thinkfun gordian's knot

Rating:
Date: 2008-05-15
Great for adults with patient
Finding a solution takes at least a couple of hours for an adult with some skills and experiences on brain teasers. Putting it back after dissembling is near to impossible without looking into the manual. You need to be observant and persistent to enjoy the toy.

Rating:
Date: 2008-03-02
Knot Your Typical Puzzle!
It took me about 1.5 hours of continuously working on it to solve this puzzle, with zero help from a booklet or interwubs. I was in one of those moods where I wanted to be engrossed in a puzzle and this one surely fit the bill! It's difficult to put down once you start playing with it, but don't anticipate solving it unless you have some serious time on your hands. Reassembling it is also a major challenge, but I think I'm going to use the instructional video to do that. Then I'll attempt to solve it again and find out if I can do it any quicker the second time around :)

Rating:
Date: 2008-01-28
Fun, but a little easier than I thought
I thought this puzzle was going to be a real brain buster, but I worked out the puzzle in less than 2 hours. The product claims to have thousands of possible moves with only 65 correct moves, but it doesn't seem like there are that many ways to move the pieces once you get going. Simple trial an error will work out this puzzle rather quickly, and doesn't require as much thinking as I would have liked. However, it's durable and fun nonetheless.

Rating:
Date: 2007-07-25
Great little puzzle
I was in a bookstore that had one of these on demo, and my friends and I (all around 20 years old) took turns fiddling with it until we finally had it apart. So no, it's not impossible like another reviewer said. But it is maddenly difficult, as you can't always tell if you are moving in the right direction. The solutions manual is worthless if you've already progressed too far (not to mention that's not fun anyway), but taking it apart is easier than putting it back together, so it is good for reassembly.

My favorite thing about this is that it is lightweight and durable, easily set down for later or passed to another person.

Rating:
Date: 2007-02-27
Not a Gordian Knot
This should be listed as "Gordian's Knot" not "Gordian Knot"! Actually I don't think this puzzle looks much like a knot anyway. However the good folks at ThinkFun wisely renamed it because "Extreme Torture" probably wouldn't sell well.

Extreme torture is more like what you will experience, however. This puzzle is diabolically difficult and you can almost feel the computer program that designed the beast lurking inside the plastic, scheming to cut off every easy and quick solution. The solution booklet is great, although you may be tempted to reach for it too quickly. If you mess with the puzzle for too long you can be in trouble, because the solution booklet only helps if you are near the starting position!

The solution booklet quips: "no trick moves or rotating of pieces is required to solve the puzzle!". What this leaves out is that a solution can be found more quickly if you rotate pieces. The computer program did not consider such moves so this is one way to outwit the designer. Beware, however, you may get your puzzle into such a snarl in this way you can never get it apart or back together!

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