Now, try your hand at 'world's hardest unsolved puzzle'

An inventor has created what he terms the hardest puzzle in the world, which he is yet to solve himself.

Golden Bay game inventor Mike McManaway, who invented Tantrix, has produced a new version of the game called Quest, which has an estimated 87 billion combinations and is offering a free trip to France to anyone who can complete it the day its launched, stuff.co.nz reported.

McManaway said that he would be pretty impressed if someone can solve it on Friday, when the puzzle is launched, but there will be people who can solve it over time.

The puzzle involves matching track colours which are hand-painted on to tiles and each tile needs to be matched to complete the puzzle and as one goes on, every extra tile makes the puzzle 10 times harder.