I bought myself a FlipSide for christmas yesterday, so here's my review.

Quick summary: great puzzle, everybody should get it.

The FlipSide appears to be a replacement for port-to-port, which was an uber-bandaged puzzle I always hated. FlipSide has a similar form factor to port to port, and sort of similar pieces, but has a unique and very interesting mechanism of its own. FlipSide is technically a bandage puzzle because the two plungers aren't of infinite length, and while it would be unrealistic for a puzzle to have infinite length, the particular length chosen does give it a distinctly bandage feel, although it does still feel more like a twisty puzzle than a bandage puzzle, meaning that the solving still is mostly about sequences of moves and how they're related, not maze-style exhaustive search.

FlipSide is physically appealing, both of my children took an immediate liking to it, although my cleaning lady was apparently confused as to its function and washed it in the sink and left it in the drain, a treatment which it survived undamaged.

My daughter, who's seven, had no difficulty in getting the first two pieces in place. But the difficulty of the first few pieces is greater than it should be due to the very confusing zero through nine numbering, which makes it not terribly obvious that the five goes in the lower left corner, and adds the annoying dots to the bottoms of the six and nine. It would be much better for the two plungers to be two different colors, and for the tiles to be numbered one through five of each of the two colors, and the puzzle to be to get the numbers in order left to right on their corresponding plunger. I know this because I've invented a fairly similar puzzle, and made the same mistake initially. (My son, who's a year and a half, is able to scramble it, but not terribly easily. But then, the only thing he can really manipulate well is the rubik's magic.)

FlipSide is a fairly difficult puzzle, sort of comparable to the Brain Ball. It took me a few hours to find a solution.

Warning: SPOILER BELOW

First, some notation. Each flip is represented by xy/, where x and y represent the horizontal position of the top and bottom columns, respectively, before the flip. Positions are a, b, and c for left, middle, and right, respectively. Positions can also be given relative to the last position, with --, -, 0, +, and ++ meaning move left two, left one, leave in position, move right one, and move right two, respectively.

To solve the FlipSide, first put the 0, 5, 1, and 6 in place (this is fairly easy, so I won't explain how). Then use the sequence xa/0b/0c/0b/ya/0b/0c/0b/ to rotate the positions of three pieces at a time and get all the other pieces in place (x and y determine which two on the top get rotate, the one on the bottom which gets rotate is always the one all the way on the right). To do a parity flip, simply do aa/.

That's the simpler to explain solution. Here's a faster one which I like a bit better: First, get the 1, 3, 6, and 8 pieces, in no particular order, into the two leftmost positions on the top row and the two rightmost positions on the bottom row. That part is fairly easy, so I won't explain how. Then do cb/ba/. Next maneuver 0 and 5 into the left column using only only aa/, ac/, ca/, and cc/ (ignoring how 1, 3, 6, and 8 get scrambled up). That part is also fairly easy, so I won't give details. Then get 2, 7, 4, and 9 into the correct columns using ca/aa/ac/aa/ca and cc/ and bb/ (Ignore the positions of 1, 3, 6, and 8 for this step.) Next get 0, 5, 2, 7, 4, and 9 into the right rows using aa/, bb/, and cc/. Finally, get 1, 3, 6, and 8 into position using (aa/ca/)^5 (repeated five times) and ac/cc/ac/cc/ca/bb/ca/cc/ac/cc/ac/aa/bb (also mirrors and inversions, as called for.)

Bram wrote:The FlipSide appears to be a replacement for port-to-port, which was an uber-bandaged puzzle I always hated.

I also never liked port-to-port.
I've never considered puzzles with plungers to be bandaged, especially when the plungers never block each other. When analysing them however, you do have to treat them just like bandaged puzzles, using as basic generators short move sequences that leave the plungers in the same position as they were before.

Bram wrote:FlipSide is a fairly difficult puzzle, sort of comparable to the Brain Ball.

I think it is very much easier than that. More like Mag-Nif's Saturn in difficulty.

Bram wrote:Then use the sequence xa/0b/0c/0b/ya/0b/0c/0b/ to rotate the positions of three pieces at a time and get all the other pieces in place

I solve it using -0/+0/0-/0+/ as a 3-cycle. With this and its mirror image, it becomes quite easy to solve the puzzle.

Only the parity problem is non-trivial. I usually do that the same way as you (do aa/ and solve again with 3-cycles). By computer I found the following parity fixer to swap 4 and 9:
aa/ac/aa/ca/aa/bc/bb/cc/cb/

Bram wrote:My son, who's a year and a half, is able to scramble it, but not terribly easily. But then, the only thing he can really manipulate well is the rubik's magic.

You let your 18 month old play with your Magics!? I watch our 5 year old like a hawk and stand right next to her whenever I let her try my Magic. I can imagine freaking out if my 20 month old had picked one up off the table or something. I mean I know how to fix the puzzles, but it isn't very fun.

I do let the baby play with a Cube on the other hand. She tries to speedsolve it but never takes her hands off and keeps turning the same axis back and forth. She even says "cue".


Thanks for the review, they had a display model out at Games of Berkeley and I almost got it but I was already getting a Hot Rocks (renamed just "The Rock" on the box) and some pocket 2x's so maybe next time. It seemed like a good puzzle but I didnt play it for long.

D'oh! I didn't find that sequence Jaap, definitely makes the whole process a lot simpler. I'll have to play with it more to try to grok why that one works.

Now that I think about it, it did take quite a lot longer to solve the brainball.

My baby's pretty good with the magics, doesn't try to force them or anything, although I don't let him play with the master magic, because my memory is that those are quite fragile. He did break some stuff when he got into the big puzzle box the other day though. My 7 year old just recently learned to solve 15 number puzzles on her own.

I also bought the FlipSide at games of berkeley. Was kind of in a rush though, so I didn't check out what else new they have there.

Bram wrote: I also bought the FlipSide at games of berkeley.

Woah, are you still in town? I live pretty close to there.

-mike