Either assembled incorrectly or the wood is not conducive to the solution...
SPOILER FREE Review [Edited on 10/22/2020]<br />I hate leaving bad reviews, especially for hand-crafted puzzle boxes.<br />[I've edited this review as I realized that I did order this puzzle box on Amazon, not another online puzzle store]<br /><br />Here is where this particular puzzle fell short:<br />So first the visible flaws:<br />1st, one of the moving pieces was visibly misaligned OOTB, but this is fine, as it worked as expected.<br />2nd, the pieces were a little difficult to move, but that's okay. I could eventually move them.<br />3rd, as you'll read further down this review, I think the box was either assembled wrong, or 1 key piece was aligned too tightly to complete the step and allow me to solve the puzzle.<br /><br />But on to some good things:<br />It's a great looking puzzle, very interesting design, and when executing the moves, for the most part, they move easily with satisfying clicks. It's very challenging and fun to discover the new moves.<br /><br />Until I could not move any further... (back to the negative stuff)<br /><br />To be fair, I made some wrong turns (and it was very hard to move some of the pieces back) but I got to a sequence where there was no other moves left. This was about 13 steps in. I was completely stuck and there were no other combination of moves that would allow me to move further. I came back to it the next day in broad morning daylight and could peek inside at several places and angles to understand the inner works (I feel it was designed this way, to inform puzzlers of potential moves to solve the puzzle.<br />I continued into the evening with my mobile device's flashlight and sketching (very poorly indeed) the inner works and felt certain that the 14th move was being blocked.<br />At this point (unfortunately) I had to reach for the solution. Sure enough, the piece that was to move me to step 14 did not move as expected.<br /><br />Also, I realized that the orientation of the box, relative to the solution's illustration, was upside-down. This got me wondering if the crucial piece was inserted incorrectly? I'll never know as I cannot take it apart.<br /><br />So 2 stars for a great would be puzzling experience, but -3 stars on execution. I know these are assembled by hand and I respect that handcrafted aspect to the puzzle.<br />Hopefully this was assembled by an intern or a new employee and their performance will improve over time. I will probably seek to return for a replacement if that's possible. Idk...
Rating: 2 stars