Chained Sliders

Description

Chained Sliders is a tribute to Bram Cohen's recent puzzle Enigmatic Shapeshifter. Bram created a blue-yellow perimeter around a 3x3 sliding puzzle by cleverly assuring that the outer twelve squares would always need to touch each other. The same effect can be achieve more trivially by linking the perimeter pieces into a chain, like Osdas 4x4. The puzzle is fun to play and solve, not too difficult, but not too easy either.

Surprisingly, the puzzle is a non-trivial take-apart puzzle as well, as there is a special set of moves that enables to isolate the center 5-piece from the other pieces and take it out. After that, the other pieces can be taken out in several steps, and the chained pieces can be freed from each other. The converse put-together puzzle is even harder, much, much harder than the original sliding puzzle.

Watch the YouTube video.

Please order a 3D-printed do-it-yourself puzzle kit from iMaterialise at this page (check with Oskar about screws and stickers), or contact Oskar directly if you are interested in obtaining a fully colored, stickered and assembled sample of this puzzle.