Why is this 16 Piece Puzzle so difficult 

Oh no, I think I made a mistake. Oh no, oh my god wait! No, I’m so close hi! Everyone welcome back to Karen puzzles, so I just spent over a month working on the 9 000-piece puzzle. So I thought today it might be time for something a little smaller, so I’m going to be doing a 16 piece puzzle a little different from 9000.

This is the new one from you asaka. If you remember he’s the one who designed that green puzzle. That was all corners and then a handful of others that I have featured here on this channel. So this is the jigsaw 16.

The goal is just to put a bunch of jigsaw puzzle pieces into the tray. So, let’s open it up and take a look all right, so my first impression right off the bat of this puzzle is that they have seriously upgraded the packaging. Here is an old one of his that I’m gonna be solving on this channel soon. But if you remember they used to just come in these plastic bags with a little flyer on the back and now he has this fully designed cardboard packaging. So let’s take a look and see what’s inside oh wow, this feels really like heavy and sturdy.

All right, so it looks like we have 16 puzzle piece shapes cut out of this tray, and then we have 16 puzzle pieces that look like they should all fit in here, but obviously there’s some sort of trick and they’re, not all just gonna fit. Where they seem to fit, and since it’s this plastic acrylic, it could flip either this way, or this way we don’t know which side is the top or the bottom, which makes it trickier. But I feel like I’ve done enough. Yuu Asaka puzzles by now that I’m sort of familiar with the types of tricky tricks that he likes so um.

The box says that this should take 30 minutes and it is a 3 out of 5 difficulty level. So hopefully I can figure this out and start. Oh, my god, oh my god, this is so nerve-wracking already. I thought I was fine, I’m not fine. Okay.

The first thing I’m gonna do is just take a look at what pieces we have sort of separate them out by shape. So are these the exact same shape? It looks like this. Half of it is all exactly the same, but then these prongs are at different levels. I’M going to start by just putting them into the spot where it looks like they could go.

You know to see why that’s not going to work, hmm, oh interesting, interesting! Okay! I should tell the camera what I’m doing. Oh, I bet that one fits no that one doesn’t fit there. Oh my wait!

This one fits no that one doesn’t fit there. Oh, my god, this is so confusing already, so I’m already seeing what the issue is going to be. This in is kind of low, so we have a little guy and then a big guy and on here we have a little guy and then a big guy. But when I try to put it in place, this prong is at the wrong. You know it’s more centered or it’s more to the right on here and then on the piece it’s more to the left, so it doesn’t quite fit.

So I actually think maybe a corner piece is what’s gonna have to go in there. Maybe this one! Yes, okay, that one fits because it has the little guy there, the big guy there and then we’re just not using these two prongs. So I think that’s what the trick is gonna be because there’s only 16 spots and there’s only 16 pieces. So all we can do is put one piece in each spot, like it’s not physically possible to do anything else, so I think we just have to keep moving them around until they fit in spaces that they don’t that it doesn’t look like they were designed for.

Oh okay, I got one, I got one, it fits. Oh, oh, that’s tricky. Look. It looks like it should have an edge, but it’s actually big enough to account for the entire piece that has things on each side. I have a suspicion that not a single piece is going to fit in the shape that it looks like it was designed for so that kind of eliminates a lot of the pieces from like where, where they could go, okay.

Well, these three are not fitting in any of the spots I have left so it’s time to do some rearranging, but I’m only seven minutes in I feel like I’m doing fine. Oh my god! Every time you think it’s gonna fit, and then it doesn’t quite fit it’s so maddening. I think I’m gonna be here for a little while this might not be as fast as I initially was hoping. Okay, this one definitely seems to be the easiest to place this corner.

That has the two ins, because um, where I’m running into a lot of trouble, is all of these prongs not being at quite the right level. So I think this one could fit into almost all of these, maybe I’ll just leave it off to the side and that’ll be the last one I put in, I feel like. I should be a little more like methodical going into this like. I should almost treat it like a Sudoku where I number each piece and then try each piece in each spot and then write down like which ones could fit where and then from there. It’s just a Sudoku, well sort of it’s like a logic game.

At that point, okay, I’m gonna give it like three more minutes and if I’m not making any more progress, that might be what I have to do, um, okay, um. What am I gonna? Do I think I might go grab a couple supplies I’m gonna leave everything running and I’m gonna leave the timer running. So this is all part of my time. I’ll be right.

Back, oh boy! All right, I’ve got a pen. I’ve got some post-its, I’m gonna draw out basically just a little grid, and then I’m gonna cut up at the sticky part of the post-its to make little stickers so that I can number all of the pieces. So should I just take all of them out? Oh my god.

Should I start from scratch. I think that’s what I have to do, because otherwise I’m just going to keep rearranging them forever. I need to be a little more methodical about this. Oh, my god, that’s painful. I feel like I made so much progress, but that’s the trick with all his puzzles that you feel like you’re, making progress but you’re really not first piece number one!

So now I’m just gonna go ahead and try it in all the different places that I could go remembering to flip it over in each spot as well. Okay, it could go there. This is gonna take literally forever cue. The time lapse. Oh boy, so it turns out the first piece that I tried could go into literally six different spots.

Let’s hope they’re not all like that. Oh so, 30 minutes in I might have made my first breakthrough. Piece number seven can only fit in one spot and it’s a spot that, like almost all of the other pieces, could also fit into so um. How did it go there? We go, so I think this one I’m gonna move the number to the other side.

I think this one is definitely a lock 30 minutes in oh boy, okay, 37 minutes in – and I think I have another one number 11 can only go in this spot down here. Oh my god, I really thought this was gonna be quick. This one is not quick, oh man. I was right this piece, the corner with the two ends that can fit into literally every spot on the board. All right, 43 minutes in I have two pieces left and then I can actually start figuring this out.

Oh boy, okay, so here is where we ended up on our logic problem. So now I think I can actually make progress, because 14 is the only one that can fit down here, and then that means that here, where it’s only three or fourteen, this one would have to be three so then I’ll go through and cross off. Three and fourteen, and then see where we are on the rest of the board: okay, all right 14, and then that means that three has to go here. The other tricky part is remembering which direction they could fit in. Also, I’m about to like write all over this and start crossing things out, and it’s always possible that I could have made a mistake and a piece does fit where I just like didn’t notice it would have fit.

I didn’t try that direction, so I could mess the whole thing up right now: ooh, okay! So that means that down here, that means the next one is going to be 12 and then oh. That means that this one is going to be 16 Oh, this is so satisfying now. Oh, I love this. Oh, if I cross off 16.

That means that this one has to be nine. Does it wait, how did nine fit in there? Oh, my god, did I no. It fits okay, it fits. I didn’t make a mistake: it fits oh that means that down here this one has to be piece 15 and then that’s this one.

That’s gonna be piece 13.. That means that this one has to be piece number one. Uh-Oh uh, oh wait! Oh no!

I have one up here where I’ve already put in all the pieces that I could be I’ve crossed off. Oh no, I think I made a mistake. Oh no! Well, I’m gonna keep going. I’M just gonna see where this leads me.

Maybe I’m close enough that I can still figure it out: huh, okay! Well, the only play! Oh no, this one too! No, okay, okay! Well, the only place that eight could fit now is gonna.

Be this one up here. The only place that five could go now is gonna, be this one up here in the corner and then ten. So this is the only place now that ten could go. Okay, wait! Six!

Oh my god wait! Does it fit? Does it fit? Oh! No!

No! No, no, no, I’m so close. Okay, wait! Let me try this way. Oh my god wait!

No! I’M so close! I made a mistake somewhere in here and now this the very last piece does not fit, and I’ve crossed off all my work. I think I just need to try all of the pieces in this one spot, That’s left.

Okay, it’s been an hour. Here’s! What I’m gonna! Do I’m gonna stop the timer for a sec. I’M gonna go back into the old footage.

I’M gonna recreate what I had before. I had crossed everything out and then I’m gonna start over and try to get these in place because I just cannot do it like this. Okay, I have made my new little chart so hopefully this time I’ll. Do it a little more slowly and figure this out, so, as we determined 14 is the only one that can fit down here, so I’m just gonna go ahead, and I mean I just at some point. I have to trust that I did something right.

Like I can’t just start completely over from scratch, no okay. I definitely made a mistake because I have two spots left where the only thing left on my chart is 13 and 13 can’t go in both spots. So let me now that I know where the problem sections are: I’m gonna try every single other piece back in those two spots to see like what else can fit that I might have missed on my chart. Okay. I think I might have found my mistake.

I think that six can actually fit in here. That means that 13 can go here and then, let’s see, let’s see if that just works out with the rest of what I have left. Oh my god. Oh, my god, I did it. Oh my god, okay, I found my mistake and oh, oh, my god, stop the time, stop the time.

Okay, I did it. Finally, that was the hardest Yuu Asaka puzzle. By far, did I like make that too more complicated than it needed to be? Why did that take so long? So the mistake that I had made is um.

You see this piece right here. I had been trying it just like this, with the straight edge against the straight edge. You actually have to flip it over, so that you have an empty spot there and an empty spot up there. So here is a close look at the solution, as well as all of my numbers. If you wanted to compare that back to the chart that I showed earlier – and I was right – not a single piece fits into a spot that is the same shape as the puzzle.

Piece, hey guys, editing Karen here so now that I’m looking at the footage, I’m realizing that my first solution was exactly right and the number six piece was in my hand – and I literally tried it in the spot that it needed to go. I just didn’t flip it upside down so that the straight side was on the side it needed to go. So I was so close, so I could have been done at like 52 minutes instead of what like an hour and a couple minutes, and if you remember this is the exact same thing that happened with the olio puzzle. I was so close and then second guessed myself and like rearranged everything – and it took me like an extra 10 minutes anyway, back to the main video. So my final time was an hour and six minutes, I’m gonna just real quick.

Just look up see if anyone else has done this puzzle on YouTube. Okay, so Chris ram say did this puzzle, but he did it in a video that doubles up with a puzzle that I have not done yet. So I could not watch that video myself, but I had my Instagram audience watch it and just tell me his time, which was 24 minutes and 15 seconds, and I also watched mar puzzles video and he did it in almost exactly 30 minutes. So they both beat me on this one. This was not my best showing but honestly watching mar puzzles video.

He didn’t have that much more of a strategy than I did. I think he looked at the shape and the prong placement a little more carefully than I did, but otherwise it’s really just kind of putting them in place and rearranging them until you figure out the solution, and so it’s really not my favorite. You asaka puzzle because there’s not like one final aha moment so because of that I was able to just use a brute force method which worked, but you know it took a while, oh and then one more thing. I realized that I never tried putting all the pieces together into one jigsaw puzzle like they have in the picture on the box. So let’s just try that and see if we can make a full square okay!

Well, I’m not sure if you’re actually supposed to be able to fit these into a full square, but I made this little shape, which is fun. I mean they’re just fun to like to play with outside of solving the real puzzle. Well, I would love to know. I mean, I think, that’s a pretty solid strategy. It took a while, but I got there in the end.

But besides this, what other strategies could I have used feel free to discuss down in the comments um, I want to say a big thank you to puzzle. Master for sending me this puzzle, they also sent me all of the other. You asaka puzzles that I haven’t done yet, so those will be coming out on my channel very soon, oh and patron. I was thinking that, for this week’s bonus, patron video I’d release an extended cut where you see it almost in real time. Without all of this sped up time lapses.

You can support my channel and get bonus videos pretty much with every video that I release. There’s a bonus one on patron, all of that for three dollars a month and everybody who signs up over there at three dollars a month or above everybody gets all the same perks. Oh, we need a code word. Okay, your code word is going to be Sudoku. I’M calling this the Sudoku strategy.

I need to get better at ending videos quickly, good night, everyone goodbye, happy puzzling,