TwisTIC – Andrew Crowell

It’s been a while since I worked a TIC puzzle and I managed to grab a copy of this puzzle from Wood Wonders before they sold out. I’m super excited for this one, let’s see what’s in the box!

I’ve read that this puzzle has tons of rotations and is quite difficult. I can’t wait to check it out.

Well, I’ve managed to get it out of the packaging and I’ve separated the pieces. It took an embarrassingly long time to just get it disassembled from how it came packaged! This one is gonna be challenging..

Jeez, this puzzle is something else! There are two particular pieces that I’m playing with and I can sort of “sneak” them together. I don’t know if it’s part of the solution, but it’s really fun to play with – just have to be careful I don’t break anything!

uhh, yeah, that’s supposed to be a cube, just need to re-arrange a piece or two.

Ok wow. I think I just made a major breakthrough. I kept exploring the above move, when the 2 pieces locked tougher into a promising configuration. I then picked up the remaining pieces to see if any would fit – and it looked like they would! The problem was, I was going to have to interlink these 3 pieces somehow and then navigate them to the proper positions.

And, boom! with my daughter in my lap, I manage to get those 3 pieces together and in the right place. It took several tries as there’s not a lot of room to maneuver, but I eventually found the configuration that allowed me to move the pieces into place and then the final 2 pieces popped right in!

Yet another TIC to add to the collection. This was one of the more unique ones I’ve seen.

Ah, I love the TIC puzzles. There’s something about them that makes me happy. Most likely because I seem to be able to solve them fairly easily. This one went together way quicker than expected, but I’m still super happy to own it and add it to my growing TIC collection.

It’s definitely a unique TIC. I haven’t seen rotations and movements quite like this before. There is a very tricky sequence to get the pieces oriented and in the right position.

Part II

Well, I sure was feeling a bit smug after finding the solution so quickly. And I could have ended this blog post at that – but the story didn’t end there.

I wanted to take the puzzle apart to get some photos, so I began to disassemble. The first two piece are trivial to remove, but then things get difficult. So difficult, in fact, that I failed to disassemble the puzzle! I literally tried for over an hour just to take things apart and instead, all I managed was to create a tangled mess where I had lost track of what pieces were where and couldn’t progress forward, nor could I move back to the solution.

I’ve created a mess of things and can’t seem to move forward or backward.

I grew a bit aggravated by this failure. After all, I had solved it so easily, and furthermore, I knew exactly what I needed to do! How was it possible that I couldn’t take these pieces apart?

Eventually I found my way back to the correct (solved) position. I felt lucky to have finally made it back. I was scared and intimidated to try again. And although I hate to leave it at that, I need some recovery time before I can go in for a second attempt at disassembly. Suffice is to say that I’ve been humbled by this puzzle, which in turn makes it a highly recommended puzzle. It’s quite an exciting puzzle and unlike any TIC I have seen before.