IPP 42 Tokyo — (2)

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Day 3

Puzzle Party

The third day of IPP had begun. The day before, Jinhoo Ahn warned us to be prepared for the Puzzle Party. It‘s an event where designers and crafters sell their puzzles at individual booths. Popular puzzles sell out quickly, so I had to move fast. I also made sure to bring plenty of cash with me.

As soon as the Puzzle Party opened, I quickly scanned the booths and headed to MINE’s booth first. I really wanted Coin Wallet and Karakuri Packing, both winners of previous design competitions. Luckily enough, there was exactly one of each left, so I picked them up immediately.

I also managed to get Diagonal Twins, one of this year’s design competition entries, but I’ll talk more about it later.

I wandered around, picking up any puzzles that caught my eye. I eventually arrived at Stephen’s booth and spotted the puzzle pen he had shown me at the exchange event. Its official name is Ze Super Stylus Pen. It ended up being the most expensive one I bought, but I simply couldn't resist my curiosity about how it worked.

Then I visited Yavuz Demirhan's booth to buy Rombox, another entry in this year's design competition. I already owned one puzzle from his Squary Pack series, and he told me that Rombox would be the last puzzle in that series. It had yet another interesting move and felt like a perfect finale to the series.

There were so many interesting puzzles that I ended up spending all the cash I had brought. I even borrowed some from Marco to buy a few more puzzles! Jinhoo said he was impressed by how skillfully we managed to get the puzzles we wanted, considering it was our first IPP.

After the Puzzle Party, I had to solve the real-world packing puzzle: fitting all the puzzles in my suitcase. In fact, the puzzles alone were enough to fill up my suitcase, so I had to buy another bag for my clothes and other stuff.

Lectures

In the afternoon, there were four lectures:

• The Memory of Hiroshi Yamamoto (Lixy Yamada)
• Solving the Cataloging Puzzle - It Will Take a Village (Marc Pawliger)
• Between "Obvious" and "Impossible" (Koichi Miura)
• World Puzzle Center (Roxanne & George Miller)

Every talk was fascinating, and I listened with full attention.

Personally, I wanted to meet Hiroshi Yamamoto, because his puzzle Copy Device was an inspiration for my puzzle Canal. Ex 3 is another of his masterpiece, which popularized the symmetry puzzle genre. I didn’t know until Lixy Yamada’s lecture that he passed away in 2024. I wish I’d had the chance to talk with him in person.

Marc Pawliger’s project to create a universal puzzle database was fascinating. He gave a presentation to invite people to join the project. Like everyone, I’ve often had trouble finding a specific puzzle among hundreds of puzzles (I don’t even know the exact number) stored randomly in boxes. A puzzle database and an app for managing personal collections would be really useful, and I’m looking forward to it.

Through Koichi Miura’s presentation, I was able to peek into how he thinks when designing puzzles. His puzzles are always innovative and elegant, so they’re among my favorite pieces in my collection. I found his philosophy interesting, that a great puzzle emerges when you strike a balance between what seems obvious and what seems impossible.

In the last presentation, Roxanne Miller and George Miller showed us the castle they had renovated into the World Puzzle Center. There were dozens of rooms packed with shelves, each of which was packed with puzzles. If there were a puzzle heaven, it would look like this place! I should visit Italy someday to walk through that heaven with my own feet.

Awards Dinner

The finale of IPP was the Awards Dinner.

I had to submit my votes for the Design Competition before the lectures begin. I could only select five entries, so I debated with myself until the very end. I wished I could have nominated more puzzles.

The design with the highest vote score wins the Puzzler’s Award. There are also jury-selcted awards: the Jury Grand/1st Prize and the Jury Honorable Mention. The winners receive a trophy, and even the trophy itself is a puzzle!

The top ten puzzles by votes are also mentioned during the ceremony and listed on the competition website.

And the Puzzler’s Award went to… Diagonal Twins, by Yasuhiro Hashimoto!

It was so well deserved, with such an elegant solution built from just four simple pieces. Its look reminds me of Pin Block Case by Hajime Katsumoto, yet it has its own unique character through the use of diagonals. The two designers seem to inspire each other’s work, as you can also see in the development from 4L by Yasuhiro Hashimoto to 4PAC by Hajime Katsumoto. It feels like an ongoing conversation carried out through puzzles, which I find fascinating.

Chained Frames, which was my favorite as I mentioned in the previous post, won a Jury Honorable Mention. I never expected it to be by Koichi Miura, because it felt so different from his usual style. I’m glad to see him trying new ideas and exploring different areas of puzzle design.

He also won another award for his Tetromino Island puzzle. Two awards in a single year is an amazing achievement.

I went up to him to say congratulations, and asked him to sign my copy of his Legal Packing puzzle. That completed my little mission to collect designers’ autographs on my puzzles.

After the award ceremony, there was a final moment to introduce people who had worked hard to prepare IPP in Tokyo, including Iwahiro. Sometime during IPP, Iwahiro said that he hoped the KPP members would one day host an IPP in Korea. Seeing that long line of staff members, I’m not sure whether it will be possible, but it will be truly amazing if it ever happens.

Closing Thoughts

First of all, I’d like to express my infinite gratitude to Iwahiro for inviting the KPP members to the IPP. Thank you also for the hard work in successfully organizing such a large-scale event.

Also, I really appreciate Takeshi Onishi for spending some time with us at IPP. As a newcomer, I was a bit overwhelmed at first, but thanks to him I was able to settle in quickly. He also kindly treated us to a delicious dinner on Day 1, when we were so caught up in the reception that we’d forgotten how hungry we were.

I’m also grateful to the KPP members for being part of this journey, as well as everyone I had wonderful conversations with at the IPP.

Going to the IPP for the first time was really inspiring. I haven’t been able to focus on puzzles lately, but I’m going to start putting effort into creating fun puzzles again. I even bought a 3D printer as a part of that! I’m hoping to share more puzzle posts soon, possibly an IPP 42 puzzle review, a 3D printer write-up, or my new puzzle designs.