Oleg’s Wardrobe
from DEDwood Crafts
A few months ago Dee Dixon notified the world of the next puzzle in his never
ending series of sequential discovery puzzles and I duly placed the release date
in my task manager app with a reminder to go online on the dot of the release
time and be ready with my credit card. I was very lucky to be quick enough and
complete my purchase because all 65 copies went in under 5 minutes! My goodness
the market for these has gone through the roof. Luckily for all of you who
missed out, there will be another batch of 50 being released within a few weeks.
Believe me, it is worth it!
It took a little while for the rather enormous box to cross the pond and the
unboxing was well worth the wait. This puzzle is simply gorgeous! It genuinely
looks like a wardrobe that would be present in a medieval castle complete with
a beautifully carved door handle. It is 5″x7″x3.5″ and made from Peruvian
walnut and African striped mahogany (I think the handle might be Ebony). The
door of the wardrobe has been textured to add to the authenticity and the
quality feel of the puzzle. It is accompanied by a rather large card
explaining the rules and the rather endearing story written by
Brent Hessel to
explain why we have a wardrobe and are looking for the Orb of Prosperity.
Apparently King Oleg stole it from the villagers and hid it in his wardrobe.
The plucky Knight Note has stolen the wardrobe from Oleg but cannot find the
Orb and has asked for help from this plucky puzzler!
It is all absolutely beautifully presented (the cards are really difficult to
photograph!). The first thing I noticed after my initial admiration of the
craftsmanship (Dee always makes such gorgeous puzzles) was the fact that on the
left side of the wardrobe there was a small area cut out that could be rotated
in place to reveal a slot for something. I obeyed the rules and did not spinning
of the puzzle but have to admit that I did shake it a bit upside down to see if
I could make anything come out of the slot. Of course neither Dee not Oleg would
make it so simple. There is also a small area on the base of the wardrobe that
acts as a button but barely moves at this point.
There’s nothing else for it…time to open the wardrobe. What do you do with a
wardrobe? Pull the handle of course and Aha! the door opens (in fact it comes
off) much to my surprise. Inside there is a warning and four drawers:
It’s all so gorgeous!
There are no handles on the drawers so I tipped them out – luckily it’s only a
small wardrobe! They all come out and there is nothing in those drawers. What
next? Time to think©!
The craftsmanship is wonderful
Dee’s mark
With the drawers out it is possible to see that the wardrobe has been
constructed in layers and one is slightly wiggly. This might be useful but at
the moment for me, did nothing. I have to sheepishly admit that I got stuck at
this point for over a week! Whilst investigating this I suddenly found a tool
had appeared and I had absolutely no idea where from. Odd! I used a torch and
looked inside and there was no clue where it came from and only 2 days later
did I work it out. As I have said before, “I am really not terribly bright”.
Having found the tool, I had to work out what to do with it. The little slot
that I had mentioned before seemed an obvious choice and with huge
expectations I slotted it into place and…NADA! It wouldn’t fit. Bugger!
Maybe I was doing it wrong? I tried to do the same move on multiple occasions
and in different orientations of both me and the puzzle. And…still NADA!
Think© dammit!
I thunk for a while and noticed something else where the tool might be helpful
so tried that and…NADA! I am really not very good at puzzling – it’s amazing
that anyone reads what I write. I then had to put this one down for a while or
there would be no blog posts for you. I went back and forth from Brass Monkey
6 to the twisty puzzle to the Wardrobe for a while and only made progress on
the two former puzzles. I must be missing something in this. I was convinced
that the wiggly bit must be the secret but it wasn’t doing anything in any
position and so I was tempted to try something that was not in the rules – my
last resort after blowing on a puzzle is to submerge it in gin to see whether
that might help. With the size of this bloody thing, I would need to use a
whole bottle and Mrs S was not going to let me do that. I did also suspect
that gin might not be good for the wood – I know that I am thick but really
not that dumb. Eventually, after 2 weeks, I made a very small but very
interesting discovery – I had another tool which made what was wiggly really
quite mobile. Man, that is a very unusual move in a puzzle! I had lots more
movement and a lovely locking mechanism that I could not see but worked every
time. This allowed me to try something else which did nothing until I tried it
differently and it did. Bang! I had another tool which I did not know how I
managed to unlock or even where it had come from.
This new tool looked very useful. It fit somewhere and then fell out again.
Maybe I could try….
Aha!
That is very interesting. I could make the took disappear inside. At this
point there were only so many possibilities and before long I heard a click. I
couldn’t see anything new as a result of the click so carried on fiddling when
Oleg’s orb fell on the table. A word of warning – if you are doing SD puzzles,
always do them on a table or on a lap tray. Son’t do them on an armchair and
especially not with a cat on your lap because stuff disappears quickly inside
the crevices of an armchair or in the gaping maw of a peeved cat!
I appeared to have retrieved the Orb and I have to say that King Oleg has a
very small ball!
The Orb of Prosperity is a little erm underwhelming
Having found the Orb, I am told that all is well in the village and I can now
reset the puzzle back to the beginning without fear of the consequences. Except
after over a week of trying, I cannot seem to reset the puzzle. I am trying to
do the reverse of what I had done but something is not working for me. I suspect
that I have forgotten a specific orientation for the puzzle when I do a certain
move or sequence and need to keep experimenting to get it to work. The result of
this? Note to myself to always pay attention to what moves you do and what
position they are in when you do them.
I’ll keep at it. It will look fabulous on display with all my other
Dedwood Crafts puzzles. I really must get back to the Burner and Uplift puzzles which I have also
singularly failed:
Uplift
Burner
I also think there is another new one coming out which I will hopefully be quick enough on the draw to purchase! If all the previous ones are anything to go by then it will be superb.Keep an eye out for the second batch if you didn’t manage to get one of these from the first.