Lanlan Squished Skewb Cube

LanLan Squished Skewb Cube

This puzzle looks like a Skewb that someone has squeezed really hard. The LanLan Squished Skewb Cube isn't a cube but a rhombohedron: it has six rhombus-shaped faces. It works just like a regular Skewb (turning around four axes that run through the corners), but because of its unusual shape, after a few moves it no longer resembles anything familiar. The puzzle was designed by John Lin from Taiwan, and the idea is inspired by Andreas Nortmann's Squished Cube.

How it turns

Inside, it uses the mechanism of the regular LanLan Skewb, so turning is smooth and predictable. However, the Squished Skewb is not a speedcubing puzzle. It's big and heavy and won't work well for fast turning. It's a shape mod, meaning a modified shape built on a familiar mechanism. It changes shape as you scramble it, and with the right layer positions you can turn it into symmetrical, rather surprising shapes.

The pieces and how they move relative to each other are the same as on a regular Skewb, so knowing how to solve a Skewb helps a lot. The difficulty mainly comes from the pieces having different shapes and the puzzle looking irregular once scrambled. Working out which piece goes where takes more attention than on a standard Skewb.

Size and build

The puzzle is large for its category. The distance between parallel faces is approx. 7 cm, and each edge is approx. 85 mm long. The body is black, and the colours come from factory-applied PVC stickers. LanLan released the mass-produced version in 2013, although John Lin's first designs were created several years earlier.

Who is it for?

For people who already know the Skewb and want to try it in a different form, and for collectors of unusual puzzles and shape mods. It also looks great on a desk or shelf. If you have never solved a Skewb, it's better to start with a regular Skewb and come back to this version later.

Specifications

• Type: Skewb shape mod (rhombohedron)
• Manufacturer: LanLan
• Design: John Lin
• Mechanism: Skewb (4 axes of rotation)
• Dimensions: approx. 137 x 137 x 70 mm
• Edge length: approx. 85 mm
• Weight: approx. 337 g
• Body colour: black
• Finish: PVC stickers