Free the Key

Puzzle: Free the Key
Brand: Puzzlemaster
Inventor: Oscar van Deventer

ST: ~15 min

Been quiet around here recently - I do apologize for this, and I hope to improve my posting rate from now on. Well, here is a post to change the situation.

Free the Key

Free the key was a puzzle that came with several others from Puzzlemaster back when I first started puzzling, but haven't decided to write about it until now. It came simply in a blue plastic package that tells you the name, it's difficulty rating, and (helpfully) states that the objective is to remove the disk from the aluminum key. Taking it out you can see some marks on the parts that gives hints about the building quality - but isn't too troubling considering the cheap price. The thing felt quite sturdy, and would've done some damage if it had an encounter with one's foot!

This puzzle is another well known Oscar design, and as with quite a large portion of his designs this is a maze puzzle. It was in my opinion quite something unique, taking keys to be the theme. As you can see there's several notches on the disks which interacts with the key to create a fairly complicated maze, containing several dead-ends along the way to trip you up.

Job done!

So taking the puzzle you start manipulating the disk and in minutes was close to the end-only to be stopped in your tracks two-thirds from the end. Trying again only results being stuck in the same place. Time to explore a bit! After a while you'd find some more avenues to get into, enabling more fiddling - Suffice to say the solution wasn't trivial, requires you a bit logical thinking and planning before getting the job done. A neat little puzzle that would keep you thinking for a while.

Again a great design by Oscar-and I think I have an idea of why both reviews on it's puzzlemaster page gave it a five-star rating. You can get a copy of the puzzle from either Puzzlemaster, or Sloyd for a reasonable price.