One Fish Another Fish

Name
One Fish Another Fish

Designer
Serhiy Grabarchuk. One of his many numerous sliding puzzle designs (see here). Serhiy also designed the Cast Coaster for Hanayama.

Start Position

Finished Position...well sort of...the lower  left  corner
blue tile is actually supposed to be on the top left corner)

Manufacturer
Diniar Namdarian.

Type & Classification
Sliding

Dimensions
15.1 cm (Height) x 12.1cm (Width) x 1.0 cm (Depth).

Materials & Construction
Entire puzzle is made of acrylic (plexiglass). Construction fit and finish is very good as the puzzle pieces are laser cut to tight tolerances.

Overview
The One Fish Another Fish came to me courtesy of Diniar Namdarian, puzzle designer and collector (thank you Diniar). From the design, you can tell why its called the name its called. The very good combination of colours for the pieces consisting of orange, blue and yellow enclosed by a white tray gives the puzzle a very bright, cheerful and attractive appearance.

Initially one would not think its a very difficult sliding puzzle given that its only 11 moving pieces (one space is left empty). This is what what I thought too (after my most difficult encounter with my Cat & Dog sliding puzzle, which still remains unsolved).

Well I should have remembered after so much puzzling that a puzzle that looks simple usually isn't and true enough as I started playing, I realised that not every single piece will move in every direction when it came to the corners. This clever restriction limits the movements of the pieces and makes the puzzle far more challenging than it looks.

I took a good forty five minutes with trying all sorts of moves before arriving at the "finished" position ie the reverse image of the fish...but alas, still not quite there. But I was happy with my personal result and didn't go further.

Difficulty Level
Moderately difficult. Moving the quarter-circle shaped pieces to their intended locations do require some forward planning of sorts since movements may be restricted now and again at the corners.

Summary
Overall a nice well-made sliding puzzle that provides enough challenge (and one that does not take a lot of time to complete). Good for puzzlers that don't have much experience with sliding puzzles (like me). I should have started with this one instead of the Cat & Dog.