If crawling out of bed, showering, and getting dressed every morning already provides you with a significant daily challenge, you’ll want to stay well clear of a new Japanese variant of the iconic Rubik’s Cube that makes lining up the coloured squares significantly harder as the squares constantly change colour.
There’s an immense level of self-satisfaction when you successfully solve a Rubik’s Cube, but that hours-long accomplishment starts to feel less impressive when you discover the current world record for solving a scrambled cube currently stands at just 3.47 seconds. It seems like only a half-human-half-cyborg brain could solve the puzzle that quickly. But in reality, there are reliable strategies for solving a Rubik’s Cube that simply require you to memorise and master a set of specific patterns and movements.
However, those strategies also require you to know the exact colours of the squares on every side of the cube, which is why the new Rubik’s Cube Impossible might live up to its name for almost everyone. Created by MegaHouse, a subsidiary of Bandai Namco that produces Rubik’s Cubes on behalf of Spin Master in Japan, the upgraded puzzle features coloured squares that change colour depending on the angle they’re being viewed. Making things harder yet is the fact that not every square on the cube does the colour-changing trick.
According to SoraNews24, this promotional video featured a couple of speed cubers — both capable of solving a regular Rubik’s Cube in about a minute’s time — who were challenged to solve the Rubik’s Cube Impossible. One eventually gave up completely, while the other did the impossible and actually managed to solve it, although it took about three hours to do so.
The Rubik’s Cube Impossible is currently listed on the MegaHouse website for about $US25 ($35) (3,080 yen) and while the site indicates a Spring 2022 release, it doesn’t appear to be available for sale just yet — but why would anyone want to curse themselves with such a creation anyways?