The Nintendo Tumbler Puzzle, also known as the ''Ten Billion Barrel'' in

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Culture, language and peoples * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England * ''English'', an Amish ter ...

and originally in

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

, is a mathematical and mechanical puzzle. It is one of many mechanical toys invented by

Gunpei Yokoi , sometimes transliterated as Gumpei Yokoi, was a Japanese toy maker and video game designer. As a long-time Nintendo employee, he was best known as creator of the Game & Watch handheld system, inventor of the cross-shaped Control Pad, the ...

Nintendo is a Japanese Multinational corporation, multinational video game company headquartered in Kyoto. It develops, publishes, and releases both video games and video game consoles. The history of Nintendo began when craftsman Fusajiro Yamauchi ...

. It was released in 1980 under . The patent expired in March 1995 due to non-payment of a maintenance fee.

Overview

The puzzle consists of a cylinder of transparent plastic divided into six levels, within a black plastic frame. The frame consists of upper and lower discs that are joined through the middle of the cylinder. The top and bottom levels of the cylinder form a single piece, but between them are two rotatable pieces each two levels high. Each of the four central levels is divided into five chambers each containing a colored ball. The top and bottom levels have only three chambers, containing either three balls or three parts of the frame depending on the relative position of frame and cylinder. The balls in three of the five resulting columns of chambers can be moved up or down one level by raising or lowering the frame relative to the transparent cylinder. The object is to sort the balls, so that each of the five columns contains balls of a single color.

Cameos

As a tribute to the late creator of the puzzle and former ''Metroid'' series producer,

, the puzzle has a small cameo appearance in ''

Metroid Prime ''Metroid Prime'' is a 2002 action-adventure game developed by Retro Studios and published by Nintendo for the GameCube. ''Metroid Prime'' is the fifth main '' Metroid'' game and the first to use 3D computer graphics and a first-person perspec ...

'' for the

GameCube The is a PowerPC-based home video game console developed and marketed by Nintendo. It was released in Japan on September 14, 2001, in North America on November 18, 2001, in Europe on May 3, 2002, and in Australia on May 17, 2002. It is the suc ...

. A large-scale version appears in the Phazon Mines in which

Samus Aran is the protagonist of the video game series ''Metroid'' by Nintendo. She was created by the Japanese video game designer Makoto Kano (video game designer), Makoto Kano and introduced in the first ''Metroid (video game), Metroid'' (1986) for th ...

uses the Morph Ball to interact with it by rotating the levels and climbing the side of it with magnetic rails. The puzzle appears in '' Animal Crossing: New Leaf'', as one of the prizes from Redd during the fireworks displays throughout August. It is an easter egg in '' The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask 3D''. In ''

WarioWare Gold ''WarioWare Gold'' is a minigame compilation developed by Intelligent Systems and published by Nintendo for the Nintendo 3DS family of video game consoles. The ninth installment in the ''WarioWare'' series, it was released in PAL regions in Jul ...

'', it appears as one of the microgames, requiring the matching of 4 of its marbles.

References

External links

* http://www.jaapsch.net/puzzles/nintendo.htm (photos and solution) * http://blog.beforemario.com/2011/09/nintendo-ten-billion-1980.html (photos) * https://github.com/SteveJM/tumbler-puzzle (Python code to find a solution) {{DEFAULTSORT:Nintendo Tumbler Puzzle Mechanical puzzles Nintendo toys