http://www.gadgetspeak.com/gadget/article.rhtm/751/456824/Eternity_II_-_WOW_What_a_Game_-_More_Add.html

Eternity II - WOW What a Game - More Addictive Than a Rubics Cube, Tantalising as Sudoku 

Image of author
Now here is a game/puzzle that is more addictive than a Rubics Cube, more frustrating than the Quality Street jigsaw I bought my other half for Christmas last year and bound to be a fantastic seller this festive season.
Tomy Eternity II

As my daughter and I eagerly unwrapped the package our copy of Eternity II came in we couldn't wait to rip off the cling film and get going. Four hours later we were still at the dining table having zoomed ahead on several occasions, only to find ourselves having to backtrack again.

The feeling is just like when you find you have one stray white cube in the middle of a face of green squares on your Rubics Cube. In the case of Eternity II the manufacturers, Tomy, have added an incentive of a US $2,000,000 reward for the first person to solve the puzzle. Actually everyone who solves it by a certain date goes into a prize draw and it's the first correct solution out of the hat on draw date that wins - so I'm guessing it's not impossible to crack eventually.

If you are a lover of Sudoku, or any of those brainteasing type of puzzle, you should love Eternity II.

So what is the Eternity II?

It's a puzzle to be solved on a grid of squares. 256 squares to be precise. Each puzzle piece is split into four triangles with half a pattern on each of the four faces. You start by placing the only clue square in the middle. Then you place the grey edged squares around the edge of the board. Beware there is definitely more than one way just to get the edge pieces right, and you can't know at the beginning whether you've done this or not. Then you have to match adjacent sides of each piece to make a full pattern when you match the pieces together. Sound easy enough? Definitely not!!

Eternity II family

When you think you've done it - you write down your solution on a provided form and post it off to the manufacturers. No need to rush - you have plenty of time. The deadline for solutions is 31st December 2008.

If the thought of 256 pieces, each capable of being placed in any of 256 locations, and each of which has one of four rotations (any mathematicians out there?) is a little daunting then Tomy do offer a little help. They make you work for it though - the help comes in the form of two smaller puzzles - called 'clue puzzles'. These follow the same rules as their bigger cousin. Clue puzzle 1 comprises 36 pieces (how hard can it be). Clue puzzle 2 is larger at 72 pieces. Each clue puzzle you solve gives you another clue piece on the main puzzle. That would give you three known pieces, which should surely bring you closer to that big prize?

Eternity II - puzzle piece

Hopefully I've managed to convey the daunting challenge posed by this puzzle. You'll need time to play this game - so Christmas, bank holidays and summer holiday evenings are a great time to start your attempt. You'll need a table or board where you can leave it between sessions, just like any good jigsaw puzzle. And unless you are a genius, you're not likely to finish it in just one sitting!

For those of you lost in my description - Tomy provide a free small on-line version that only has 16 pieces. Yep - that's all. Just 16 pieces. Click on this link and play the on-line version or click on the puzzle piece above. Give it a try and leave a comment below on how well (or badly!) you did! Can you beat my time of 2 minutes 44 seconds?

A game for all the family to be able to dip in and out of, and great to while away the hours for bored kids.

To keep up to date with Eternity II Tomy have developed a special web-site dedicated to the product : http://uk.eternityii.com/ (that's the UK version)

Only just out at the end of July, price from Amazon for the main puzzle , with a chance of winning big, is £34.99 :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B000NO26TG

Follow us on Twitter!!

add to del.icio.us Digg this review
StumbleUpon
Reddit

Reviews by related category

What our readers said!

Rating:

Comment by jjheap, 16 Oct 2010 19:23

err?

Perhaps you need to read my orginal posting again, I am asking for the clue puzzles 3 and 4; I could offer you clue 1 and 2 if you were nice.

I could also, again if you were nice, offer you the 200+ pieces that I have fitted in (best solution to date , but it'll do you no good as it is wrong somewhere in the 1st 23 pieces (that's how far my algorithm has back tracked to date) so it'll do you no good.

Happy solving.
Rating:

Comment by sirfranknilson, 16 Oct 2010 14:54

Why don't you try me out. I mean it, I will give you 50 squares that fit, unless of course, you don't have the correct four clues.
Rating:

Comment by jjheap, 16 Oct 2010 9:03


Wow, that's a good offer;

And these 50 are correct are they?  Me thinks not.
Rating:

Comment by sirfranknilson, 15 Oct 2010 23:01

I will supply you with 50 matching blocks if you provide me with the first four correct clues. If you send me the wrong clues, your matching blocks will not be forwarded.
Rating:

Comment by jjheap, 15 Oct 2010 15:08

All,

Anybody able to supply me with details of clue puzzles 3 and 4?  A grid of correctly placed piece numbers perhaps?

John
[email protected]
Rating:

Comment by Frank, 11 Oct 2010 10:35

Anybody out there who could supply me with the results for the first four clues to EternityII. If not, where could I find these clue puzzles in South Africa or is there anybody who wants to sell off their clue puzzles 1-4? Please let me know. Thanks
Rating:

Comment by Serenade, 3 Aug 2010 10:36

I have the Clue puzzle Nº I, II, III and IV solutions, you can try it completing the registration form on the web. If you're interested write to me. Regards
Rating:

Comment by csi4life, 25 Jan 2010 9:24

Does anyone know where i can find the clue puzzles 1 & 2 here in South Africa?
Rating:

Comment by Alexis, 1 May 2009 5:38

Dd the online version in 53 seconds!
Rating:

Comment by Cheryl, 25 Feb 2009 0:00

I just got the puzzle as a gift....Christ!
I did the online version in 1 min 20 sec..The 256 is going to take an eternity!
Rating:

Comment by lastcrazyhorn, 28 June 2008 16:30

One more thing.  How did you all work the puzzle?  I worked it from the middle outwards.  I recently figured out how to build a sudoku puzzle.  This idea really reminds me of that concept.
Rating:

Comment by lastcrazyhorn, 28 June 2008 16:27

I did the puzzle in 1 minute, 45 seconds.  Then again, I'm rather detail/pattern oriented.  :)  I'm really thinking about buying this puzzle.  
Rating:

Comment by megabite, 13 June 2008 16:25

3 minutes 38 seconds but I've been awake for 22 hours straight so I will forgive my brain....I bought the game about a year ago but didnt have time to even open it....have bought clue one and two and completed one but never had time to open clue two....got 4 weeks between semesters really plan to indulge my brain.....hope the other 2 clues are worth it....I want to give myself the best chance of winning or even just completing it!....
Rating:

Comment by MOttaway, 8 Jan 2008 5:11

I managed to get the main puzzle plus both clue puzzle for less than £15 delivered from Amazon just before christmas. Solved Clue 1 in about 2 mins, Clue 2 took about half an hour. Thought I would have the whole thing cracked by the Queens speech. Still working on it though. Really good fun.
Rating:

Comment by excalibur78, 30 Dec 2007 21:40

scott how do you play the game on line?????
Rating:

Comment by excalibur78, 30 Dec 2007 21:36

can somebody help me i got eternityII and i want to buy the hint puzzles but all shops out of stock i just want to know what number tiles are in the box as i thought it was 1-36 but they are edge pieces plz e-mail me @ [email protected] thanks.........but the game is really addictive  :)
Rating:

Comment by Grant, 30 Oct 2007 1:17

Actually, there is a rush to solve the puzzle. When choosing the winning entry, they process the entries in order of receipt, not by pulling a random one out of a hat.
Rating:

Comment by SBott, 1 Oct 2007 5:08

In case anyone is interested, the 4x4 online puzzle has 2,560 possible solutions (surprising how many there are isn't it). Many of these are simple rotations of other solutions but still, there are many many solutions. Makes you wonder how many solutions there are to the main puzzle. Though this will be limited by the fact that a centre piece is given to you and required.

My stats so far:
Online trial : 1min 12 sec (by hand), a few milliseconds by pc to find all solutions.

6x6 Clue 1: about 5 minutes to type in the pieces and about 10 ms to solve using a PC

12x6 Clue 2: < 30 minutes by hand, didn't bother with pc

Prize puzzle: Hopelessly addicted but not very hopeful of EVER finding a solution

Hope everyone is having fun
Rating:

Comment by EL_Pillim, 29 Sep 2007 16:49

Comment removed as spam - please do not post comments to executables that could contain viruses, please do not post links to things that don't exist or to sites that are not complete. -- Editor
Rating:

Comment by jonw, 28 Sep 2007 22:34

Well done on the clue puzzles Kris - be interested to know how/if they help you with the main puzzle. I'm sure they will - just not sure how! I've got the main puzzle - but not the clue ones. Am in two minds about whether the shell out for those as well.
Rating:

Comment by Kris Adams, 26 Sep 2007 20:18

Just heard about this puzzle last week from a friend.  Tried the online version and took 13 mins, since then i've bought the clue 1 and clue 2 puzzles and completed them in 35 mins and 1 hour 37 mins respectively.  Going to buy the main one tonight and get cracking!!  Absolutely awesome puzzle, well done TOMY!
Rating:

Comment by Dave Clark, 20 Sep 2007 9:22

Hi.
When you get bored with trying to solve the eternity 2 puzzle by hand, then head over to http://eternity2.net. This website is providing a free software solver for owners of the eternityii puzzle to run on their computers. This software runs over 1,000,000 times faster than a human! You can read the newsgroups and forums there to see how others are doing.
Cheers,
Dave
Rating:

Comment by Vicky, 18 Sep 2007 15:23

I made it in 1 minute and 36 seconds!  You need to start on the corners and work your down the sides the in the middle.
Rating:

Comment by jonw, 30 Aug 2007 19:04

Is there definitely only one solution to the 16 piece on-line version? Can't see anything that says that's the case - but then neither have I tried to find more than one solution! Sounds like a challenge :-)
Rating:

Comment by MIKEY, 30 Aug 2007 17:37

true the online one can be done quickly but thats due to there only being one place for each piece not like the big one where ther are many ways to solve it
Rating:

Comment by jeremy, 28 Aug 2007 2:30

Managed to fluke the 16 piece in 1 min 2 seconds. Looking forward to getting the big puzzle for fathers day
Rating:

Comment by Peter, 21 Aug 2007 9:13

This is an AMAZING product from TOMY.  

It is a proven fact that puzzles are a fantastic way of de-stressing and keeping the brain active and unlike most puzzles, which only have one correct way of completing the final solution, there are thousands of ways that Eternity II can be solved to win the $2 million prize – the perfect reason for getting the brain in shape!

Eternity II will appeal to males and females of all ages – from those that regularly enjoy the challenge of puzzle games  and keeping their brains exercised, to those that will be tempted to have a go and try to win the $2million!

My advice?  Get out there and buy it right away!
Rating:

Comment by carolinewilson, 20 Aug 2007 21:22

I've now noticed that this game is £24.99 instead of £34.99.  At that rate I would have given it a 5 out of 5 for value!
Rating:

Comment by jonw, 19 Aug 2007 23:10

You did it in how long. I gave up after 10 minutes in frustration! Good luck with the $2m!

Comments are switched off for this article

Smiley Rating

Features2
Performance2
Value2
Ease of use2
Overall2
Highly commended product

If you like this article then why not link to it from your site!

Use a text link, or download an image

 

Our current Free Prizedraw!!

Why join GadgetSpeak?

Well - there are lots of reasons to join, depending on you and your interests :

  • Member prize-draws
  • Real reviews - by real people
  • Membership is free
  • Email summary of the weeks reviews
  • Share your product feedback with others
  • Keep in touch with all that's new in gadgets
  • Full of great ideas as the Christmas deadline looms!

Convinced? Come along and join in the fun!

close

Invite friends and family to GadgetSpeak

Why not invite friends or family to join in the fun?

Help us make GadgetSpeak the place to come for free and impartial reviews of the latest gadgets!

Start inviting your friends along!