Red Treasure

Adventure awaits, but dead men tell no tales, so you’d best be quick about it, because the saying is definitely not that fortune favors the old. Benno Baatsen just keeps sharing one treasure after another and his newest is one you’ll want to get your pirate-y hooks on. Fresh off storming the storied castle of his dreams comes a treasure chest to top them all. Benno has made an incredibly delightful puzzle, full of unexpected surprises and challenges, that I suspect may end up on many “best of” lists this year. He recently shared the thrilling tale of this treasure.

“I’ve had the idea for a pirate themed treasure chest since I made the flying Dutchman. In one of the early drafts of the flying dutchman I wanted to add a simple pirate treasure chest puzzle. It would have been more of a trick box back then. I’m glad I didn’t include it, because the puzzle has evolved quite a lot. I also included a nod back to the Flying Dutchman in the puzzle because of this.
In my experience, the best puzzles are the ones that have had time to marinate inside my head for a while. When I start to physically make a puzzle, choices get locked in, but when it is only a concept in my head I can easily change things without it feeling like I’m losing progression.

When I start working on a puzzle I like to have a specific design challenge in mind. This was the first puzzle I made after finishing the production of Emberlock. Making Emberlock was sooo much more work than I anticipated. When I started Red Treasure my main goal was to make it easier to assemble. This was also important because my partner Valerié would be helping with the production. Although I think there is still a lot of room for improvement, I did get better in designing for assembly with this puzzle. One of the more time-consuming aspects are the 48 magnets that need to be glued. I really should use fewer magnets in puzzles, but I simply like them too much. Also a big pro was Valerié really liking the assembly. She now has started tinkering with making her own puzzle design, which is like a dream come true.”

Red Treasure is designed to look like the perfect treasure chest, complete with metal banding, wood slats and bolt details. Of course, this is just the outside, and there are more beautiful design details waiting to be discovered as well. Benno pulled out all the stops with this puzzle, adding multicolored mosaics hidden inside that are a wonderful reward of their own when finally found.

“I did go through multiple tweaks with the design. I originally had a magnetic marble that would move along the line of the [secret detail], but I removed it because I don’t want red herrings to sour the puzzle progression. I also went to a few iterations with the [part] that removes the [secret detail], because it gets used by 3 different steps of the puzzle. You originally didn’t need to use [this tool for that goal], however, it felt like a bit of an anticlimax to be able to just [achieve that goal]. I also originally had [a certain mechanism for a certain step]. Some testers found this part too frustrating, so I only used [that mechanism] for the “extreme” version.” You can see that Benno put a lot of thought into every detail, and worked with testers, to refine and improve every aspect of the experience, and it shows.

“The puzzle is held together with eight bolts. Four for the lid which go in the sides and four for the main body that go in on the bottom. Each bolt has a little lid glued onto it because I don’t want the construction parts to be visible. Basically, the silver part of the puzzle is a wire frame holding everything together. The Brown parts contain all the mechanisms. The main body of the puzzle is separated into 3 layers which are each designed like a bath tub. I really like separating the design into multiple solids to work with. Because I already had the frame to hold everything together, I didn’t need to worry about the construction of the puzzle anymore so I could focus solely on the mechanics of the puzzle.” The mechanics work flawlessly, and nothing is left to chance. As frustrating as it may seem, and as tempting as some crazy ideas you will have also seem, there is a very logical and elegant solution to every step and problem. The whole puzzle is incredibly well thought out.

“Releasing a puzzle in the wild is always very exciting and nerve wracking at the same time. Oddly enough I lose some of the interest in a puzzle during the production. It is not that I don’t like the puzzle anymore, but some of the initial excitement goes away. Because the design is finalized I mostly see all the flaws and things I would like to change in hindsight. This makes it more flawed inside my head. When people finally get to try the puzzle my excitement flames up again because I get to see the puzzle through the eyes of the people who solve it. It is amazing to hear people all over the world talk about something I made.” Benno should be happy and proud because people who have experienced the treasure chest have been fairly unanimous in its praise.

“When the puzzle was fully working I turned to the looks of the puzzle and I really wanted a wood grain. I wasn’t able to find any good ways to apply a wood grain the way I wanted, so I resorted to the only option left… I modeled everything parametrically. If you have never used 3D drawing software this might be a bit abstract. This isn’t an ideal way to do this. Drawing the woodgrain alone took about 15+ hours. Let's just say this wasn’t the most exciting part of making the puzzle. I do love how it turned out though!”

The puzzle looks perfect and has just the right dimensions and heft for a nice experience. It is dense and heavy but easy enough to manipulate. It is full of places to explore and discover. There are a few hints built in, but these are not so easy to discover. Benno made a few version of the chest. The standard puzzle uses a traditional brown wood color pattern that is really perfect, as is the standard puzzle itself. There are also two steps in the solution sequence which are particularly fiendish. Benno made these reasonably approachable by stabilizing one step in a certain way, and adding a subtle hint for the other step. Regardless, they are still not easy, and for example I struggled for a long time even with the extra hint on that step. Benno is really good at hiding things! He also decided to make an extra difficult version of the chest, removing the helpful modifications for those two steps. These “extreme” editions were produced in pretty red and purple color schemes, which certainly do look nice. Which is a consolation for those masochists who purchased them. He also made a very few standard puzzles in a snazzy sparkling dark wood and shiny metal color scheme that I think might look the very best. I’m not biased at all!

The puzzle’s name could have simply been, Treasure Chest, but Benno wanted something more motivating. “Finding the right name for a puzzle can be tricky sometimes. With some puzzles it kind of happens because something feels right or because I subconsciously keep referring to a puzzle by a specific name. With Red Treasure it took a while to find something suitable. When one of the playtesters asked what the goal of the puzzle was, and I replied “to find the Red Treasure” it kinda clicked. I personally like the name because it creates a little bit of a mystery and an objective for the puzzle. I also liked the idea of making a treasure series.” Another nice thing about this name is that it spurs you onward, making it clear that you have not finished solving the puzzle yet, despite having found some treasure already! And you will find lots of treasure, if you are clever enough! The puzzle is generous in how it starts to reward you right away, overflowing with bounty like a real pirate’s treasure chest might do, as you haul it up out of the ground, or from the depths of the Mediterranean.

Benno related the enjoyment he gets from having his puzzles in the hands of solvers, finally be able to share the joy he gets from creating with others. “The one thing that stood out the most was an unintended solution that Matt (NumbSkull puzzles) found to solve one of the last steps of the puzzle. I don’t think I would have ever found that solution myself. It uses a tool in a creative way and uses the way the puzzle is built in its advantage. Finding out about his solution is a bit like finding a secret room in your own house. Amazing!”

Benno is himself a treasure to the puzzle community, full of ideas and somehow tireless. “While technically I already have made two puzzles after/parallel with Red Treasure (The Barrel and the Pocket Box 2), I’m now working on a very big project. It is basically the successor to Emberlock. It is called Emberlight. It will be about the same size as Emberlock and it is planned to have more details. I’m not religious myself, but I’ve always been drawn to the architecture of churches. I’ve been thinking about making a church for years now. I even made a concept out of cardboard a few years ago. Now that I have a lot more practice with multicolor prints and 3D modeling I finally feel like I’m up to the task. It will still take a long time before I even have a working prototype, but I’m already very very excited. It is already feeling like the biggest project I have done up to date.” Does anyone else hear angels singing? Holy cow, it seems that Benno’s next big adventure will be a religious experience! Amen to that.

Blood and Sand cocktail — Blood and Sand adapted by T.J. Vytlacil

The search for a cocktail to toast this lost treasure began with an old map, depicted with landmarks bisected by an unmistakable blood red dashed line leading on toward the ultimate X mark in the sand. The Blood and Sand is a vintage cocktail that dates back to a 1922 bullfighter movie starring Rudolph Valentino, for which the drink was created. As described in Harry Craddock’s excellent Savoy Cocktail Book, 1930, the drink is made with equal parts scotch (the sand?), Cherry Heering liqueur (most definitely the blood), sweet vermouth (more blood?) and orange juice (more sand?). Most modern palates find this ratio of ingredients to be too sweet, too out of balance, to consider the drink seriously. Many modern bartenders have taken up the challenge of improving the drink, via adjusted ratios of the original ingredients, or substitutions which may taste good but likely render the result into something different.

St. Louis bartender T.J. Vytlacil believes in this cocktail, however, so much that he named his bar after it. He thinks it is all in the technique, and recommends using a scotch that is not too “smokey”, plus fresh squeezed orange juice, to achieve the original intent. Considering that the drink was championed by Harry Craddock, one of the best in history, he may be right. Vytlacil’s final piece of advice for the drink is to “shake the crap out of it” to achieve a good froth. Hmmm. I probably need to shake things up again – here’s to that. Cheers!

Red Treasure puzzle by Benno de Grote and Blood and Sand cocktail — these mark the spot

Blood and Sand adapted by TJ Vytlacil

1 oz scotch (suggested: Famous Grouse)

1 oz fresh squeezed orange juice

1 oz Cherry Heering

1 oz sweet vermouth (suggested: Dolin)

Shake ingredients with ice vigorously and strain into a coupe. Flamed orange coin garnish.

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