Best Birthday Gifts for Dad - Sequential Discovery Puzzle Edition

Sequential discovery puzzles are great, and indeed the best birthday gifts for dad as they will keep your dad busy for probably hours. So get him a puzzle so he spends less time tinkering in the garage fixing that dining room table that doesn't really need fixing or repainting the deck railing for the third time in two years.

What the heck is a sequential discovery puzzle, though? 

These puzzles are ones that you must discover secrets or steps along the way to reveal tools to help you to continue to solve and open the puzzle. Some you get to a secret room at the end or reveal a coin or just get to open it up. And these are not regular dad type tools either. No hammers, screwdrivers or sandpaper. Specialized tools made especially for each puzzle.

At first glance, these puzzles seem pretty easy and simple. But they are not! Some reveal the secrets to opening them right on the puzzle itself and some just require you to play around with  it by pushing, pulling and prodding to figure it out.

The beauty of sequential discovery puzzles is that you get the reward of excitement and accomplishment at each step along the way. They all take several or many moves to solve. Hence, they will keep dad busy for a long time. They are great puzzles to solve together too. So if you want to spend some valuable time with dad, these puzzles will help!

Some are very well priced but some are really expensive. These puzzles took the creators a lot of time to create and put together but so worth it as they provide hours of fun. If you click on the learn more button on a puzzle it will take you to a page that will explain the puzzles in more detail, the price, the availability and the level of difficulty. 

All the wood escape room in a box puzzles can be viewed in our other post as well, if you want to focus on this type of puzzle.

Davy Jones' Locker Cluebox Puzzle

Cluebox - Davy Jones' Locker

Wooden Escape Room Sequential Discovery Box Puzzle

Schrodinger's Cat Escape Room in a Box

Cluebox - Schrodinger's Cat Puzzle

Wooden Escape Room Sequential Discovery Box Puzzle

Gift for Dad Lotus Flower Puzzle

Lotus Flower Puzzle

Simple concept - you to remove the aluminum circular disc and rod but extremely difficult!

Best Gifts For Dad - Cluebox

Cluebox - Captain Nemo's Nautilus Puzzle

Wooden Escape Room Sequential Discovery Box Puzzle

Traffic Light Puzzle Box

Traffic Light Puzzle

Get at the secret box inside by removing the traffic lights.

Orbital Puzzle Box

Orbital Box Puzzle

Crack the secret codes to get this box open.

Angel Cryptex Cylinder Puzzle Box

Angel Cryptex Cylinder Puzzle Box

A two stage sequential puzzle box that will only open if you solve the clues.

Invisible Oink Puzzle

Invisible Oink Puzzle

The goal is to help Lucky and Chewy find their missing sister Bouncy in their mud puddle.  Use the tools you find in the puzzle to solve it.

Bee Box Puzzle Gift for Dad

Bee Box Puzzle

In order to solve this puzzle, you must give it a bee sting!

Luzon Sequential Discovery Puzzle

Luzon Sequential Puzzle

With this sequential discovery puzzle the tools required to solve it are found within the puzzle itself.   The objective of this particular puzzle is to free the star. 

Barasoain Puzzle

Barasoain Sequential Puzzle

Free the coin from this puzzle! 

Sequential discovery puzzles differ from other take apart puzzles because you will remove pieces that may have to be re-used as tools once you determine how to use them to advance towards to the solution.

Hip Flask Birthday Gift for Dad

Hip Flask Brass Puzzle

This is not your every day drinking flask. The objective of the Hip-Flask is to remove the lid. Seems easy right?

Walang Galang Puzzle for Dad

Walang Galang Puzzle

This is not your every day drinking flask. The objective of the Hip-Flask is to remove the lid. Seems easy right?

Black Jack Puzzle Box

Black Jack Puzzle Box

Is your dad a card shark? Then this really expensive puzzle may be for him. This is a really big, challenging puzzle that will keep dad occupied for hours...maybe days?

Snow Block Puzzle Birthday Gift for Dad

Snow Block Puzzle Box

Challenge your dad's imagination to discover the 26 steps needed to unlock the box and reveal the frozen secret.

Space Box Puzzle

Space Box Puzzle

Solve the various puzzles to open the 2 secret rooms!

Abrihi Puzzle

Abrihi Puzzle

The goal of Abrihi is to open the lock. It combines deceptive simplicity with superb engineering.

Apolaki Puzzle Birthday Gift For Dad

Apolaki Puzzle

A free the coin puzzle. Looks simple but can dad figure out how to use the discovered tool to get the coin out?

Ansel Puzzle for Dad

Ansel Puzzle

Ansel is a camera-themed sequential discovery puzzle, named after the renowned landscape photographer Ansel Adams. The goal of the puzzle is quite simple: fully open the viewfinder and then reset the puzzle to the original locked position.

Quest Pyramid Puzzle Gift

Quest Pyramid Puzzle

The Quest Pyramid is an interactive pyramid with various puzzles that have to be solved one after the other in a logical order to unlock all the mechanisms and open the pyramid. In other words, an escape room in a really cool format! 

New Moon Puzzle Box

New Moon Puzzle Box

The phases of the moon wax and wane through the patterns of this puzzle. Slide your way to reveal the clue for the second puzzle on the bottom of the box

Aguinaldo Puzzle

Aguinaldo Puzzle

The goal of Aguilnaldo is to free the coin. This puzzle is a blind maze with a clever but simple mechanism to navigate the pathway. The puzzle is not terribly hard but certainly is fun to solve

Fort Knox Box Puzzle

Fort Knox Box Puzzle

With the Fort Knox Box you slip into the role of a mafia family planning a unique coup: the break-in of Fort Knox! The goal: one of the mysterious Bubu-Coins.

Mindanao Puzzle

Mindanao Puzzle

This a sequential discovery puzzle in which the tools required to solve it are found within the puzzle itself.  The goal is to find the star.  

Rune Cube Puzzle Gift for Dad

Rune Cube Puzzle

The object of this puzzle is to remove the sides to get to the key inside. And in a rare twist of fate, this key can then be used to reconfigure the puzzle in a whole bunch of ways to solve again!

Tesla's Puzzle Box

Tesla's Puzzle Box

Wow! This is an escape room type of puzzle.  It takes about 90 minutes to solve for one to three people. It comes with an introduction paper, extension cord and solution!

We are back in the 1900's, and a mysterious box has been found outside of Nikola Tesla's lab. The city has been plunged into darkness and your objective is to light up the plasma ball!  Start by using "The Old Post" newspaper clipping that is provided with the puzzle...

Rizal Puzzle For Dad

Rizal Puzzle

Another simple, yet deceiving free the coin acrylic puzzle!

Blinded II Puzzle Box

Blinded II Puzzle Box

A beautifully crafted wood puzzle with the goal to just open it by figuring out the tricky mechanism.

Visayas Puzzle Birthday Gift for Dad

Visayas Puzzle

Yet another simple yet deceiving free the star, (not coin this time though!) acrylic puzzle.

Bella Free The Puppy Puzzle

Bella Puzzle

Free the puppy by solving this sequential discovery puzzle and be really satisfied with the solution.

Kneebox One Puzzle Box

Kneebox One Puzzle Box

A 3D printed puzzle with the goal to find the hidden coin after solving sequentially 13 steps to open it. 

First Box Metal Puzzle

First Box Puzzle

A difficult heavy metal puzzle that you have to remove the metal rod from the middle. Barely any visible moves to get started! First made in 1984!

The Bomb Squad Puzzle

The Bomb Squad Puzzle

Firstly, this is not a real bomb! But it sure looks like it!!! What an amazing puzzle designed to be similar to an escape room type puzzle. And it is hard!!