3 extraordinary Twisty Puzzles

The Clover Cube, Pentacle Cube, and Ivy Cube. In this episode, I review each of them. I am completely new to twisty puzzles, therefore, I am interested in hearing your feedback.

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[kylep]

Yes get into cubing. They are a lot of fun and there is an insane amount of different puzzles to play with

[Ron]

I am so happy that you have done a puzzle cube video!!
That finale (pentagram) puzzle looks incredibly difficult. If you solve it, PLEASE, make a video!!!
Keep on PUZZLING!!!!

[Tweakimp]

Very nice pronounciation of the chinese name!

[rjvalle]

You sir are the Bob Ross of puzzles!
I love each of your videos they are very relaxing, I love to watch them before bed.
Keep up the good work!

[MaoDunGe]

Pleased to hear that you pronounced 魔方格 perfectly! Lots of cubers get confused with Chinese pronunciation, and it gives me the chills every time I hear them speak!

[SJohnTrombley]

Watching you play with a flavor of puzzle you're less familiar with is fun

[yorgle]

The "half twist" of the clover cube is called a "jumbling" move. I just ordered a Pentacle cube. Really hoping it arrives soon! :D

[clausbauer]

Hi Mr. Puzzle. Very interesting to see you with cubes. I'll Show it to my son - he likes such cubes and he solved several models. I am not in this kind of puzzle. When the original Rubiks cube came out, I had one and I solved it completly at my own. That was very satisfying - but needed several weeks. But then I lost the interest... I didn't tried to shorten the way to solve it. I found a very long way with some huge moves. But that was fun... some years ago in the 80s!

[CyberMesh]

Interesting to see that Mofangge would send you these, nice video and showcase. They are all newer puzzles, and very interesting ones. As you stated in the video, they all are of very good quality. I personally have the Ivy and Clover cubes, don't yet have the Pentacle but I'm familiar with how it works. I have a number of non-standard twisty puzzles and the Clover cube is the first one that I have been able to solve consistently without looking up any guides. The Ivy is by far the easiest of the three, and the Pentacle is harder if only because it requires knowledge of how to solve at least a 2x2 cube and of how commutators work.

[adamzam]

the pyraminx is a great beginner's cube.

[Sam_on_YouTube]

As someone who figured out the cube myself rather than learning algoriths, let me seriously recommend that you try it. You would really like it. Start with a 2x2, then move on to a 3x3.

On the ones you've got there, let me say that the first one is really easy. The second is also way easier than a standard cube. The last one, I don't know, but it looks on par with a standard rubiks cube. It's a similar level I think but a somewhat different challenge.

Once you can solve a 3x3, then there are a lot of really interesting variations. I would do them in this order:

Void cube (has a parity error in a 3x3 cube, good for getting an understanding of what causes those errors so you can fix them without algorithms)
5x5 (ironically this is easier than the 4x4 since it only has 1 parity error. It is similaf, but different from the one in the void cube, so watch out. All these errors happen 50% of the time, so it can be solved by scrambling and trying again until you figure out a better way.)
4x4 (this has both of the previous parity errors, so 3/4 times you'll have at least 1 and 1/4 times you'll have both. You really need to understand the cube to solve this without the algorithms.)
6x6 (if you can solve this, you can solve any standard cube. It is no harder than the 4x4, unless you are relying on luck in the 4x4. By the 6x6 luck is just not so likely and you really need to know your stuff, but solve it and you can solve any cube.)
Megaminx (Move on to a different shape. Some of what you learned still applies, but not all of it. It adds a new challenge but not a huge challenge. Try the bigger versions too like the gigaminx or petaminx.)

So far for all of those, I use the same ultra simple method I devised myself. But some of the top cube designers like Mefforts and Tony Fisher have more interesting challenges that break all the rules. Start looking into those, like a banded cube or an arrowed cube or a windowed cube. These are real new challenges that still give me trouble and I've been cubing for years. Of course I refuse to look up solutions to them. There's no fun in that. I only look up solutions to ones I can already solve so I can modify the solutions and algorithms to make my own simpler methods.

The ones you've got there are nice beginner toys, but not what I would enjoy myself.

[amberfroese]

If you want to try different cubes, I personally recommend the gear cube or the gear ball. They are easy enough to figure out, but enough of a challenge to still make it fun. Good luck and keep cubing :)

[twistiicuber]

So glad that you considered branching out to twisty puzzles!

[rikishikato]

Pyraminx and Redi Cube are some of the simple twisty puzzles. both are intuitive and easy to learn

[BizVlogs]

You mentioned you had no reference for the difficulty of the cubes, so I'd say:

The ivy cube is (clearly) very easy. Mechanically it is the same as the pyraminx, but it is slightly easier because the center pieces can be switched 180 degrees and it makes no difference.

Something else this easy would be the dino cube, or the gear cube.

The clover cube is not very difficult from twisty puzzle standards, though the "halftwisting" (called jumbling) adds a touch more difficulty. Something harder would be the curvy copter, which is the same but with corner pieces and so you have to come up with an algorithm or two to deal with the corners.

Something harder than the clover cube but still solvable with intuition only would be the rex cube. If you want something easy but not very intuitive, try the skewb.

Solving the 2x2 takes algorithms and is probably more difficult than anything mentioned yet.

Solving the 3x3 (without any cheat sheets of course) is VERY difficult but it can still be done by mere mortals.

The Pentacle cube is strictly harder than the 3x3 because it requires the 3x3 solution and additional moves to align the layers.

[smurfk]

The interesting thing about the clover cube, curvy copter or others similar is that you can use those moves, where pieces stick out but orient them so they will be flat on another face. So, you will have a much harder to solve the puzzle, as when you trace back, you will need to do the same moves that you did when you scramble it. So, there's a big step in difficulty if you were to scramble it this way, than just simply doing just the edges.
That kind of movement makes it similar to an unsolvable Rubik's cube, where you might rotate a single corner, and the puzzle would be unsolvable. The curvy copter is not unsolvable, as you can fix those, but it's kinda difficult to see the right moves.

So, I would say that it's definitely easier than Rubik's cube if you use basic moves while scrambling it, but harder with those special moves.

You might want to grab a 2x2x2. While it might seem easy at first sight, it's not an easy puzzle to solve.

[CarterLB]

I personally would rate them like this in terms of difficulty:

Ivy cube: 1/5

Clover cube: 1.5/5

Pentacle cube: 3/5

And for scale, 3x3: 2/5

[CHEF]

It moves very smoos :D
Gutes Video :)

[alexkropla]

Yes get into cubing! Good cubes to start with are a 3x3x3 and a square 1. I believe you would be amazing at speed solving you should try it once in a while, trust me you'll love it

[Ryanhelpmeunderstand]

You are the Puzzle God! I’m glad to call you Mr. Puzzle!