Hi Twisty Puzzles fans,

PantaBram is Bram Cohen's variation to PantaCube, which is Oskar's variation to Pantazis Houlis' Cubedron. The puzzles has five pyramids that slide through grooves around a sphere. The groove pattern is an ultra-simple maze, suggested by Bram. Because of this maze, pieces can slide only one at a time (unlike regular twisty puzzles). This puzzles is very hard to solve, despite its low number of pieces.

Watch the YouTube video.
Buy the puzzle from my Shapeways Shop.
Read more at the Shapeways Forum.
Check out the photos below.

Enjoy!

Oskar

Great Concept! I love how you have to solve the maze in the grooves.

Looks great!

Oh dear... let the internal maze-path puzzle begin! LOL

Turning a group into a groupoid with such bandaging
can always frustrate many solvers, as it requires the
construction of longer solving sequences/algorithms.

As usual and expected by Oskar: Sublime!




Pantazis

I LOVE this concept - such a simple design with great solving complexity. This would be ideal for mass production!

You could also extend this concept to other shapes and/or more complex mazes. More please!

Beautiful, Oskar. Will you ever stop. It's worrying that this is one of your more simpler puzzles... What will ever happen next!?

This puzzle is way too hard for mass production!

The obvious puzzles of Oskar's to consider for mass production are Alex's Black Hole and Twist & Slide. Alex's Polo Cube might be reasonable as well, but I'd have to play with that to have more of an opinion.

This puzzle, as admirable as it is, has one downside like the Nightmare's cube. One cannot see he whole extend of the bandaging. You have to mixup the puzzle to take a look onto the core from every side.
Can this be solved anyhow?

I disagree. I do understand that this puzzle is extremely difficult, but it *looks* very simple, and that's exactly why it's perfect for mass production. People don't want to be put off by a puzzle that looks difficult, but deep down that's what they actually expect, otherwise they will be disappointed. The key to success is to exceed expectations by providing a really tough challenge that looks so simple, because that's what will make people buy it and then shout about it. Just think about all that buzz and word of mouth! And think about why the original Rubik's Cube was so successful, and how many toy companies turned that down for the same misguided reasons:

They must be kicking themselves!

The only thing I'm not sure about is the name, which sounds like a set of women's undergarments!

Man, I really love this puzzle! its very interesting to see how quickly an easy puzzle like the cubedron can evolve into something so complicated.






Solving one of these seems like a very interesting challenge to me. The way I would go about it (although some would consider this cheating) is to make a 3d rendering of the inner maze, so I could have something to reference while I am solving it. To be honest, I have doubts that I would be able to solve it anyway. Hopefully I can try one out somtime because I love puzzle that are unique challenges!




I have heard this a couple of times about the child's play, it is very discouraging.