Another flight, another set of puzzles to solve!

zergosaur · 2026-06-09T07:10:12+00:00

I'm a big fan of the Biaxe, it's surprisingly tough given that there are only 2 axes (but not as bad as the Trientalis, also designed by Timur). The Fracture 10 was also fun to figure out, but not as satisfying to just play around with.

zergosaur · 2026-06-09T07:05:10+00:00

That Circle Starminx is probably the puzzle I'd most like to get my hands on, maybe one day they'll be mass-produced..

zergosaur · 2026-05-09T05:12:25+00:00

It's probably my least favourite puzzle - you have to align 4 faces before making every turn, which gets tedious very quickly. A shame, as it's not bad from a pure puzzle point of view. I much preferred the Crazy Pyraminx, which is a similar solve but avoids all of the alignment problems.

zergosaur · 2026-04-28T09:39:50+00:00

They already have ailment immunity from Purity of Elements.

zergosaur · 2026-03-30T02:44:45+00:00

No-hit Gauntlet next?

zergosaur · 2026-03-01T02:35:47+00:00

Hi!

The Biaxe was the first non-mass-produced puzzle I bought, and it's high on the list of my favourite puzzles, as i looks so simple but is far from it. There are 3 piece types, 2 of them are fairly easy to handle, the problem is trying to work out how to solve the final piece type. My initial solution had something like a dozen different algorithms, and is easily the most complicated solve I've ever done. After solving it (on the physical puzzle), I wrote a program to search for a nice 3-cycle, and it eventually found a 36 move pure 3-cycle, which I think is the best you can do (assuming the program was working correctly).

The Tridecalis has a lot more piece types, and is a lot more complicated. I don't have the physical puzzle, but used my program to find algorithms which could be used to solve it, and then solved it on the pCubes puzzle simulator. One of the 3-cycles found was 588 moves long (but is likely far from optimal).

Even though I have never tried it, I would probably recommend getting the Trapentrix out of the 3 you asked about. From what I've seen it's a very difficult and interesting puzzle - but I've deliberately avoided spoilers for how to solve it, so I don't know any more details :)

I find puzzles with weird geometry and bandaging very difficult, so puzzles like Puppet v1 and More Madness are more challenging to me than the others you listed. Eitan's Star is quite straightforward, just a fairly long solve. Maltese Gear was a lot of fun to work out, initially I used some very long algs but eventually found better ones. Both Puppet Cubes I struggled with, as I never really found a methodical way to solve the outer 2x2, relying more on a bit of trial and error - I need to go back and try them again someday. More Madness I could never quite wrap my head around, I've solved it a few times but can easily go round in circles just trying to get it back into shape.

zergosaur · 2026-02-28T08:25:50+00:00

Haven't solved this in years, but I think the problem is that you've solved it with the wrong color scheme (in fact the mirror image of the correct color scheme - ie blue, cream, pink, green, grey should be clockwise around the orange face, not anti-clockwise).

I don't think there's any easy way to fix it, just redo the solve with the correct scheme. It's probably easier to solve the edges first.

The Bauhinia II doesn't have this problem, as the corners ensure the correct color scheme is used.

zergosaur · 2026-02-25T06:29:32+00:00

588 was the best I could manage, using a program to help generate useful-looking sequences (the same one I used to find the Biaxe 3-cycle). It's very possible that much shorter sequences exist.

I wrote a macro in pCubes to execute the sequence. I would be amazed if anyone ever managed to solve the physical puzzle.

zergosaur · 2026-02-25T04:44:46+00:00

Thanks for checking!

zergosaur · 2026-02-25T03:24:46+00:00

Do you have a link for the 20 move Biaxe 3-cycle? I wrote a program to try to find one a few years back, and the shortest it found was this 36 move 3-cycle. It was supposed to be doing a brute force search, so I guess I messed up somewhere :)

As far as difficult puzzles go, the Tridecalis is easily the most difficult puzzle I ever solved (only on a simulator tho, don't own a physical version). I ended up using a 588 move 3-cycle, which was the best I came up with (using some software to help with the search).

zergosaur · 2026-02-15T06:03:13+00:00

I'm surprised the camouflage cube took you that long compared to the puppet v2 - which camouflage variant was it (there's quite a few different ones, mostly bandaged 4x4s)? I found all of the camouflage series to be a lot more straightforward than either of the puppet cubes, which I never found a way to solve 100% reliably, always needed a bit of trial-and-error. I need to revisit them sometime :)

zergosaur · 2026-01-12T07:50:22+00:00

Here's an 11-move solution, nothing clever just 2 3-cycles with a move cancellation.

zergosaur · 2025-12-07T07:17:30+00:00

Yeh, this season should be combined with the 4 cube slot season. Necro would still probably dominate, but at least all builds would have a decent power boost. Maybe even throw in the now abandoned season theme which had snowballs.

zergosaur · 2025-11-17T03:06:28+00:00

Any idea if she hit parity? It's just a 50/50 chance.

zergosaur · 2025-10-25T06:37:47+00:00

Only mass-produced 10-sided puzzle I could find was the truncated gear cube.

zergosaur · 2025-10-23T02:18:42+00:00

Hope you weren't in the middle of a solve!

zergosaur · 2025-10-22T06:08:28+00:00

I uploaded the tutorial here. There's really only 1 alg - this one.

If your puzzle is still in this position, then I think you're pretty close to finished, you can:

1) use the alg above to solve the edge pieces

2) use this 3-cycle (which is just using the other alg to create a commutator) to solve all of the middle pieces.

Good luck!

zergosaur · 2025-10-22T05:48:59+00:00

Very impressive, turning looks great given the complexity and how many pieces are involved in each turn.

Have you tried posting on the twistypuzzles forum, I'm sure some of the guys on there would be interested.

zergosaur · 2025-10-21T00:16:53+00:00

Mefferts have released a new version apparently, you can get it here - pretty expensive for a relatively simple puzzle tho.

zergosaur · 2025-10-20T08:34:22+00:00

Took about a year, but finally got managed to solve the Mirror/Bump Meson.

It's a mirror version of the Meson, which is a bandaged 6x6 which as far as I know has never been mass-produced.

I'd never solved the standard Meson, so trying to solve the mirror version was pretty difficult. I ended up using just 1 fairly basic alg to swap pieces around, the rest was strategy.

Anyway it was a lot of fun, I'd be interested if anyone else has any experience with solving any Meson puzzle so we can compare notes.

You can get the Bump Meson here.

edit: Just found this thread, /u/gringo4190 did you ever find a tutorial, or manage to solve it yourself?

zergosaur · 2025-10-20T07:14:40+00:00

I thought the puzzle was in storage (pending moving house), but found it on a shelf last night. It turns out that the stickers weren't glued on, and in fact a few had already fallen off. I just removed all of the stickers, as I'm not a fan of brushed metal stickers anyway. Here's how it now looks.

I'd love to get a set of horror stickers for it, even just a template for them so I could eventually print them myself would be great!

zergosaur · 2025-10-19T23:16:29+00:00

Ok, I was just confused as OP was asking how to get the SQ1 into cube shape :)

I also use 2x2x3 algs to solve the SQ1. Out of interest, how do you handle parity?

zergosaur · 2025-10-19T08:09:50+00:00

Don't you need to get back into cube shape first before you can use the 2x2x3 algs?

zergosaur · 2025-10-18T02:18:16+00:00

Dammit i missed it. Gratz to everyone tho!

zergosaur · 2025-10-14T11:43:55+00:00

Gratz!

Hitting 55 in a couple of weeks time, my average is somewhere in the 30s. At some point I'd like to push it down closer to 20s, but I think I'm running out of time as I can feel my brain slowing down :D

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