Awesome Puzzles

Pix-It-Up is a reusable magnetic puzzle that lets you create pixelated monochrome portraits out of a digital photo. Use the Pix-It-Up website to pixelate a photo and generate instructions. Then arrange the magnetic pieces over the steel frame to mimic the pixelated photo.

Seth Gould spent two years making Coffer, an incredible puzzle strongbox from high carbon steel. Seth made most of it by hand, including the bolts. Jesse Beecher documented the process and made this wonderful video. Skip to 4:13 to see how it works.

We’re currently assembling a 5,000 piece jigsaw puzzle here at Awesomer HQ, and it got us thinking, how do they cut all those tiny pieces so perfectly? Well, ask the internet, and ye shall receive. Here’s a cool video that goes inside Italy’s Clementoni jigsaw puzzle factory.

Rob Jinman’s Pro Office Calculator looks like a normal calculator program when you launch it. But wait for it and you’ll see that it’s actually one giant Easter egg. You’ll need to solve puzzles if you want to find out the mystery behind it. Also on Steam.

Artist Tim Klein loves to combine i mass-produced puzzles, which are often cut on the same dies, then mixes the identically-shaped pieces into “a surreal picture that the publisher never imagined.” Unfortunately, all of his works are sold out as of this writing.

The latest dastardly color puzzle from masochist Clemens Habicht is designed to mock would-be solvers by changing colors. Each piece has a lenticular lens, which makes it shimmer between colors depending on viewing angle and lighting conditions.

YouTuber RedKB shows off an insanely complex Rubik’s Cube variant, a $750 cube which will challenge just about any puzzle fanatic. The YuXin HuangLong puzzle is made from 1947 individual pieces, and we can’t imagine how much work it takes to solve once scrambled.

Alex Bellos took learnings from his travels to Japan to create a series of more than 200 Sudoku-Kakoru-Futoshiki-style puzzles, including 20 completely new and original types of puzzles. The book is packed with challenges for even the most hardened puzzle junkie.

This surreal puzzle game takes players on a fantastic voyage through the human body, as realized through imagery inspired by artist and science writer Fritz Kahn. The game envisions the inner workings of the body as a 1920s factory. Available on iOS and Android now.

This unique puzzle box looks a bit like a Rubik’s Cube, but as Mr. Puzzle shows us, it’s a totally different thing – a take on those dovetail puzzle boxes which look unsolvable, but are surprisingly easy to open if you know the trick. Created by ND Puzzles.

A superbly challenging wood and acrylic puzzle box for storing away small keepsakes. It features a complicated locking mechanism which requires each of its parts to be moved in an exact sequence to access its contents. Solution at 1:46.

If you thought that kid solving a Rubik’s Cube in under 5 seconds was impressive, wait til you get a load of Ben Katz’s speedy robot, which can size up the plastic cube puzzle, and solve it in less than 1/12th of the time – 0.38 seconds to be precise.

An all new game from the makers of puzzle adventure games Myst, Riven, and Obduction. Firmament is set to bring Cyan’s trademark puzzle challenges to virtual reality headsets, enveloping players in rich steampunk environments.

An easy-to-assemble 3-dimensional model of the iconic Volkswagen Type 1 camper van that you assemble from plastic puzzle pieces. It has 162 curved pieces, a rolling base and even a couple of surfboards you can put on its roof. The finished van measures 11.75″ x 5.5″ x 6″.

Up for a real challenge? Every single piece in these 1000- and 2000-piece jigsaw puzzles is the exact same color. Plus, the pieces are much smaller than standard puzzle pieces to make them even more difficult to work with. The smaller version is also available in black.

After tearing down an insanely complicated 17x17x17 Rubik’s Cube, puzzlemaster Tony Fisher managed to acheive something far more daunting – painstakingly putting the thousands of individual pieces back together into a working puzzle.

Cube puzzle guru Tony Fisher decided to see how the insane 17x17x17 Yuxin Huang Long puzzle is put together, so he cracked it open to reveal the thousands of pieces which go into its assembly. Now it’s a whole new kind of puzzle to try and put it back together.

Scribblenauts Showdown is a multiplayer party game spinoff of the one-of-a-kind word puzzle video game. Play over 25 mini-games with the computer or up to three friends using the game’s 35,000-word dictionary. There’s also a sandbox mode. Drops 3/6/18.

Looking to confound your friends with a super-tricky puzzle? Look no further than designer Wil Strijbos’s Lotus Box, a puzzle in which a deceptively simple looking series of tasks are extremely difficult to accomplish. Solution spoiler at 1:40.

Tony Fisher knows a thing or two about making Rubik’s Cubes. After all, he’s the guy behind the world’s largest working cube, and has also built all kinds of complex variants. Here, he shows off a fully-functional puzzle that he made using ice. Hopefully, he’ll work out a color version.

Jason Roberts’ Gorogoa is a refreshing take on puzzle games. Each puzzle consists of up to four hand-drawn frames. You can do only three things: slide the frames, place one frame on top of another, or separate overlapped frames. Available on iOS, Windows and Switch.

Lowe’s challenged four trade professionals and makers – an electrician, a home remodeler and YouTubers Grant Thompson and Bob Clagett – to get through an escape room that challenged their DIY skills. Is it one long Lowe’s ad? Yep. But it’s legitimately entertaining too.

LEGO Ideas member Sleepy17’s playset hides all of the pieces’ studs for a clean look. The set consists of puzzle pieces that form one of two cubes when they’re correctly put together. The 3×3 cube is for beginners, while the 4×4 cube is harder to solve.