Yes – our fiftieth actual in person MPP! That’s pretty cool
for a bunch of guys who started getting together in my dining room because we
thought it’d be cool to meet up and share our puzzles with other nutters.
Louis and Mieke arrived on Friday evening fresh from an escape
room and a city tour of Oxford. After dinner we settled into some gentle
puzzling – Louis had brought over a copy of Michel’s new Mibinity puzzle so I
had to have a go at that. It’s a really neat little 2D n-ary design that’s been
beautifully made by Jack… I take all the pieces apart and examine them and then
realise that finding the right starting position turns out to be a bit tricker
than I thought it would be… it does go back together again reasonably quickly so that
others can have a play the next morning.
Louis has a bit of a play around with my Krasnow Clutch Box
which I’ve managed to get into an awkward configuration, but between us we can’t
reset it so it stays in the “to be solved” pile.
Next morning we gather our bits and head off to the new
venue and try to work out where everything is. We find the tables well-concealed and Louis and I set about putting some out while the first few folks start
arriving. When I get back from the shops to collect some fresh milk (there’s
always a half empty somewhat sour bottle of milk in every hall we hire for some
reason) I spot a familiar old face we haven’t seen in a while – it's great to
see Chris after quite a long break.
I’ve taken a few spare copies of Oskar’s Zigguchain, George’s
Trapdoor Octahedron and his version of Rik Brouwer’s tRIKube. Steve settles down
at the table and begins to assemble tRIKubes in the wrong colour combinations
and we end up jousting for a while as I try to disassemble them as fast as he’s
assembling them – in my defence, the fit is snug and getting a grip on the right
pieces is tricky… he tries the same thing on the Zigguchains but the odds are a
bit more in my favour on that one. I manage to get rid of all of the copies I’d
taken along and then realised I hadn’t kept a tRIKube apart for myself so end
up printing another copy on Sunday.
On the topic of giveaways, Mark K had sent over a bunch of beautifully
made little hardwood puzzles for Steve to dish out to all-comers – and he
kindly set aside a set of them for me… I say kindly – he gave me a pile of bits
and didn’t tell me what puzzles were in there… just an extra puzzle really.
When Frank arrived, he set out a table of books from his
Potty Puzzles days and several folks ended up adding to their libraries… he
also brought along a couple of custom-made plush toys for the Two Brass Monkeys
– complete with their faces printed on the front…. Not at all terrifying for
any children who might chance upon them – no siree! They did generate an awful
lot of mirth in the room though… job done! :-)
I’d taken my copy of Mike’s 234 Cube along for folks to time
themselves on (for science!) and many people had a bash with 7 people actually
recording a time (for science!) – the sheet ended up with some amusing answers
to the question of puzzle experience – among them “Yes”, “Rubbish at them!” and
“No, but lucky” – the latter against the best time of 51 seconds by one S. Nicholls…
I think my first attempt took more than 45 times that! (It’s true what they say
about my dimness…)
I’d also taken along my recently acquired set of Minima
puzzles and ended up encouraging several folks to have a bash of some of them –
they really are an amazing little set of a dozen puzzles where the aim on
almost all of them is merely to get a few little wooden bits inside an acrylic
box. When you hear they’re designed by Frederic Boucher, you’ll understand
these are quite challenging… there was lots of agreement about how weirdly hard
they were for something that looks like it should be so simple.
It was great to see Adin again and
Tamsin decided that it would be wise to bring her daughters along for some
puzzling – they seemed to have a grand time, although that may have had more to
do with the hall’s wi-fi than the puzzles. Hopefully the puzzlers and their
plushies didn’t scar the poor kids for life!
Around noon we wandered up to the High Street for some brain
food – with pig rolls winning over kebabs by about 12 to 3 – we missed you, Ed!
After lunch it was back into the puzzling – the Karakuri
Christmas presents had a pretty good playing with, with several opportunities
for answering the question “Have I finished?” with “Have you found the hanko,
yet?” – the answer was always “No…”, but they got there in the end. When you
know, you know.
I managed to spend a while chatting with Mikael before
foisting Mike’s 234 Cube upon him – and I know this makes me a really bad
person, but I was relieved when he didn’t just bang it together in a couple of
minutes – thank for making me feel a tiny bit less silly, Mikael! You’re
welcome back anytime! :-)
Dan had brought along a couple of variants of GPK’s Numlock…
including a stupidly long version that will probably take a lifetime to open
properly – we don’t think he assembled that one “properly”…
Louis had brought along his copy of Mail Call and it got a
lot of attention – I’d had a chance to play through the first part of it on
Friday evening, before resetting it for folks on Saturday, and then on Sunday I
got to play through the last section. For my money, the first and last bits are
absolutely excellent – seriously good – and if the middle bit were a little
less complicated, it would be almost perfect… YMMV.
Sometime after 5pm we tidied up the hall and tried to put
everything back more or less where we found it before heading up to the house
for yet more puzzling and the traditional fish supper, which didn’t disappoint.
After supper there was a lot more chatting and a bit less puzzling
than usual, although there was still a hardcore bunch who insisted on cramming
in as much puzzling as they possibly could – everyone seemed to be enjoying
themselves … and there was cake in honour of the golden anniversary. What more
could you want?
Another great puzzling weekend with my mates – awesome sauce!
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Fun, Fun, Fun!
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