Excellent, thank you LockPickingCuber! I'm Jay, the creator. This is pretty much the patient exploration, irritation and fun that I hoped people would encounter when tackling these puzzles. The 'millionaire' version you mention is named after millionaire shortbread, which is formed with 2.2.1 blocks that have a similar shape to the millionaire biscuits my grandmother provided whenever I visited in the seventies. Great camera angle btw. That configuration at 12:43 (21:50 on the stopwatch) then again shortly later, is the key difference to the initial assumption that you later identified. And you found a new solution! (I have never solved it that way, I lazily start with 2.2.2 bebe and then wrap a 'shield' around the front, right and top faces by using the remaining six 3.1.1 blocks and placing the last sphere in the front right top corner to complete the 3.3.3 cube.)
It would have been less fiddly for sure, but I have to admit that I quite like the look of the ball-bearings along with the acrylic cuboids, and to some extent one can view the fiddly bits as part of the puzzle, perhaps...
It's for the aesthetics. Look at the main image and count how many refracted and reflected images of spheres there are! And they disappear and appear from different viewpoints (less obvious from a static camera) but none of this would be so attractively confusing if the steel spheres were only acrylic cubes. Yes, they do roll off, yes, I do slip tiny torn paper fragments in to hold them steady.
Excellent, thank you LockPickingCuber! I'm Jay, the creator. This is pretty much the patient exploration, irritation and fun that I hoped people would encounter when tackling these puzzles. The 'millionaire' version you mention is named after millionaire shortbread, which is formed with 2.2.1 blocks that have a similar shape to the millionaire biscuits my grandmother provided whenever I visited in the seventies. Great camera angle btw. That configuration at 12:43 (21:50 on the stopwatch) then again shortly later, is the key difference to the initial assumption that you later identified. And you found a new solution! (I have never solved it that way, I lazily start with 2.2.2 bebe and then wrap a 'shield' around the front, right and top faces by using the remaining six 3.1.1 blocks and placing the last sphere in the front right top corner to complete the 3.3.3 cube.)
Hey Jay! Thanks for commenting and for the extra insights... You've created a really unique set of puzzles, I'd say.
That is fiendish! But as always-nothing can stop strong analytic thought!!
Great job, sometimes it seems to a bit of trial and error until you understand what is going on
That's cool :)
Would it have been less frustrating if the ball bearings had been cubes? It seemed pretty fiddly.
It would have been less fiddly for sure, but I have to admit that I quite like the look of the ball-bearings along with the acrylic cuboids, and to some extent one can view the fiddly bits as part of the puzzle, perhaps...
It's for the aesthetics. Look at the main image and count how many refracted and reflected images of spheres there are! And they disappear and appear from different viewpoints (less obvious from a static camera) but none of this would be so attractively confusing if the steel spheres were only acrylic cubes. Yes, they do roll off, yes, I do slip tiny torn paper fragments in to hold them steady.