Sunday 17 April 2016

I need to get a move on

I have very little experience of sliding piece puzzles and when I described a puzzle from Laszlo that involved sliding pieces around within a frame, there was quite a lot of interest from my Facebook puzzle friends. I had been in contact with Diniar Namdarian who (along with Serhiy Grabarchuk) is probably the world's foremost sliding piece puzzle designer. After a discussion about what he had available and what was suitable for someone who is not terribly bright and has no real experience of this genre, a little PayPal was shifted and a parcel arrived. For once I resisted the temptation to post a photo of the cardboard box on the Puzzle Photography FaceBook group and showed off my new arrivals. So far all I have done is explore and photograph. They look fun and also terribly difficult. Diniar emailed me the challenges that each has as well as the solutions which I will hopefully not need.

One Fish, Another Fish
 This one is One Fish, Another Fish designed by Serhiy Grabarchuk and the initial aim is to reverse the fish making the head out of the orange circle and the fins and tail from the yellow.

H Slider
 The H Slider is one of Diniar's own designs and there are 10 different challenges! Lord help me!

Moon and Star
Moon and Star is one of Diniar's most recent designs and has 5 challenges

Sliding cross
Sliding cross is also one of Diniar's with 6 challenges. All in all these should keep me occupied for quite a long time! If I aim for minimal move counts then it might take me the rest of my life!!!

There were a few unexpected gifts in the package - this puzzle which was made for a German hotel:


2 packets of pieces with problems written in German - Google translate doesn't seem to cope very well with the problem sheets so I will be contacting Diniar again to ask what these lovely unexpected challenges are.

Thanks Diniar - I am greatly looking forward to challenging myself with these!