Quickstep by Jeff Namkung

Quickstep is a brand new puzzle cube from a talented designer who appeared on the scene only 3 months ago but has already been breaking records with his extremely clever puzzles. Jeff was introduced to interlocking cube puzzles earlier this year by Jos Bergmans (another of my favourite designers) when he started working at Google. When I first became interested in interlocking cube puzzles back in the 1980s, Mayer's cube from Pentangle was arguably the best example of the genre and has held its title for many years. It required 7 moves to extract the first piece and then the other five pieces then lifted straight out, giving the puzzle a rank of 7.1.1.1.1. Ever since I began designing my own cubes about 8 years ago I have been aiming to improve on Derek Mayer's record with one of my own puzzles. Jeff's latest design doesn't just beat this record - it smashes it, with an astounding 11 moves for the first piece and then a further 5 for the next piece, 3 for the third, and 3 more for the fourth piece. Jeff has very kindly given me permission to sell this little beauty in the microcubology shop, so to do it justice, I have come up with a new open style which I think you will appreciate. The larger holes mean that the puzzle not only uses less plastic (which makes it cheaper to produce) but also offers interesting views of the inner workings as you solve it.