Tuesday, December 29, 2020

Looking Back to 2020

Hello puzzle lovers!

One year goes by so fast and 2020 is almost over. On this opportunity, I would like to look back on the year. Here are the puzzles that Pluredro produced in 2020.

January - Loopy L Cube #3
This is the third version of the Loopy L Cube series and personally, I love this type of puzzle. It looks like a child's block toy. Yet, believe it or not, it is very difficult.


February - Pinned Framed Burr L, M, S
Those three are also difficult puzzles. Do you want to know how difficult it is? For example, Pinned Framed Burr L requires 149 moves to remove the first piece. I would give up just hearing the numbers.


July - Coin Case
This is the simplest puzzle box Juno has ever designed and it is an easy puzzle. Probably, this puzzle is good for puzzle beginners.


August - Southern Cross
This 6-piece board burr puzzle has a unique level 14-4-1-1-2 solution and it also has a unique assembly.
You can imagine the shape of this puzzle as the Southern Cross, the best-known constellation in the southern hemisphere.


October - SDBB Master
This is the sequential discovery puzzle that we spent the longest time to complete. The number of tools that are contained inside the puzzle is also the largest.
I love that one of the mechanisms is using two gear-like parts and opens a lid.


December - Wormhole Burr, Crooked 6 Piece Burr (original version), Crooked 6 Piece Burr (Pinned version), Juno's Arrow


I have tried Crooked 6 Piece Burr (Original version). It is pretty enjoyable. I have not tried the pinned version because it seems the difficulty level is way beyond mine.

Juno's Arrow is the first sliding puzzle we have ever made. This is the same as Loopy L Cube #3, looks easy, but it is extraordinary difficult. If you think you are a genius, please try.

Our goal was to make one new puzzle each month. Unfortunately, we have made 11 puzzles. We hope we can make at least 12 puzzles in 2021. I wonder what will happen.

As many customers know, we do not produce the same puzzles again. It's because Juno has lots of ideas and wants to make them. Pluredro is run by only two of us, Juno and me (Yukari), also the workplace is not big. So, please understand we cannot make a huge numbers of puzzles.

In the end, I will tell you what we are doing now. We are making a new sequential discovery puzzle. We are unsure how long it will take to be completed. We will do our best to make fun puzzles.

The COVID-19 is still raging. Please take care, everyone.
Happy Holidays and warm wishes for 2021!

Yukari

Saturday, December 12, 2020

New web shop etc.

First of all, we would like to say thank you for the patience of the customers who kept waiting in front of the computer to buy SDBB Master for a long time. On the other hand, we feel sorry for the customer who really wanted the puzzle, yet couldn't buy the puzzle even though they spent a lot of time sitting at the computer.

We started selling SDBB Master puzzle on 4th October and our web server crashed because of too much access to the web site. We have experienced a similar issue when we released Coin Case, so after that our web server was updated twice, and optimizations were given to the web server.

The number of accesses to the web server at the time of release of SDBB Master was about a fifth the time as the release date of Coin Case. I tried to release the puzzle at 07:00 in the morning at our local time but it was impossible because the admin page was also not responding. I somehow tried to divert and ease the access but there was not much success. The situation became even worse after someone in the Discord group encouraged its forum members to attack my web site by refreshing pages on the browser. I needed to temporarily deny top ten visitors who kept reloading on my web shop to ease server load. Unless otherwise, the server issue continued and the majority of sold puzzles must have been taken by people who live in the US and Canada because it was past midnight in most parts of Europe.

Although we had about 90 puzzles to sell, about 150 visitors attempted to put the puzzle in their carts. A significant portion of those puzzles in their carts was automatically erased and their orders were cancelled. Several people placed their order twice, so we manually cancelled each one of those orders and made refunds. The cancellation cost us roughly $300 since PayPal no longer makes a refund for the transaction fee.

It is now clear that if the web site is hosted on my own dedicated servers, it cannot withstand a surge of access unless I pay ten times more for server resources and this option just decreases the profit of my business since the quantity of products is very limited. Should I pay another hundreds of dollars per month to sell a mere several hundred puzzle products in a year? Should I put all of my puzzle products on eBay or Amazon, provide a less flexible service, and charge more money for the products to cover the increased costs?

Some practical advice was given by my friend, Eric at Cubicdissection.com. With some statistical data, he suggested me to migrate my shop to Shopify. At first, I was a bit reluctant to take the option because it felt like just changing a hosting company. After knowing that the service is cloud based and I will have no concern about server resources on Shopify services, I thought it was a necessary choice to be taken to avoid further server issues in the future. The major migration work took roughly five days for me but there was trouble integrating with PayPal payment services. I needed to patiently wait until the PayPal internal development team fixed the issue. There were also lots of cons to Shopify services compared to WordPress + WooCommerce ones. Although I was told that Shopify was out of box service, it lacks lots of basic functions and the apps did not often cover the required functions. I needed to add original codes to block particular people who are blacklisted placing an order. I also didn't like the contact forms available on Shopify, so I stuck to the old one that we have been using since the beginning of the web site.

The running cost of the web shop was increased because Shopify charges a fee for each transaction. We used to cover the currency exchange costs when an order was placed using major currencies, except the Australian dollar. It had to be given up to cover the increased running costs, and from the customers' view, it turned out to be identical to a roughly 3.5% increase of the retail price.

Releasing new puzzles used to be fun for my wife and I but it no longer applies to us. Now, many people buy puzzles considering the resale value. Some of them put the purchased puzzles on auction sites immediately after the release date and gain more profit than we get from a product. And then, I receive emails from my old friends who I have known for decades, telling that they failed to purchase our puzzle products. I have been thinking to somehow prioritize those old friends when we release new puzzles that attract many people and cause a grabbing competition.

Some tell me to increase the quantity of puzzle products but where is the fun for me in that option? I want to enjoy making puzzles as a part of my lifetime hobby but I don't want to repeat the same thing again and again. There are already too many repetitive works even if we always produce new products. Furthermore, to make productivity efficiently, there is often a reasonable number of product for one batch. I prepared tons of PNG Rosewood to produce an SDBB Master and the starting volume was enough for 200 puzzles. The number reduced to around 120 while making square profile stocks just because many of them were not big enough for the huge burr puzzle pieces. If all the 200 remained, my small workshop would be full of timber stocks and there would not be much space left to hold them during the production process. It must be made impossible to produce other puzzles in tandem to reduce the retail price.

If I have to release another hundred of Slammed Car or SDBB Master, the majority of time that I spent in my workshop will be used up for those puzzles and the kinds of puzzles I can release in a year will be very limited. I don't mind if someone produces those puzzles by reverse engineering the product as long as a decent royalty is paid. It must be a lot easier than making them from scratch even without computer data since you can access a sample product. I will give great admiration if someone can produce and sell Slammed Car cheaper than us.

I myself think that the puzzle like Mirii 4x3 is more superior to Slammed Car because of its fundamental configuration and geometrical inevitability. Unfortunately, my tastes seem to be different to most puzzle enthusiasts so if I too enjoy making what I like, it might be difficult for my wife and I to support ourselves. Puzzle boxes and sequential discovery puzzles should be made to keep our business going so I at least challenge making new products to keep my motivation in the workshop. Of course, more interlocking burr puzzles, put-together, and take apart type puzzles will be made.

I went to the local GP yesterday and was told that I shouldn't work too much to ease pain and inflammation in my right shoulder. My spine is slightly bent and inter-vertebral discs are worn out. It causes pain in my back and has prevented me from sleeping face up for more than a year. I'm happy if I can keep producing on average 12 new puzzles in a year until I can no longer work, maintaining my decaying body. 2020 must have been a tough year for many of us and if our puzzles have made you enjoy and laugh, I also feel happy and relieved.

Juno


Sunday, September 27, 2020

18th Auction Results


We held  an eBay auction and it ended on 27th September.
The sales results are as follows:

SDBB Master (Pine Version, 1 of 3) AUD $1,201.00
SDBB Master (Pine Version, 2 of 3) AUD $1,175.00
SDBB Master (Pine Version, 3 of 3) AUD $1,310.00
SDBB Master (2nd Grade, 1 of 2) AUD $1,275.00
SDBB Master (2nd Grade, 2 of 2) AUD $1,426.00


Honestly, we did not expect the sales prices would go up such a high amount. The total sales amount was AUD $6,388.00. As we promised, we were going to donate half of the total sales amount AUD 3,193.50, but after checking the website, the amount we could donate was in AUD 10.00 increments. Therefore, we rounded it up and donated AUD $3,200.00 to Koala Hospital today. Here is the receipt.


We are very happy that we were able to raise lots of money to support the Australian iconic animal. I am also pleased to say that one of our customer said that he is going to donate to Koala Hospital as well. Thank you very much to helping the Koala and the organization.

Probably, everyone's interest this time is the product version of SDBB Master. We are going to sell them on 4th October at 07:00 am Brisbane time. The same as before, we have chosen the time, 07:00 in the morning (our time) because this time is when most of the world's customers are awake. Some of our customers scare that our web server might crash on the day of the release. If you are going to buy the puzzle at the time, please do not reload the web page every 2-3 seconds. If you help us to wait 30 seconds when the web page is very slow, it also increase your chance to purchase the puzzle not waiting extra an hour.

SDBB Master contains the most tools we have ever made which means a solver has to clear lots of hurdles to reach the goal. That also increased the mass weight of the puzzle a lot. The timber of the main part of the puzzle is made of PNG Rosewood. This timber has various colors; some are pale, some are brown, and some are reddish-orange, and we have tried to avoid having one puzzle of the same color, so we combined the puzzles.

We are going to get up early on 4th October and wait for you.

Yukari

Sunday, September 20, 2020

18th Auction of our new Sequential Discovery Puzzle

Our 17th auction has started on 20th September on eBay. This time we have put five of the 2nd grade SDBB Master up on eBay auction. Three of them are made from pine, two of them are made from PNG Rosewood which is the same timber used as the products that we are going to sell on Sunday 4th October 07:00 A.M. Brisbane time.

Links to the each item



SDBB Master is the sequential discovery puzzle that has the most tools inside that we have ever made. Therefore, the puzzle has become inevitably larger. Juno designed some mechanism that can be opened using some unique tools that I have never seen before.
I want to tell you what they are, but sorry, this is top secret. The puzzle does not need centrifugal force and banging to solve.

Regarding the second-grade puzzles on the auction, they can, of course, be played the same as the product we are going to sell. If you are interested in those second-grade puzzles, please refer to the instruction of each of those pages.
The bidding amount has started from AUD $1.00 as usual. Please keep in mind that the price of the product version of SDBB Master is AUD 820.00.

We are going to donate half of the total sales to the Koala Hospital this time. The Australian iconic animal, the Koala, has got serious damage due to bushfires. We want to save Koalas from extinction, so we are looking forward to you joining!


Regarding the product version of SDBB Master, we are going to sell them on 4th October at 07:00 A.M. Brisbane time. The total number of puzzles for selling is about 90. Until the end of October, you can buy one SDBB Master only. (Excluding the puzzles on auction.)


We look forward to your participation in the auction.

Yukari

Sunday, August 30, 2020

Southern Cross

 Hi puzzle lovers!

We have started selling our new burr puzzle, Southern Cross. The puzzle has a unique level 14-4-1-1-2 solution and a unique assembly. It is difficult, but Juno would say it can be solved even if you are not an extra-terrestrial. As you see in the picture below, it is big and heavy for a burr puzzle.

The materials are PNG Rosewood and Jarrah. PNG Rosewood has different colors for different parts of the tree, some is pale, some is brown, and some is reddish orange. Therefore, we tried to avoid having the same colored pieces used for the same puzzle, we tried to shuffle the colors as much as possible. However, please understand that the puzzle is made from natural materials and it is sometimes difficult to divide each color fairly.

We hope you enjoy our new puzzle product. 

Yukari


Sunday, July 19, 2020

17th Auction Results and New Puzzle "Coin Case"

We held an eBay auction and it ended on 12th July. This time, we had put in 3 second grade Coin Cases.

The sales results are as follows:

Coin Case 2nd Grade 1 of 3 AUD $91.00
Coin Case 2nd Grade 2 of 3 AUD $91.00
Coin Case 2nd Grade 3 of 3 AUD $96.00


The total sales amount was AUD $278.00 and as we promised, we have donated half of the total sales amount AUD $139.00 to a Food Bank. We were going to show you a receipt, but it seems like they are busy, and we have not yet received the receipt. We will put a copy of the receipt here after we receive it later.

Coin Case
The auction has finished successfully, and we have started selling our new puzzle, Coin CaseI'm very sorry for the access failure to our Pluredro Shop that was caused by flood of access. It lasted about an hour but all I could do was wait and see. 

This is the simplest puzzle box we have ever made. I think a puzzle beginner can play with it. However, even if you have got used to puzzles, it might be taking some time without noticing the trick. I have received an enquiry about the material, so I have written the names of the wood in a photo below.


Parcel service impacts due to COVID-19
Due to the difficult condition of COVID-19, we are paying attention to the information of Australia Post and using a plug-in for getting the information from Australia post. However, sometimes the plug-in does not work properly or the condition of air freights changes suddenly. Depending on the condition of air freights, we will inform you by email immediately.

Yukari

Wednesday, July 8, 2020

eBay Auction, shipping notice, new SD puzzle

It has been a long time since I last updated this blog. I hope you and your family are doing well during this difficult time.

We have received emails from puzzle lovers asking whether we have been doing well. Thank you very much for caring about us, we are pretty fine.

If you are registered to our newsletter, you may already know that we have started an eBay auction of Coin Case. If you have not yet registered to our newsletter, please follow the link below and complete the subscription.

Pluredro Newsletter
https://blog.pluredro.com/2017/11/pluredro-newsletter.html

About the eBay auction
We have put three of the 2nd grade Coin Cases up on eBay auction. Coin Case is the simplest puzzle box Juno has ever designed and the number of steps is small. If you are used to playing with puzzles, you can solve it within a minute. However, if you cannot find out the trick, it can take a lot longer to solve. There is one thing that I want to remind you of, Coin Case is NOT a sequential discovery puzzle. There are no tools contained to solve it.

The retail price of Coin Case is AUD $88.00. After finishing the auction, we are starting to sell product versions of Coin Case on Sunday 19th July 07:00 Brisbane time.


Parcel service impacts due to COVID-19
We have found a new notice at Australia Post updated on 2nd July. It says that we cannot ship parcels to some specific countries from Australia due to COVID-19 effect.

https://auspost.com.au/about-us/news-media/important-updates/coronavirus/coronavirus-international-updates

Please note that if we received an order from countries where we cannot dispatch a parcel now, we will keep the order until we are able to send it out. In that case, and then, we will notify you by email. Please do not hesitate to place an order as usual if you would like to purchase our puzzle products.

New SD puzzle
We are sometimes asked when we are going to release a new sequential discovery puzzle. I can only say that it will take a long time to be completed because the puzzle consists of lots of small parts and intensive, time consuming CNC machining is required. Juno does not want to say much about uncompleted projects so, please be patient and wait for the updates notified by the newsletter.


The new SD puzzle does really have lots of tricks and steps. Some of the steps are very uncommon and unusual. It is going to be the puzzle that has the most number of tools used among our sequential discovery puzzles, full of fun and amazement.

Yukari

Friday, March 20, 2020

Temporary Shop Closure

Hi puzzle lovers, how have you been?
Juno and I are good as always.

Probably, some people may have already noticed that we are temporarily closing our online shop and our eBay shop. It's just a temporary closing due to the diminution of international/domestic flights. For example, Qantas has decided to cut 90% of international flights. We still can ship parcels, but it might cause some issues like a delay or a missing parcel which we want to avoid. Therefore, we have decided to close our shop for a while. We will open our shop as soon as possible when the logistics return to normal.

Having said that, we are at home and are making puzzles as usual (a bit slower pace though), so, please feel free to contact us if you have any inquiry.

We have been making three kinds of puzzles, a small puzzle box, a burr puzzle and a big sequential discovery puzzle. While this situation is going on, we are making puzzles at home and preparing for the day of selling puzzles. When there is news from us, we will notify you sending our newsletter or write about it on this blog and our website. If you have not yet registered to our newsletter, please join it.

We hope you all have healthy days and keep yourselves safe.

Pluredro Newsletter: https://blog.pluredro.com/2017/11/pluredro-newsletter.html

Sunday, February 16, 2020

Pinned Framed Burr, 16th Auction Results

We have started selling three kinds of Pinned Framed Burrs 16th February at 07:00 Brisbane time.


Each one consists of five pieces including the frame and the required moves for the first pieces are 149, 50 and 40. Juno tried to use up roughly dressed Burmese Teak of about 15 mm thickness in our timber stock and designed the puzzles to suit the stock of timber.

We have put up a prototype and a PNG Rosewood versions of Pinned Framed Burr on eBay auction and both winning bids became higher than the price of the product version.

 The sales results are as follows:


Pinned Framed Burr L (Prototype): $153.00
Pinned Framed Burr L (PNG Rosewood) $152.50
Total: $305.50

This time, we have donated half of the sales amount $153.00 to Bushfire Emergency Wildlife Fund to support wild animals endangered by the long lasted bushfires in Australia. Here is the transaction records of the donation next.

Thank you for puzzle lovers who have participated in the eBay auction.










Wednesday, January 22, 2020

Loopy L Cube #3

Here comes the third version of Loopy L Cube.


Loopy L Cube #3 has through holes and their shape is a simple cylinder. This feature increases more possible combinations of the pieces and makes the puzzle trickier. I have been playing this puzzle for sometime, yet I have not solved it. Same as the previous Loopy L Cube #1 and #2, #3 looks like a child's toy block and looks easy, but it is not. If I compare the difficulty level of each of them, the bigger the number, the harder it is. Which means #3 is the most difficult one in Loopy L Cube at this time.


The wooden dowels were made by ourselves using a special jig. Common wooden dowels or rods that we can purchase at Australian hardware stores are made from Tasmanian Oak or Pine which are whitish colours. When it comes to need a darker colour dowel, there is only one option, making it by hand.
After many trials and errors, Juno finally invented an efficient way of making wooden dowels. The dowels he makes are a more accurate cylindrical shape than the dowels that are sold. As you see, the dowels that are used to Loopy L Cube #3 are dark brown. This is Jarrah.


Each L-shape piece is made of Silky Oak. Look at those textures, it doesn't look like they were made from the same timber, but they are all Silky Oak. Some have a dark colour, some have a light colour, some have leopard like spots, and some have fine line patterns.
Juno has chosen using Koto for the tray that is a bright color opposite to the pieces.


If you think Loopy L Cube #3 seems easy to solve, just try it!

Yukari