I want some new kind of puzzle kick

February 28, 2005 12:46 PM

What is the best modern day Rubik's Cube type of toy/game/puzzle?

Some criteria:
- Handheld
- Self-contained (no loose pieces)
- No screens if electronic
- Very challenging and addicting
- Does not require a second person

Ideally the answer would be a non-electronic item, but I'm open to interesting electronic devices. One recent example would be the Nemesis Factor (which utilized sound, lights, and some cool sensors).

posted by gluechunk to Sports, Hobbies, & Recreation (4 answers total)

I think Internal Combustion is cool.

The Google term you're looking for is "Mechanical Puzzles"

I can recommend Puzzle World as a good starting point for exploring these kinds of puzzles.
posted by vacapinta at 1:02 PM on February 28, 2005

If you like puzzles very much in the Rubik style, the Square 1 is a wicked one. You can often find 'em cheap on Ebay.

You'd probably also enjoy what are often known as Tavern Puzzles, like these. I have quite a few of them, and the difficult ones are, yeah, pretty difficult. The workmanship is excellent, they're a real pleasure to hold and play with (much better than the quality of the web site might lead you to expect).
posted by Wolfdog at 1:22 PM on February 28, 2005

I second the Tavern Puzzles. The ones from Tucker-Jones House that Wolfdog linked to have the best workmanship that I've found, but there are others out there as well. If you're googling, other names for these, or some significant subset thereof, are "disentanglement puzzles," "entanglement puzzles," "tanglement puzzles," "blacksmith puzzles," "ball & string puzzles," and "ring & string puzzles."
posted by DevilsAdvocate at 2:11 PM on February 28, 2005

If you wanted something electronic, check out Lights Out by Tiger (java version here. Otherwise I'm a fan of Rush Hour and its associated puzzles.
posted by keep the aspidistra flying at 2:38 PM on February 28, 2005