challenging. After all, how do you effectively convey a 3-D puzzle in a 2-D booklet? So I tried those first. In fact, I tried the first one first. The illustration very clearly and painstakingly showed me how to place the first 11 pieces. All I had to do was figure out how to place the 12th. I must say that I was experiencing something akin to sensual delight as I built the puzzle - each piece fitting so satisfyingly snugly onto the board or onto other pieces. And, since there was only one piece left to place, and since it so clearly fit in only one possible position, I was able to experience the almost immediate reward of that final click, when everything falls together, and the full glory of pyramid-building manifests itself in multi-colored, opalescence.

Then I tried the next puzzle. Hmmm. A bit more difficult to figure out how to follow the instructions, to envision the proper piece when all you can see is the particular slice of it that appears on each level. And then the next. And another intriguing hmmm. And as I solved each puzzle, I felt I was being taught, carefully, playfully, invitingly, a bit more about the pentomatically puzzling properties of pyramid-building. And it wasn't really too difficult. I mean it could get difficult. There were many puzzles in the booklet o' puzzles. And they got progressively more and more, well, challenging. But I could select whatever challenge I was ready for. And I said unto myself, behold, this is fun. And I'm learning things. More than fun, actually. Major fun, even.

Lonpos 303 is very much like Lonpos 101, except Lonpos 101 only has 101 puzzles. And Lonpos 101 is very much like Kanoodle, which is similarly very much like Level Up. But there is only one Lonpos 303. And once you start playing with it, you'll be grateful for every one of the 202 additional challenges that await. After which you might want to contemplate the significance of knowing that there are actually 360,984 unique rectangle puzzles, and 2,582 similarly unique pyramids puzzles that you could potentially create with your 12 little Lonpos pieces.

More Puzzling Fun from ThinkFun

Before we talk about Pete's Pike and some of the other delightfully new puzzle/games from ThinkFun, answer me this? Have you ever tried River Crossing? If not, stop reading now, click on the ThinkFun, answer me this? Have you ever tried River Crossing link, and try it right now, on-actual-line. How about Rush Hour? Tipover? Go ahead. Click away. You can play all three. It is to sing the puzzle electric.

Of course, you'd be missing the feel of the puzzle/games themselves, the well-made, cleverly designed, intelligently portable, box-throw-out-able packaging of it all. But you'd get a good sense of what these puzzle/games are all about - how they involve moving pieces on a board, pieces with different properties, boards with different layouts. And how each layout is really a new puzzle. And how the puzzles range in difficulty. And, most importantly, from a major fun perspective, how they invite kibitzing.

The different levels of challenge allow you to challenge yourself as much or as little as you want to. Go ahead, start with the the first card. Be a beginner. Enjoy your competence. Feeling feisty. Skip a card or two. Try something intermediate. Because you can challenge yourself as much or as little as you want, the puzzle/games are especially fun - you never feel yourself overwhelmed or bored (unless you want to be).

Then there's the kibitz-attraction - because the puzzles are visually attractive, and because what you're trying to do is generally easy to explain (see, I'm trying to get this goat (Pete) to the top of the mountain (OK, the middle of the board), and I can move Pete up or down or across from where he is until he's right next to one of his Goats. And I can move the Goats the same way.) So, if you're feeling social, and you want that wonderfully collaborative experience of thinking together with somebody, well, then, you've got a game fun enough to play at a party. And if you're not feeling so social, you can just sit on the sofa, all by yourself, and still have significant fun.

So the very design of these ThinkFun puzzles is the very kind of design that lends itself to Major FUN-ness. And when you have a bunch of these puzzles together (in addition to Pete's Pike, we had HotSpot, Cover Your Tracks and Treasure Quest - all new, each fun), you can amaze yourself and friends at how darn clever these puzzle/games really are, how each, similar in all the good ways, is so different, in similarly good ways.

Take Hot Spot. Very, very similar to Pete's Pike, you might say, except with "Bots." Only, Bots can jump over each other. In fact, a Bot can jump over two Bots, if it feels so compelled. Not diagonally, of course. Very different. You have to think a different way. Not like your Pike's Pete thinking, oh no. Not at all.

And then there's Treasure Quest and Cover your Tracks. Not quite as self-storing, perhaps, but with a significantly adequate drawstring storage bag, for those who seek portability and boxlessness. But very different from Hot Spot or Pete's Pike. Cover Your Tracks, with its four, large, asymmetrical pieces that fit on the board in only certain ways, and its slide-under puzzle cards, very, very different from Treasure Quest, with its sliding gate and four kinds of square tokens (you gotta love the Gold Masks that you push/side along the board), and your statuesque, token-pushing Hero - and yet, in a way, remarkably similar to all the other ThinkFun puzzle/games. Similarly well-made, similarly ingenious, similarly fun, differently puzzling.

TIPOVER

TIPOVER is only the second puzzle/game to receive a Major FUN Award. The first was also an ingenious, 3-D puzzle/game called "River Crossing." Oddly enough, both games involve 3-D pieces, which are set up in various positions, and in both games, the goal is to figure out how to reposition the pieces so that a cute little plastic man can travel across them from start to finish. It strains the credulity to think this is mere coincidence, but both games come with a set of 40 different "challenge cards," which give the puzzled one a range of challenges, from beginner, through intermediate, to downright genius. And, if you can accept the possibility that such serendipity could actually exist, you can even play TIPOVER online, in much the same manner that you can play River Crossing onlinearly. Much the same, but not quite as satisfactorily, alas, because, you see (well, actually, you can't quite see), the TIPOVER pieces are far more 3-D, ranging in height from 2-4, shall we say, "crates." Well, there is a one-crate-high piece, but that is the final destination in each challenge. The rest are positioned at their challenge-card-assigned places on the plastic grid, and don't get moved, but are actually and eponymously, "tipped over" to a vertically or horizontally adjacent position. And therein lies the difference, the uniqueness, the intrigue of this fascinating puzzle/game, challenging the visual imagination as much as it challenges reason.

The similarities in package, design and basic concept can be more or less sufficiently explained by the observation that both puzzle/games are produced by ThinkFun. However, the ingenuity, uniqueness and sheer Major FUN Award-worthiness of both of these puzzle/games goes far beyond similarities in packaging and presentation. Each is an invitation to hours of left-brain fascination, interspersed with moments of sheer right-brained glee. Each invites solitairy contemplation and collaborative kibbitzing. Each a welcome addition to the Major FUN Hall of Fame.

River Crossing

I asked Beth, our resident puzzle-person, to take a first look at River Crossing. She spent two weeks with it, and came back with the following report:

1) It's fun to set up. For kids, that might be half the fun - it kinda reminded me of legos. :)

2) The upper levels challenged me enough to keep me going for quite a while - and I'm definitely quicker than most with these things, so I think it will keep most folks happily occupied for hours.

3) For each level, there's usually only one brain-bending move you have to twist your mind around to get the pieces to fall into place, so it's not *frustratingly* difficult.

4) It also passed the lounge test - easily playable while almost completely supine.

Upon personal inspection, I find myself seconding, and maybe even thirding her endorsement. The puzzle itself reminds me of one of those survival exercises such as those developed by Project Adventure. And the fantasy adds greatly to its appeal.

River Crossing is as well-packaged as it is conceived. The puzzle cards are packaged in their own storage box. The puzzle base and pieces fit snugly into the package. A carrying bag (waterproof, of course) helps make the whole thing satisfyingly portable. The game is built on a plastic pegboard grid. Puzzle cards (40 of them) fit on top of the grid. Plastic pegs are placed in the corresponding holes and 5 magnetic planks placed between the pegs according to the directions on the puzzle card. Put the magnetic man on the middle of the starting plank, and then lift and move the planks, one at a time, to adjacent pegs, to help him cross the river.

The online documentation is clear and very user-friendly. You can even try the puzzle online, where you'll also find ten bonus puzzles.

All of which should make it obvious why River Crossing is the first puzzle to receive the Major FUN Award.