Hi Twisty Puzzle fans,

Get Stuck Cube is a puzzle with an unusual challenge: the goal is to get stuck! The puzzle has a set of sliding pieces, sliding on the surface of a Rubik's Cube. Six of the sliding pieces are double size. They act like a movable bandage. As a Rubik's Cube has six turning faces, it should be possible to block each turn and to get stuck.

This puzzle is based on the Cube With Moving Faces by Kuchimanchi Ravi, which was also the basis of the Twist & Slide puzzle.

After trying for quite some time, I discovered that it is much harder to get stuck than one might think. The hard part is near the end, when nearly all twisty moves are blocked. That is where I get stuck (or not get stuck to put it more precisely), because I can not make the turns needed to block the last turning face. So far, I have managed to get stuck only once by chance (that is, achieving the goal of this puzzle), but I have not been able to repeat. The ultimate goal of having all sliding pieces color matches and lined up, and getting stuck is clearly beyond my solving capabilities.

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

Enjoy!

Oskar

Nice idea, though I guess it's impossible to get *completely* stuck, since every move (sliding as well as turning) is reversible. As you may have seen there was a recent thread suggesting to combine the latch cube and constrained cube, which could result in genuine irreversible traps.

That's a very interesting puzzle. It's not my favourite from you, but it's still very interesting.

A very nice concept and I like the way it looks

Strange idea.

i think the goal is to get it to a state where the only move you can do is the reverse of the last move, as all other moves are blocked. right?

Yes, that's what I understand. I was just saying that it might be more fun/evil to have a solution that is completely locked and irreversible.

i like the idea! good job!

Interesting concept. It seems as if it would be very easy to solve. Nice work!

Chris

Just combine this puzzle with Okimoto's Latch Cube. Gotcha!

I think that Oskar meant that "stuck" means that the puzzle cannot be twisted in any direction, but the pieces can still slide.

At least that is my interpretation.

Fun, but scary idea! You are amazing Oskar!

Very interesting.
It would be interesting to know just how to solve it. If you have to get to the state of no turning or only being able to reverse your previous move. Hmm....

I believe both are correct - the solved state would be no turns possible AND only being able to reverse the last move. This is because the last move would require sliding one bandaged 2-piece tile to block the last turnable layer.

Not quite. The 2-piece tile has two types of moves:
1) sideways into a pair of adjacent "holes" as illustrated in Oskar's picture here. This move doesn't block a new slice, so it can never be the final move to Get Stuck.
2) lengthwise into a single "hole", effectively bandaging one slice and un-bandaging another.

So it's possible that after you Get Stuck by via move #2, it's possible you might get the cube un-stuck by sliding a different 2-piece tile into the hole you've just opened (a perpendicular move) or by sliding a different 2-piece tile into the other hole elsewhere on the cube. Since all the tiles appear to slide, you could undoubtedly rearrange a lot of tiles without reversing any moves in order to get un-stuck!

Not necessarily, if that particular slice is simultaneously bandaged by another 2-piece tile.

Still, I take your point that reversal of the last sliding move may not be the only sliding move available, depending on the number of gaps available to allow sliding moves elsewhere on the puzzle.

Anyway, the point is that the puzzle is solved when all twisting moves are blocked, but in that case *at least* one sliding move (reversal of the last sliding move) must still be available.

I can imagine that this is very difficult because, as you say, moving a 2-piece tile lengthwise into a single hole will usually (but not always) unbandage one slice as it bandages another. Therefore the last move requires moving a 2-piece tile lengthwise into a single hole so that it bandages the last slice *without* unbandaging another slice (because every other slice is already bandaged by other 2-piece tiles). Very tricky!

The new idea for a new Get Stuck Cube:

I don't get it... Please explain further in words.

-Eitan

I think, hi meant... we all know that this game can`t be solved in some cases (if two last element are swaped).
But if we can`t to solve it in one direction - we can do that in another direction. That`s why digits are printed in diagonal.

Wait, is it really true that you can create this seemingly impossible situation on the 15 puzzle by turning the whole board by 90° and than try to solve it in that "state"? That's really interesting. I didn't know this.
It's a cool idea to put in the numbers diagonally into the squares so it's not easy to recognize you are holding the puzzle wrong. Yes a mixup cube using this effect in some way would be messed up. Literally.