I had an interesting thought for a new puzzle the other day. It looks mostly like a 2x2x2, but two of the axes are slightly skewed so that four of the corners are fat and four of them are thin. The third slice, which I think of as being 'horizontal', can always be turned along. The other two need to be lined up properly in order to turn, with one fat and one thin piece needing to be on each side to make a slice.

From the initial position, it's possible to slice along either of the two vertical slices, but then because two fats and two thins are next to each other, you can only rotate the top 180 degrees before doing another slice, which returns the puzzle to the original shape. The other thing you can do is turn the top slightly off from 90 degrees, and then turn one of the vertical slices, which leaves the puzzle in its original shape in an interesting way.

Making this puzzle is an interesting challenge. I think making a skewed version of a regular 2x2x2 mechanism mostly works, although some of the internal pieces need to be cut up into a few more pieces. I leave the details as an exercise to the reader

Could you please post a picture or a render of the concept ?

I quickly made one in Solidworks. Is this what you mean?

The internals actually look pretty good, which means a 3x3 would probably be possible as well.

Callum

Yes and sort of. The 3x3x3 would have to have extra pieces, basically a less squashed version of Oskar's Squashed Cube, so it wouldn't have the elegance of the 2x2x2.

Ahhh I designed this 3x3 a while back when I was still using autoCAD. I never really though it could be interesting so I sort of backed down

It isn't a terribly hard puzzle, but it is an interesting mechanism and a fun thing to play with. The 2x2x2 is a lot more elegant than the 3x3x3 though.

Wow. I think I have envisioned this puzzle in the past, but I don't think I realized that it could be scrambled past the first turn. Now I see how it could be. Would this be considered a jumbling puzzle?

Chandler