Intrism Pro - Marble Labyrinth Game

I love the idea of this, and am enjoying the ball maze! The assembly was not true to the instructions though, for two massively time-consuming and annoying reasons.
1) the pegs were almost universally too big, and the holes too small. About 85% of the pegs needed to be meticulously sanded down before they would fit, and with some pieces having 4+ pegs, this took hours. The pegs should have fit without alteration for the most part, like the instructions implied they would.
2) the “film” on the acrylic side panels was almost impossible to remove. It was a sticky brown paper, not a clear or blue plastic like the instructions promised, and it did not want to come off! I broke two fingernails trying to chip the “film” off of the corners (short natural nails, not long decorative ones), and it kept ripping. Peeling the film off of the acrylic pieces should have taken 3 minutes, but it took well over 45.
Assembly issues like this made the building process pretty tedious and a little bit miserable :(

I received this kit from my wife for Christmas. First off, the instructions are impeccable! Each and every step is described with an image of the model and instructions on how and where to place the pieces. I will say that I used a beeswax from England for a lot of the fittings to ease them together. On occasion I also used a small pair of parallel nose pliers for coaxing some parts together. Finally, I also used a thick CA glue when pieces would not stay together. Overall a 10 out of 10 kit! I loved assembling and I love working the black marble.

“It’s unique to itself and unlike any other wooden puzzle I’ve built. The design to connect pieces very clever. The pieces are made so precisely that the box almost builds itself as you complete steps. I like how you can handle the case without fingerprints showing on it. That way I can see the marble and all of the turns that it will make. I like the way the instructions gave a tip when the pieces should be handled with extra care. It’s nice that the person who packed my puzzle is identified.”
This review is dictated to me by my 14 year old grandson who is an expert at intricate wooden puzzle constructions. Margaret Hart

I had a great experience with Intrism Pro, and I’d recommend this to anyone with a LOT of patience and a great knack for these sorts dexterity puzzles.

I spent around 15 or so hours building the Intrism, split over 2 days. It was great fun and the manual was super easy to understand with nice building diagrams, tips to help you work out how to push each piece in, and icons to tell you if that piece is delicate, reversible, or if it has a spare in he included spare sheet (yes—a spare sheet is a sign of a truly honest company!). Also, the connecting “fingers” and their respective slots in neighboring pieces are different-sized, meaning you can’t fool the build and it is never confusing. However, those fingers are SO tight, most of the time I had to carefully hammer them in while avoiding breaking anything, or, with the (highly useful) included sandpaper, sand down the little things at the sides to make ‘em slip in easier.

After having finished building the wooden maze, I tested it with the included marble, and it occasionally wouldn’t fit through certain holes like the nose-shaped one from step 5. Looking closer, I noticed that the marble was slightly misshapen and oval-shaped! Yes, that’s right: the marble was very slightly OVAL! So instead, I used my own 1/2-inch steel marble of a similar size but was perfectly round. As it turned out, this worked about 10 times better: it fitted perfectly through all holes in the maze, and, as it was a little heavier, gave me a little more control in those drop sections as it didn’t bounce around so much.

And then, the most tedious bit of the building process came: assembling the acrylic casing! Doing that wasn’t the main challenge though—it was peeling the film off both sides of all 6 panels. And boy, was that annoying. The film wasn’t clear or blue plastic as the manual had said, but rather extremely sticky and easily ripped paper. It always ripped when I tried to peel it off, especially at sticky-out bits like the tabs that lock each panel in place, which, believe me, was INSANELY annoying. And I had to do 12. Twelve! So please be warned—you need a LOTTA patience for this. (If the film was plastic, making it less easy to rip, I may have considered giving Intrism Pro 5 stars. I really couldn’t stand that step.)

In terms of playing with the actual maze itself, boy, was it a HUGE challenge. The Intrism website got it right—it is VERY MUCH a level 10 maze. I’ve completed Perplexus Epic (a very hard maze game with a similar idea at around level 9) several times, but I can’t get far in this one at all. Believe me, you may wanna prepare your best curse words for this game. So, if you’re a newbie and just getting into the world of 3D mazes, I think you oughta get an easy Perplexus first, or if you’re looking for a DIY one, the Intrism Mini or Level One.

This difficulty might prove to be a problem for most people, as the acrylic casing is weakly held together by some tabs and slots that all interlock in a pattern. Most of the people I’ve challenged with this (and me too) tended to shake or hit it when they got frustrated, leading it to falling apart, forcing me to get back onto my workspace to try and put it together again, which also proves quite annoying. Even worse, they’re acrylic, which means they crack quite easily! This pretty weak (and not too well-designed) casing is one of the prime reasons I didn’t give Intrism Pro 5 stars.

At the very end of the build, they give you a stand that you can assemble from a few wooden pieces from the extra sheet. Don’t bother with it—it just can’t hold up the massive Intrism. I left it on that stand for a while, and when I came back, the Intrism fell off and the outer casing fell apart!

Overall, I really enjoyed Intrism Pro and will be looking out for more wooden DIY mazes from this awesome company. Hope you found my (extra-long) review helpful, and thanks for reading :)

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This is a Christmas gift. Not open yet.

Not given yet

As a fan of 3D picross, I was drawn to this maze / puzzle. It’s both fun to build and to explore. Such an amazing build, thank you for sharing your art. 🙂