Crazy 4x4 III - coming soon (?)

Woah. That looks amazing. I really hope I can afford it!

I really hope its made with regular colored plastic, I hate the way these types of puzzles look.

Nice. I really love the whole Crazy 4x4 family. I really want the IV, but I guess it will just come all in good time.

@Vergo
I love my GuHong (spelling?) with coloring like this. Do prefer what they did with tiles on the II?

I just like traditional puzzles. Black or white plastic, and stickers (preferably tiles). This excludes puzzle like the child's play of course

I have to say I agree. I am sure the quality of puzzles that have different color plastic directly joined is fine, but something about the general aesthetics makes it look cheap to me. Nonetheless, I hope to own one of these one day!

I highly agree! A black version HAS to be made! Else I wont buy this one..

Yeah， it's true.
However, close strutiny of it reveals that it has the same solution as the crazy 4*4 Ⅱ, and because of the production of this, the production of the crazy megaminx, a more challenging puzzle in my opinion, will be postponed. It does not matter for guys who buy for collection, but does for guys like me who buy for solution.

On the mf8 shop I couldn't find anything about the Crazy III. Where have you got that picture from?

It's not actually listed on their site since it hasn't been released yet, but here it is: http://shop.mf8.com.cn/goods.php?id=36
This has been announced several times: First December 2009, then March 2010, then July 2010, and so on. The last I heard about it (in August) was that they were "Preparing to produce", whatever that might mean.
I think at some point they just delisted it, presumably so that people wouldn't ask any more questions about the release date.

@grigr: I don't understand why you created this thread. This has been around for several months and as far as I know there is still no definite release date. Or do you have some new information that you would like to share with us?

I suspect the reason they are going with the colored plastic is due to the small size of some of the pieces. It would be too difficult to place small stickers or tiles on them.

I think its because they can! This new 3 part corner design, makes it possible to make it like this. I think they think this is what we want..

Its such a good design, because we get solid inside surface. But could we please be without these colors...??

I dont think stickering would be such a big problem. You can just super glue the sticker on.

I wanna add that I am going to feel really disappointed if the Crazy Megaminx is going to be colored plastic as well..

Could anyone say a word on dying? Would it be possible to dye these pieces to a solid black?

I agree. I'm still waiting for the Circle Plus cubes to come out with normal colours.

Most puzzles don't take to dying well.

have you tried it, or have you heard it from others? I think I have heard it somewhere. But I am interested in how it actually looks! And how bad it looks

As a test, I once put a piece of white ABS in with my Nylon parts to be dyed black (Dylon #8). It got a grey tint to it, but nothing impressive.

by any chance, do you still have this piece Tom? I would love to see it. I wanna dye my crazy 3x3x3 plus cube. Then maybe paint it after wards to make the outside become comletely black. But if it doesnt take much of the dye, the colors would still be visiable during each turn, and I wouln't like that..

Or you could plonk the whole piece into the dye/paint.

When I said grey tint - I did mean the piece was white with a grey tint. Not black but greyish. Dying normal plastics doesn't work very well.
Since it's not a viable option I don't think there's really a need to continue the discussion, but if we do we should perhaps do it in a new topic.

I think if you are a manufacturer planning on making tens of thousands of them the stickering can be a really big deal. Labor is one of the expensive parts of a puzzle (even with very cheap labor rates) so adding a lot of little detail work where precision matters is a recipe for higher costs to produce.
Pre-colored plastic means cost for stickering at all, which is probably a big win for them even though a portion of their market won't be as happy. I imagine a DIY with black and white may be a good option for them as they can avoid the work themselves.

Dave

I, for one, don't mind the colored plastic. (I recently bought the regular 3x3x3 cube with colored plastic just because it seemed a nice variation.)

However, I have the crazy 4x4x4 I and II (not purchased directly from mf8, but through a U.S. reseller) and I'm not thrilled about the quality. (It is OK, but could be better.) As puzzle variations, they are very nice, but the quality certainly could be better. So I hope quality of crazy III is better. If it takes colored plastic to achieve that, then I'm all for it!

I agree with the previous posters asking: is there any new information about it, or just a picture from their website?

Can you, please, say more explicitly, why you are not content with the quality? I've got mine last year from mf8 (the Type I one year ago, the II by early December) and cannot say anything bad about them. Especially the Type II turns amazingly well for a puzzle with so many pieces. Both turn certainly better than all other 4x4x4 I own (Rubik's Revenge and Eastsheen).
The stickers / tiles are all perfect as on the first day and they look completely untouched.

My Crazy 4x4x4 type I is pretty good but seems to have a slight "cheap" feel to it. It could just be due to the plastic used and the stickers that were used. My type II has a lot of extra glue on and around the tiles making it look sloppy. Also I've never been a fan of the hard plastic colored tiles/caps like what is used on it.

I sort of agree with Volitar, it has a slight 'toy' like feel to it. (A bit like my first Type C.) But, the Crazy 4x4x4 I mech is the mech used in the new mf8 and DaYan puzzle, so I guess the quality most be pretty good. They should design the tiles like the snap tiles like on the Interchangable Tile Cubes. It's also irritating that for the first one, they used stickers. On the second they used tiles. And now on the third they're colouring the plastic! I personally like a theme within kinds of puzzles.

On my crazy 1, one of the corners keeps detaching. It is like 5 sides of an open box that come off. The part that hooks into the internal mechanism stays in place. Yes, I can, and will, superglue that piece together, but I'm not crazy enough to do it while the relevant parts are still inside the cube. So, I need to find how to disassemble it safely ...

On the crazy II, some of the "tiles" are not completely aligned with their slots. Those that are aligned properly look nice. But those that aren't don't look so good.

To be clear, I should say that neither of these is a huge complaint; I'm not considering returning the puzzles or anything. I just could have hoped for a little bit better for the money I spent on these.

On mine it fell apart on the second turn. A center post was not glued in correctly and of course that holds most of the puzzle together. A bit of glue fixed that, and then a plastic "tile" came off. Again glue to the rescue.
Later a center post broke (not just a glued piece coming unglued). This was harder to glue as it required a jig to get the right alignment.

In general the puzzle doesn't feel solid and locks up fairly easily which leads to popping.
I enjoy the puzzle, but generally think if I bought it new I shouldn't have to spend time repairing it.

Dave

Looking at Dave's and Michael Reid's problems, I can judge myself as lucky. Never anything bad happened to me. No pops, very rarely locks, turning better than my original 4x4x4!
The worst I can say, reassembling it after I took some photos was not so easy. But it has turned out as my fault, because I unscrewed a screw and later it turned out as completely unnecessary.

Here it is :
http://www.hknowstore.com/item.aspx?corpname=nowstore&itemid=d0a70ba6-060b-4b0f-af86-a59dd7377294
This guy is always the first to sell new puzzles. He's got a secret ?


I don't know how it turns.
Where can I find a video of this puzzle ? Does it exist ?

Why doesn't it exist on gelatinbrain ?