Pandora's Box · 1999

The ten puzzle types

Every puzzle in Pandora's Box starts with a picture, then breaks it in one of ten ways. Seven of them appear in the very first level. The other three join later, one at a time, as the tricksters get trickier.

Focus Point

First seen: level 1, New York

The picture is cut into rectangles of many different sizes, and they're all in the wrong places. Click two pieces to swap them. It sounds simple until a big piece needs to go where four small ones are sitting.

Rotascope

First seen: level 1, New York

A round picture, divided into rings and wedges like a rose window, with one wedge missing. It's a sliding puzzle: move pieces into the gap until the picture is whole, which always leaves the centre empty. The tip in the rules was to finish the outer ring first.

A Rotascope puzzle in the original game: a circular engraving of figures, cut into rings and wedges, part solved — Rotascope, part solved.

Overlap

First seen: level 1, New York

The picture has gaps, marked by a striped pattern. Drag oddly shaped pieces, a bit like Tetris pieces, from the side, and turn them, until every gap is covered and each piece shows its own part of the picture.

Slices

First seen: level 1, Cairo · 3D

A 3D object, such as a vase, cut into horizontal slices and scattered across a chequered table. Stack the slices back up in the right order, flipping any that are upside down, to rebuild the object.

Image Hole

First seen: level 1, Madrid

The picture is hidden behind a plain coloured background. Silhouettes drift around it, each showing a fragment of the hidden picture. Work out where each fragment belongs and drop it there, so the picture appears piece by piece.

Find and Fill

First seen: level 1, Paris

White outlines of several figures, all drawn on top of one another. Pick a colour and fill in the regions that belong to one figure. Get a figure right and it's found. Find them all to finish.

Outer Layer

First seen: level 1, Honolulu · 3D

A 3D object stands on a pedestal, with patches of its pattern missing. Drag each swatch from the tray to the spot where it fits. A mirror on the wall behind shows you the object's far side.

An Outer Layer puzzle in the original game: a patterned cone on a pedestal with missing patches, swatches in a tray, and a mirror behind — Outer Layer: the mirror shows the back.

Jesse's Strips

First seen: level 2 (Puck), Lusaka

The picture is cut into long strips, spread across several numbered backgrounds, each in its own colour. The colours are the clue: each background helps you see where its strips belong. Drag strips into the picture, turn them, and move them between backgrounds with the numbered tabs.

Lens Bender

First seen: level 4 (Coyote), Sydney

A big lens in the middle shows the start of a picture, and smaller lenses around it hold the rest of the pieces. Each lens shows its piece turned a different way. Turn a piece until it's the right way up, then send it to the centre, where it has to join onto what's already there.

A Lens Bender puzzle in the original game: a large central lens with a chequered background, surrounded by six smaller lenses holding pieces — Lens Bender: build outwards from the centre.

Interlock

First seen: level 6 (Anansi), Tokyo

Part of a photo, following its subject, is blacked out on a grid of triangles. Drag triangular pieces, like a tangram, until they snap into place and the black area is gone.

The trickster challenges

At the end of each level, the trickster's own challenge used the same puzzle types, bigger and harder. From the Monkey level on, they chained two or three types together: the finished picture of one stage became the scrambled start of the next. Raven's challenge ran Jesse's Strips, then Rotascope, then Focus Point.

Meet the seven tricksters →