Dioctipoid
I liked the Dioctipoid puzzle at first glance.
It remembers me of a quilt patchwork pattern.
Due to the round shape and the high symmetry, the puzzle looks simple.
This is however a false conclusion.
The quality is very high. The colours are neither printed nor did they use any stickers.
Instead they used different coloured plastic parts for the different colours.
The colours are well matching and look fancy.
The puzzle is relatively big, with a diameter of 8.5 cm.
Nevertheless it fits comfortably into the hand.
The word Dioctipoid is written as ambigram on each rhomb.
Therefore the puzzle can be shifted easily without slipping out of the hands.
The Dioctipoid Puzzle is invented by Gary Spencer-Purvis.
He registered his invention for a patent(GB 2448484) in 2007
which he got in the following year.
The Rex Cube by Andrew Cormier is the same puzzle,
but in the shape of a cube.
The puzzle looks like a Dino Cube.
Currently, it has been produced by Mefferts, but the quality is slight worse.
Thus, stickers were used for the different colours and the cube is also much smaller.
The Dioctipoid Puzzle belongs to the Octahedral Puzzles.
Octahedral Puzzles are twisty puzzles with eight different rotation axes.
Neighbouring rotation axis have the same angle.
If you imagine a cube, then the rotation axes exit on the edges of the cube.
The puzzle can be moved three times around each rotation axis in order to reach the initial point.
This means that each axis can be turned by 120 degrees.
The surface of the puzzle is composed of 6 squares, 6 * 4 triangles and 12 rhombs.
The difficult version Dioctipoid 2.0 has 4 triangles, 2 rhombs and one square in the same colour.
The easy version Dioctipoid 1.0 has the 12 rhombs in white colour.
With each movement, three squares, 9 triangles, and three rhombs are rotated by 120 degrees (see photo).
Playing with the puzzle, I noticed the unusual movement of the pieces.
It is very different from the movement of a Rubik's Cube.
But after a few turns you get used to it very quickly.
I could solve the Dioctipoid 1.0 in about 90 minutes up to two pieces.
The Dioctipoid 2.0 is much more difficult than the Dioctipoid 1.0.
It took already several minutes to solve the first colour.
Both Dioctipoids are difficult. I think that they are a hard challenge,
and will keep people puzzled for a long while.
I liked both puzzles very well, whereby I preferred the Dioctipoid 1.0.
You can buy the Dioctipoid Puzzles on the official website.