Amidst the pandemic, many of us have to stay indoors for an extended amount of time. What better way to keep the mind busy than solving brain teaser puzzles? Even if you are a frequent puzzle solver, you may feel the need to increase the level of difficulty to challenge yourself.
As much as you want to believe that you have improved at problem-solving, brain teasers will surely knock you down a step. From 500 pieces of jigsaw puzzles to weird-shaped Rubik’s Cubes, prepare to challenge yourself with this list!
10 Challenging Brain Teaser Puzzles For Adults
1. Bandaged Rubik’s Cube
The first-ever Bandaged Rubik's Cube was known as the Bicubed and was designed by Uwe Meffert. The cube involved glueing some of the corner-edge pairs together, thereby creating a 2x1x1 cube. This proved to be as a challenge as its cube appeared solved when it was scrambled. Some cuboids can become bandaged when certain moves are made, and blocks are left inseparable until the cube is unbandaged.
2. Ghost Cube
Ghost cubes are puzzle modifications of the Rubik’s Cube. They are unique in nature and amplify the difficulty of the cube that they resemble. Unlike the classic Rubik’s Cube wherein a solved state is achieved when all the colours match, the Ghost Cube is in a solved state when the cube looks exactly like a cube. This means that a Ghost Cube in its scrambled form can look like any shape shifting puzzle.
3. Rex
The Rex Cube is a vertex-turning cube. On a Rex Cube only three petals and a centre on each side, and the three edge pieces around the corner can move. Because of this, some of the pieces overlap and are moved by turning the corner. While solving the Rex cube, it is important to remember the colour scheme.
4. Curvy Copter
The Curvy Copter is yet another challenging modification of the Rubik’s Cube. It can be solved layer by layer, but the centres need to be aligned to solve the corners. The edges of this puzzle make the algorithms quite complex in nature.
5. Windmill Cube
The Windmill Cube is cut diagonally on the white and yellow faces. The centre rotation of this cube influences the moves of the other blocks. The notations to solve the Windmill Cube are quite similar to a 3x3 cube. Though it is not an official WCA event, there are some competitions that have it as an unofficial event.
6. Skewb Mixup
The Skweb was invented by Tony Durham. The puzzle consists of 8 corners and 6 square centrepieces. It can be said that this puzzle is a modification of the Pyraminx as it works on the same four axes mechanism. If you were to make this puzzle come apart, you would see that it has the same cores and the four corners are in fact the centres and the other four pieces are the edges.
7. Puppet
In its solved state, the Puppet looks like a normal 2x2 Rubik’s Cube. However, it is another modified cube and you can see how it changes its shape once it is scrambled. The cube has a few limitations on rotation. The cube is designed such that once the rotation limit is crossed, the difficulty level of solving it amplifies.
8. 13x13
Creators have strived to develop new and harder twisty puzzles as a version of the original Rubik’s Cube. The most common upgrade of the Rubik’s Cube is like the 3x3 but bigger. They can be 13x13 or N x N, also known as ‘Reduction’ or ‘Redux’. These puzzles appear complex and are challenging to solve, as the number of layers increases. However, the foundation to solve these puzzles is relatively the same. Once you understand the algorithms and methods to solve the 4x4, 5x5 and 7x7 cubes, you can solve any N x N puzzle.
9. Master Pyramorphix
The Master Pyramorphix is also called The Mastermorphix. It comes in two versions: one-colour version and four-colour version. This puzzle is a shape mod of the 3x3x3. The centres of this puzzle are rotational. You should restrict yourself to 1800 turns because 900 turns will make the puzzle all the more jumbled and lead you to a state of complexity.
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10. Cuboids
The Rubik’s Cube has definitely shaped the way we think. There are many modifications of the Rubik’s cube-like the 4x4x4 all the way to 7x7x7 and higher. A majority of the cuboids work on the existing NxN mechanism. The most groundbreaking cuboid was designed by Tony Fisher (3x3x4) as it created new horizons in the world of twisty puzzles!
Read More - Different Types of Rubik's Cube That You Should Know
Conclusion
If you are feeling a little out of practice or rusty, you can start with the basic Rubik’s Cube and then eventually move on to other advanced puzzles in the list. All these cubes can be purchased from the official Cubelelo Website.
