Triskele

The Karakuri Creation Group recently listed some new items for sale, and I decided to try out Triskele by Hideaki Kawashima, since he's been coming up with some interesting boxes recently!

When it arrived, I was quite impressed with its appearance: the contrast between the dark wenge and the zebra wood is quite striking! The zebra wood is somewhat raised from the surface of the box and beveled, which looks quite good. The fit and finish of the box were up to the Karakuri Group's high standards as well.

I started trying to solve it, curious to see if it was also an interesting puzzle. I fiddled with it a bit, trying some of the usual things, and didn't have any luck at first. Scratching my head, I tried a few more things and was pleasantly surprised by an interesting movement and the solution! The movement is related to another puzzle, and works quite well when used here.

In all, I think it took me about 3-5 minutes, which is enough that I don't feel like I found it too quickly, but not terribly challenging. I've shown it to a few friends, and none were able to find the solution on their own, so perhaps my experience isn't indicative of the difficulty. This is one of those boxes where you don't really make any progress until you've solved it, so I'd be hesitant to hand this one to somebody who doesn't have much patience when they're not making some progress.

As I mentioned, the movement is quite nice: it is satisfying to open and also closes up quite nicely with a snug fit.  One downside is that the lid can come open rather suddenly, so you may want to play with it over your lap or a table. Kawashima warns in the description: "When you open this box for the first time, please take care about the surroundings." Also, I wish he had included a mark indicating which way the lid was supposed to be put on, since it can go either way and the fit is a bit too tight the wrong way. Still, Triskele is a fun little box that I'm glad to have purchased!