Did y’all know the Rubik’s Cube turns fifty years old this year?! I had no idea and was actually really interested in learning more about its history. It was created by Ernő Rubik in 1974 and launched globally in 1980, becoming an absolute worldwide hit.
There’s now massive competitions to see how fast you can solve one, and the Spin Master company, which acquired the brand in 2021, now has multiple versions (alongside other brain testing games and items).
As part of the 50th anniversary we were able to try out the Rubik’s Gridlock puzzle, which is a twist on the classic cube and is inspired by tangram and other puzzles.
The game comes in a small case, which makes it perfect for taking pretty much anywhere. It has eleven block pieces of different sizes. On one side is the pieces for the actual puzzle, and on the bottom are all the 88 challenge cards, which come in four difficulties. Flip a card over to reveal the puzzle and place the fixed white starter blocks as shown.
Each challenge card has only one solution so you have to figure out how to fit the remaining color blocks on the board without moving the starter blocks.
I love puzzles so I was really excited to try the Rubik’s Gridlock out and I had a ton of fun. The cards are of a varied difficulty so you won’t ever get bored. Green is easy, blue is moderate difficulty, orange is hard, and red is for experts.
They aren’t kidding about how hard the red cards are. I gave up at on the first one after fifteen minutes. I’ll try again later.
The challenge in the image below is clearly pretty easy to solve. Whew.
The pieces themselves are light and easy to move which makes them accessible for players of any age and dexterity.
Since you have to use every single piece, the game ends up feeling like Tetris, but there’s no scoring system so it’s really just about how long it takes you to figure out each card. I do wish there were solutions available somewhere!
You can also play with a friend and work together, so there aren’t really any limits in the game except for not being able to move the white pieces. For someone who has never once solved a Rubik’s Cube, this was a nice option.
You can pick up Rubik’s Gridlock from Amazon for only $15!
Images and review copy courtesy of Spin Master
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