The Kaleidoscope Classic is one of the best single person puzzles that I have come across. It a well advertised game in many of the Delhi-NCR toy stores. You must have often walked pass this box with red and black squares on a grid, that is the game I am gloating about! The crux is that the game comes with 18 unique pieces with colours on either side.
The game comes with a booklet with 101 challenges - 101 patterns to be made by placing together these shapes on a board. One goes crazy trying to get the pieces to fit in the exact pattern.
It gets frustrating when you are left with one gaping hope in the puzzle and the wrong piece in hand! Fortunately for me, till now, this frustration has not resulting in me banging my head against the wall, rather in a refreshed desire to crack the challenge. The game is slightly expensive - I picked up the board game version for Rs 595.
There is a PC only version (lower end) and a PC + Board game version (higher end). The one I picked up is the Essential edition and comes with only the board game in it. The box I picked up said that it is supposed to come with a deactivated lifetime card but I did not find any in the box. I called up the Dr. Wood centre in NOIDA and they said that they have stopped packing the cards in the boxes. One had to pay online to activate the card anywayz, so, people preferred to pick up the PC version. It is the same amount and comes with an activated card and the CD. Makes sense!
The other two come with activated cards and with that one gets a puzzle free every week for the rest of ones life. Other than this, one becomes a member of various online contests, chat groups, forums and stuff.
I’d highly recommend picking this up and putting free time to good use. Check out https://thekaleidoscopeclassic.com for more info.