There are currently three Plexi Puzzles offered by Brainwright. They are beautifully made acrylic puzzles, all designed by Kate Jones (an exceptionally devoted designer and producer of truly elegant, and often profoundly puzzling puzzles). They are as much works of art as they are invitations to play.
Each of the three is as major in the fun it offers, each in a different way. They all include a tray (with transparent cover for storage and display), and a booklet of many different puzzles that can be explore with the pieces.
The Iamond Hex Plexi Puzzle (shown) is composed of 12 angled shapes made by combining equilateral triangles in various configurations – similar in conceptual and geometrical design to Pentominoes. The recommended minimal age is 10. I am almost 75. And let me tell you, both myself and my local ten-year-old found the puzzle to be more than sufficiently puzzling.
Then there’s the Roundominoes Plexi Puzzle – also acrylic, also beautifully made and presented with its own storage and assembly tray, offering an even greater variety of different puzzles to explore. This one is composed, as you might guess, of circles. There’s the 7 red singleround pieces (as you might imagine them to be) and the 7 orange doublerounds (two singlerounds connected), and then the 7 blue triplerounds, and an assortment of “bridges” (pairs of purple, orange and green circles with an extra thingy that fits around a round; and one light blue circle with thingy). Because there are so many more puzzles to explore, younger players (the recommended minimal age is 8) and even I found the puzzle more, well, friendly.
Finally, the Plexi XL, a set of 16 pieces built from hexagons. There’s one piece that’s a simple single hexagon, two pieces that are double hexagons, and the rest are “polyhexagons,” the shapes that result from joining sets of three, four or five hexagons in every possible combination. This puzzle is a larger format than the other two. It also has a recommended minimal age of 8. And the variety of puzzles described in the accompanying booklet is the most extensive of all.
These puzzles are, as I’ve tried to imply, not easy. But they are all enticingly beautiful, well-made, and opportunities to get deeply engaged in exploring the many the wonders of mathematical, geometrical and topological connections. For those of us who appreciate this kind of thing, these are about as Major, fun-wise, as you can get.
