ThinkFun's Gordian Knot Puzzle

Like puzzles? Like 'em hard? You probably won't find a puzzle with more difficulty per piece than the Gordian Knot puzzle from ThinkFun. (Thanks to Ed Pegg for letting folks know about it).

I ordered the puzzle to bring to work, but I have an earlier edition as well, when it was known as Extreme Torture. I've never solved mine. To get the first piece out of the assembly, you need to make 28 moves. To get the second piece out, you have to make an additional 21 moves. After that, the other pieces come out somewhat more easily. As for assembling one of these bad boys, well, I hope ThinkFun's including instructions.

There is a saying among puzzle designers: "It's easy to make a hard puzzle, hard to make a good one." Part of the problem is that it's tough to define what makes a good puzzle. I probably wouldn't call Extreme Torture a "good" puzzle, simply because any sane person would give up before figuring it out. It doesn't entice you to find the solution. But there's still something intriguing about super-difficult puzzles with just a few pieces (just 6 in Extreme Torture's case). It's less a design than a discovery made via a computer search done by Frans Vreugd and Dic Sonneveld, two talented designers (see issue 58 of Cubism For Fun ).

I applaud ThinkFun for publishing the unusual design, but I feel like this is a "puzzle designer's puzzle," one that's interesting for reasons that the average consumer won't know. Still, perhaps people will be intrigued to find how much difficulty you can cram into a small space.