Monday
Jan282008
Probably the hardest puzzle in the world - ever
Monday, January 28, 2008 at 12:24AM
Don't remember if I said before but as one of my christmas gifs I received what may well be the hardest puzzle in the world - ever.
Now I am not renowned for my patience with things that annoy or frustrate me (other than my occasionally forgetful husband for whom I have indefinite patience - probably because he puts up with me and brings me lots of cups of tea) so this would not seem like a gift you would want to give me, but it has been strangely intriguing.
The puzzle is called the Isis and it works something like this. You get a wooden box which, when you open in contains a metal sphere about the size of softball (or a medium sized grapefruit). Thats it- no instructions or anything. If you look closely at the sphere you will see that there are a number of hieroglyphs it and that these seem to be arranged in rings. If you continue to look you will see that some of these rings look like they move.
You may have seen this advertised on a number of gizmo sites like firebox, or on the Dragons Den TV show where no one wanted to invest in them. I think that they may have made a mistake in choosing to not invest, but as I did not see the show (because it makes me cringe) I don't know.
Your goal with the strange thing is to open it and get the key that is inside, which should then allow you to travel somewhere in the UK to find some treasure. You cannot force the puzzle to open - you need to work out how to dismantle the sphere in some way. If you get really stuck then you can access a set of clues after you have registered the puzzle. Of course in order to not make it too easy the clues are encoded - and you need to work out how to decode then before you can read them. Of course there are no clues as to how to do this either. If these are not enough then you can purchase additional ones at £5 each.
After guddling around with my Isis for a couple of days - not having the faintest idea as to what I was doing - I downloaded the clue book and managed to crack some of the clues. They are not straight forward (just like everything else thus far) and tend to be quite cryptic in nature. I think I am about half way through working out how to solve the first part of this puzzle, but I may be mistaken.
If you get one of these then, if you are like me, you will wonder why the box has a deliberate curve to the top that will hold your Isis - trust me you will need it.
So time will tell if I can solve the puzzle - you never know I may work it out before they bring out the new one - though at my current rate it is unlikely. If you are interested then you can check out the site of the makers Sonic Warp who have a heap of other equally infuriating puzzles - just incase Isis is not your cup of tea.
Now I am not renowned for my patience with things that annoy or frustrate me (other than my occasionally forgetful husband for whom I have indefinite patience - probably because he puts up with me and brings me lots of cups of tea) so this would not seem like a gift you would want to give me, but it has been strangely intriguing.
The puzzle is called the Isis and it works something like this. You get a wooden box which, when you open in contains a metal sphere about the size of softball (or a medium sized grapefruit). Thats it- no instructions or anything. If you look closely at the sphere you will see that there are a number of hieroglyphs it and that these seem to be arranged in rings. If you continue to look you will see that some of these rings look like they move.
You may have seen this advertised on a number of gizmo sites like firebox, or on the Dragons Den TV show where no one wanted to invest in them. I think that they may have made a mistake in choosing to not invest, but as I did not see the show (because it makes me cringe) I don't know.
Your goal with the strange thing is to open it and get the key that is inside, which should then allow you to travel somewhere in the UK to find some treasure. You cannot force the puzzle to open - you need to work out how to dismantle the sphere in some way. If you get really stuck then you can access a set of clues after you have registered the puzzle. Of course in order to not make it too easy the clues are encoded - and you need to work out how to decode then before you can read them. Of course there are no clues as to how to do this either. If these are not enough then you can purchase additional ones at £5 each.
After guddling around with my Isis for a couple of days - not having the faintest idea as to what I was doing - I downloaded the clue book and managed to crack some of the clues. They are not straight forward (just like everything else thus far) and tend to be quite cryptic in nature. I think I am about half way through working out how to solve the first part of this puzzle, but I may be mistaken.
If you get one of these then, if you are like me, you will wonder why the box has a deliberate curve to the top that will hold your Isis - trust me you will need it.
So time will tell if I can solve the puzzle - you never know I may work it out before they bring out the new one - though at my current rate it is unlikely. If you are interested then you can check out the site of the makers Sonic Warp who have a heap of other equally infuriating puzzles - just incase Isis is not your cup of tea.
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