This article was taken from the August 2013 issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online.
It looks like a flying saucer, but this titanium disc is actually one of the world's most difficult puzzles. Created by Cumbria-based designer Chris Pitt, the Revomaze R2 evokes an unlit labyrinth: you have to find your way through, but you can't see where you're heading. There's an internal disk, an outer sleeve that the user rotates to guide a sprung pin attached to an arm around the disk's grooves, and a set of "moons" that are rotated to open new pathways.
On Christmas Day 2008, 32 years after he was inspired by a trip to Hampton Court's maze, Pitt made his first Revomaze. Now his puzzles have a cult following among fans of brain-bending. The R2 is the latest (previous puzzles include the Obsession and Extreme), and involves 429,981,696 permutations and an average solving time of 150-300 hours. On completing the maze and unlocking the device, the player gets part of a code. Future editions provide further codes, with the grand prize being the only Revomaze R1 in existence.
The demand is certainly there: the
Revomaze forum is full of devotees sharing tips and speculating about the latest edition. "What's great is that they protect the puzzles, rather than just cutting them open and showing people how to do it," says Pitt, 52. He has only once seen one sliced apart. "We had it returned to us -- it was cut open and drilled into. Then I saw a note saying that Customs and Excise had done it -- I think they wanted to see if it contained drugs." Well, either that or they just couldn't finish it.
This article was originally published by WIRED UK
