MINIMA Set 5 – 12

Designer: Frederic Boucher

This puzzles measures: 50 mm x 35 mm x 35 mm

The set includes:

• MINIMA 5 (Limba/Bubinga)
• MINIMA 6 (Ash/Ovangkol)
• MINIMA 7 (Wenge/Maple)
• MINIMA 8 (Ovangkol/Zebrano)
• MINIMA 9 (Acacia, Padauk, Wenge)
• MINIMA 10 (Zebrano, Purpleheart, Maple)
• MINIMA 11 (Merbau/Padauk)
• MINIMA 12 (Bubinga/Acacia)

Kevin Sadler wrote about it:

“It was only a month ago that I wrote about the last release from Jakub, Jaroslav and team’s Pelikan puzzles. At that time they had beautifully reproduced the first 4 in the Minima series designed by the incredible Frederic Boucher. This time the next 8 are here in yet another gorgeous selection of woods and you really need to add them to your collection. The four from the last release that I have written about are still available as individual puzzles or a set of four. There is a Minima 13 but only so far only released by Frederic himself, Osho and Tye Stahly) it is possible that will also become available in the future as well.
  
Obviously, like the rest of the Minima puzzles, the aim is to pack the pieces into the box and leave it so that no gaps are visible through either the large holes, small finger holes or slots that facilitate rotational moves (if the number of voxels is less than the 12 that would completely fill the box). Continuing with the pathway that the first four took, these get progressively more difficult but are always very fun to solve. The rotations are beautifully facilitated by the various holes and slots cut into the box and no force is needed. Some of the rotations are really quite tricky to work out and in several puzzles there are multiple rotations for one piece. As before, the wooden box makes the challenge much more difficult as you cannot see what is happening inside once a piece or two have been placed. I had not managed to solve Minima 8 in the acrylic box version despite months of trying after receiving them in September last year. Minima 8 doesn’t look like too much of a challenge with 3 simple L-shaped tri-ominos and a single 3 voxel straight stick but there I had huge problems with it and was gratified when a couple of correspondents agreed that it was a really difficult puzzle.

Minima 9 and 10 are slightly different having pieces of 2 colours and whilst packing is the aim, the difference is that with Minima 9 the puzzler has to place them so that only one of the colours is visible through the holes in the box (for that one there are 2 solutions – one for each colour). Interestingly, I found one colour quite a bit harder than the other. Minima 10 has only one solution and needs to have only the vibrant Purpleheart visible from outside of the box. Minima 11 and 12 are very deceptive having relatively simple pieces and quite a lot of large holes in the box but they are also a huge challenge – almost as difficult as number 8. They both took me 2 or 3 days to solve but at least not the several months of the former. 

These puzzles are so much fun and this explains why I have a HUGE collection of these Minima puzzles of varying types and from various designers. Basically I will purchase any of them when released to add to my collection. I would say that these are ESSENTIAL purchases for anyone seriously into packing puzzles – they are stunningly beautiful and a fabulous challenge and the Pelikan team have made them so well!”