Goal is to move all the red balls to one side, and all the "white" balls to the other side. The center piece slides left and right, and the balls can be slid around each side.
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$\begingroup$ And what is the goal for the centre, ie. what is supposed to be left in the sliding piece at the end? (And no, sorry, no idea what this is called...) $\endgroup$– deep thoughtCommented Dec 24, 2018 at 18:09
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1$\begingroup$ @deepthought - from the looks of it, the sliding section needs to finish up with two balls of each color. $\endgroup$– Jeff ZeitlinCommented Dec 24, 2018 at 18:14
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$\begingroup$ It's pretty easy to get two balls of each color in the middle, actually, but I'm pretty sure the end-goal is to get all colors on one side. Would that be possible? $\endgroup$– Sam ThorntonCommented Dec 24, 2018 at 19:02
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$\begingroup$ @SamThornton - count the numbers of balls of each colour, and the number of spaces :-) $\endgroup$– deep thoughtCommented Dec 24, 2018 at 19:23
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2 Answers
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NOTE: Not really an answer, but more like bits and pieces of information. I'm unable to find the name, nor a tutorial/solution for it.
On websites like eBay, Amazon, and AliExpress it doesn't really have a name, only a description of tags as they do a lot with puzzles auctions (i.e. Wooden Ball Maze Puzzle Lock Burr Brain Teaser IQ Intelligence Toy or 3D Brain Teaser Wooden Ball Maze Puzzle Board Game Educational Toy for Kids and Adults).. I'm sure it has a name, but I'm unable to find it.
It's produced in China for sure, but I'm not sure under what name or by what producer. It's basically an unbandaged version of the Motyl Butterfly puzzle. On the Motyl Butterfly, balls are joined together as pairs, and it has three colors instead of two (here a video which shows it a bit more). The Motyl Butterfly puzzle was produced by Clever Toys, a Czech puzzle manufacturer, in 2005. A solution for the Motyl Butterfly puzzle can be found on Jaapsch' puzzles page.
Your puzzle is definitely easier to solve, since all balls are loose.
The solved state should have two red balls and two white balls at the center:
I don't have the puzzle myself, but looking at it, the solve should be rather trivial. If you put all the balls in one side one at a time (using the other ring to position the next ball), you only have to solve the center four balls in the end.
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I don't have the toy to play with, but it looks like if you 'deal' the balls up from the center to the sides according to their color, you'll get it almost all sorted out quite quickly.
In other words, choose the right-hand side to be red and the left to be white (or the other way around if you prefer). From the starting position shown, you'll push:
- the first two (red) balls up on the right
- now you've got white, red, white, red in the middle section reading from the top
- so, the next four balls will be pushed up to the left, right, left, right.
- just keep going on like this...
I can confirm that this works. I made a simple google sheet with the controls. You can find it here. I don't know much about these scripts, so you might need to do an authorization to make it work.
Google Sheet Emulating the Game
This goes from the starting position:
To the ending position as follows:
answered Dec 24, 2018 at 21:58