Cast Planet

Hanayama Cast Planet

Today, is another quick puzzle review. I had actually failed to solve anything all week. I should have managed it with ease because Mrs S was oop North again for a week and I was home alone with a cat who seems to be steadily improving on his Prozac (even if the cutting of the white powder with a razor blade is giving me headaches). Not only was I far away from the demands of "She who must be flinched from", but I also spent 3 days sitting on my arse attending an on-line conference from 9-5 (note to the Americans - it's an arse not an ass because an ass is a donkey and there's no room in the house for one of those). You might have thought that I could have used my conference time to play with one of my toys but, alas, I am definitely a uni-tasker. If I play with a puzzle, then I seem to have no recollection of what has gone on in the conference...believe me, I tried. It may have been that I attempted the wrong puzzles? I have begun playing with the Box of Celts and so far failed to find even the first step. Plus my copy of Dee Dixon's gorgeous Vertigo puzzle arrived and I similarly failed to find any moves on that as well.

Box of Celts by Numbskull puzzles

Vertigo by Dedwood crafts

It may well be that these are just too complex to be done in a week...especially by a man of very little brains like me. However, it would have been nice to at least find the first move on just one of them before being forced to look for something simpler to solve!

Towards the end of the week I thought I had better do at least a couple of the chores that had been set as a target for me by "She who frightens the sun into setting every night". Part of those chores involved housework and forced me to look in my office. I have been avoiding that room for a while due to the unholy mess. Glancing at the desk revealed a couple of other unsolved but simpler puzzles that had just slipped my attention and rather than tidy said office, I went through the "catastrophe" to pick something for today... hence the Cast Planet as the subject of my blog.

OMG! Luckily, "She who is responsible for thunder" never looks in here

Amongst the unsolved and forgotten puzzles to solve was the Hanayama Cast Planet which I have to say looks lovely but probably remained on the desk because it also looked like it was going to be solved by random movements.

Hanayama rated it as 4 out of 6 and PuzzleMaster as 8 (Demanding) on their scale of 5 - 10. Personally, I would rate it as 3 (or 7) myself. As you would expect from the name and the look of it it consists of a rather rocky looking planet made from silver chromed metal inside a sort of Saturn's ring of gold coloured metal. I wonder whether it should have been called the Cast Virus or Cast Corona but maybe that wouldn't help it sell? It was designed by a new designer to me, Masui Ohno and is effectively a maze puzzle with all parts and paths visible.

The starting point is marked by grooves on the North and South poles of the planet which line up with marks on the ring. Obviously, the planet needs to be manipulated within the ring until the odd cutouts in the ring line up with the correctly shaped "mountains" on the planet to allow them to be slid apart.

I started looking at what kind of movements are possible and realised that the movement of the planet is quite constrained along the orientation of the ring and only at set positions was it possible to rotate the planet out of that axis to open up another sequence of moves in the plane of the ring again. Initially I was very cautious for fear of being unable to return to the beginning and hence, adopted my usual too and fro approach. Unfortunately, after about 5 minutes of puzzling I found myself unable to return to the start. Damn! OK, onward only. 

For the first 15 minutes, it seemed that I was going around in circles with no real plan for how to go about it. I felt that I was just making random moves and either I was going to continue forever making these random moves or it was going to solve itself by pure chance without me being the reason for the solve. At that point, I noticed a shape on the planet and had one of my very are thoughts. I had found a shape that looked like it might be useful and I had a "what if I aim for this?" thoughts. As you all know, thought is a rare thing for me so when it happens, I have to assume that it originated elsewhere and should probably be acted on. From this point, after another 2 or 3 minutes of systematically manoeuvring the planet into successively better positions, it fell apart into my hands and left me with a triumphant grin. Mrs S looked at me with disbelief - she rarely sees me solve anything and thinks that I either cheat or break them apart!

That's actually quite clever!

Having left it for a while, returning it to the strut position was just as tough as solving it. This is partly because it's quite hard to work out where the start position is and there are less clues for which way to move things when going in that direction.

Despite fairly low expectations for this puzzle (I am not really a fan of mazes anymore), this puzzle was actually quite enjoyable and a nice small challenge to be done in about 20-30 minutes. I looks good on display and is perfect for children and newbies as well as dedicated puzzle fans. Buy it from PuzzleMaster if you are in the Americas or from Sloyd or Hendrik if you are in Europe. For only €12-15 or $18CAD then you cannot really go wrong.

Hanayama Hyrule Crest

Hanayama Hyrule Crest

Following on from last week's review of the Hanayama Master Sword puzzle, I finish the trilogy with a quick review of the Hyrule Crest. This puzzle obviously has the shape of the emblem found everywhere in the Legend of Zelda game from Nintendo and not quite so clearly visible is the Triforce knotted up by the chain. At the ends of the chain are 2 more Triforce shapes which prevent the chain passing through the emblem. The aim is to remove the large triangular Triforce from the puzzle and then put it back.

This puzzle is rated as 4 out of 6 by Hanayama and 8 out of 10 by PuzzleMaster and I think that is a little high - it is not a really simple puzzle but I would make it a 3/6 or 7/10. It is a very nice bronze type colour and a good size for playing with at 10.4 x 1 x 6.2 cm. 

Details of the knot revealed

It is not clear from the initial positioning how the chain is fastening the Triforce in place and so I pulled it down to reveal that there are 3 holes in the crest and the chain loops through them all and around itself to hold the Triforce in place.

It may be that I have gotten to be quite good at disentanglement puzzles over the years but as soon as I looked at the configuration the solution just screamed out at me - I knew immediately what the sequence should be. But something was bugging me... I usually have a terrible memory and can find myself solving the same puzzle several times with absolutely no recollection of having done it before (don't tell Mrs S) but I distinctly remember that the Cast Heart (also a level 4/6 or 8/10) has a very similar configuration (I am very impressed with myself because I reviewed that puzzle way back in 2014). Going back to my pictures of the solved puzzle I can see that it is identical but with modified pieces. At $18 CAD the Heart is considerably cheaper but I would say a bit less attractive and is also a good bit smaller and more fiddly if you have fat fingers. If you are a Nintendo or Zelda collector then you will have to get the more expensive one.

Just like the Cast Heart, I was able to see the solution straight away and had my Triforce removed very quickly. The hardest part was manipulating the fiddly chain through some rather small holes:

Solved

I left the puzzle for a day or so and reassembly was still pretty straight forward for me. Is it worth buying? If you are a Zelda freak then definitely, if you are a Hanayama completionism then definitely again. If you already have the Cast Heart then probably not. This is a nice puzzle for newbies and definitely looks good in a display.

Hanayama Master Sword

Hanayama Master Sword

The box is more beautiful than the puzzle!

I just realised that the photo above is not actually a terribly good pic! Depth of field issues - sorry about that. At the end of October I reviewed the Hanayama Triforce puzzle which I broadly enjoyed even if it was actually much easier to solve than the advertised level of 5 out of 6. The other two in the series have been sitting in my pile of to be played with toys but I seem to have had very limited time this last week and I only managed to start playing with this last night.

This is another in the Legend of Zelda series produced in collaboration (or maybe just with permission from) Nintendo. The Master sword is Link's weapon and here it is captive in a stone with the Hyrule crest insignia on it. Your aim is to free the sword from the stone. I think this might be better marketed in the UK as an Arthurian legend puzzle and called Excalibur.

The puzzle has a sort of pewter coloured metal for the base and collar and the sword is a chromed metal. The base has a weird sort of feel to it - I felt that I was going to get a discolouration or staining of my hands (this did not happen). It is 9.5 x 4.4 x 3.4 cm in size which makes it a little fiddly to grip the parts of the collar and has been ascribed a difficulty level by Hanayama of 6 out of 6 and by PuzzleMaster as 10 out of 10. I sort of agree with this assessment.

On the underneath of the puzzle you can partially see inside but the view does not help during the solve. There is a collar around the sword which is split into two halves. These collar pieces can move up or down and intermittently rotate in either direction depending on position of all the various pieces. This effectively makes the challenge a hidden maze type puzzle which is made more difficult by the fact that there are 4 pieces that can all move independently with certain restrictions which you cannot see. With my puzzle origins being with the Revomaze, I expected to enjoy this challenge and begin mapping fairly early. With such a limited size, I did not expect it to be anywhere near as tough as a Revomaze.

Fiddling early on, it is worrying to discover that the collar can rotate in either direction and also one of the pieces can be pulled up to allow more limited rotation with the piece in this position. I started taking some notes and very quickly realised that there were lots and lots and lots of possible moves after each decision that you make. It is really hard to make a decision tree for it to help keep track. This was rather disheartening and then at some point (not that far in), I must have either allowed a piece to move without me realising or forgot to note a move and I was lost in the maze. Aaaargh! 

I was unable to go back to the beginning by following my notes and I was now left blindly wandering around a maze in the hope that I could either randomly get out or find my way to a reset. I got quite close to a disassembly a few times with everything protruding from the base quite a long way but not enough to allow a release. After about 30 minutes of fiddling blindly I managed to release the pieces:

The sword has been released (spoiler free)

It is interesting to see how the pieces are able to interact and also interesting to look in the prism at the maze obstructions but this is singularly unhelpful in attempting a reassembly.

To put it back together, obviously, the exact reverse of the movements done is required. Except, I had absolutely no idea what I had done. So far I have failed to get this back to the start after an hour. I have got frustratingly close but each time been blocked and ended up inadvertently dismantling again (with a fair while being lost in the maze). I am sure that I will get there eventually but I have to say that I didn't really enjoy this puzzle. It was too random for me with very little thought.

Obviously, if you are a seasoned puzzler then you will be better at it than me and have no problem with it and probably find it quite enjoyable. If you are a collector then this along with the rest of the set is an essential purchase. Zelda fans should probably buy as well.

Triforce From Hanayama

Hanayama Triforce

Just a very quick review today. At the last MPP, I got the opportunity to buy (thanks Steve) all three of the latest Hanayama Legend of Zelda related puzzles (Triforce, Hyrule Crest and Master Sword). They do seem to have increased in price considerably compared to the other Hanayama cast puzzles, presumably there is a premium that the Hanayama company are having to pay to Nintendo for the rights to use those names and the imagery that goes with it. Whether the extra cost is worth it to you will be something that you have to decide but, let's face it, most of us are completely addicted and cannot really resist a new one and, in the grand scheme of our puzzling habit, these are really relatively cheap. 

The Triforce has been rated with a difficulty level of 5 out of 6 by Hanayama and, by PuzzleMaster, as 9 (gruelling) on their odd scale of 5 to 10. I must say that I completely disagree with these ratings. I would place it as a 2 out of 6 or 6 out of 10 (PM).

The puzzle is quite attractive made from 2 colours of matt metal (brass and pewter colour) and looks like it has been aged. The puzzle is a diminutive 6.2 x 5.3 x 1.2cm and feels well made. The Zelda Royal Hyrule Crest insignia is on the front of the centre piece.

Obviously, the aim is to separate all four pieces and then put it back together again.

Initially, when playing there is absolutely no movement at all apart from a very slight wiggling of the pieces which might give you a hint of what is supposed to happen. At this point nothing else is possible. With a little "manipulation" there suddenly is more possible and then you seem to be almost there. Almost...but not quite. There has been a good amount of sliding as the description mentions but the pieces are still locked together. Thinking© further along the lines of what was the initial move will quickly have you separate the pieces. The picture of the pieces doesn't really spoil it but I have hidden it behind a button.

No real spoiler here

Having scrambled the pieces for a while then reassembly takes a little thought to work out what orientation and position everything should be but not a huge amount. I did find for a few days that it made a rather pleasant worry bead to fiddle with. This one will not give any seasoned puzzler much of a challenge (do please ignore the difficulty rating) but it is another one for a collection and is a nice one for newbies. The Zelda theme may attract a bunch of non-puzzlers to try it and maybe they will be hooked in our hobby too.

Hanayama Cast Cross

Hanayama Cast Cross - man, these things are tough to photograph!

Every now and then after a chat with my wonderful talented friend, Frederic Boucher, he decides that I don't have enough puzzles and he spontaneously sends me a lovely (not so) little care package containing a bunch of his new creations and others that are available only in Japan. Luckily he doesn't speak to Mrs S who has completely the opposite opinion and who would very much prefer it that I don't order any more. Luckily she who must be flinched from has spent the last week up in Edinburgh visiting the outlaws which allowed to me receive a new pair of toys as well as my bunch from Frederic without her seeing the sheer size of the packages. I hope that she doesn't get to review the Ring camera video footage and realise that I have been very baaad! Do I dare tell "her" about the new twisties I have recently ordered? Gulp!

Amongst the lovely package of toys from Frederic was the new Hanayama Cast Cross. I had fiddled with it idly at the last MPP and realised that despite the Hanayama 3/6 (PuzzleMaster 7/10) difficulty rating, this was not going to be one that I would solve really quickly and having realised that the movements needed to be very precise, I decided to wait until I had my own copy. I was delighted that Frederic saw fit to give me one (he's so so generous). 

Having unpacked my parcel and stashed them where Mrs S wouldn't notice (have I told you before that I haven't tidied my study in over 5 months?) and I set to playing with this one on Wednesday whilst attending a virtual conference (these are a wonderful new thing since Covid started - if you are a home-body like me then these are fab!) I idly fiddled with my new toy whilst watching a talk. I quickly realised that the two pieces of this puzzle are almost identical apart from one key feature. This is effectively a disentanglement puzzle using chunky metal instead of wire. It is rather satisfying to play with. The first move is nice and linear giving me the expectation that all moves would be using the rectilinear grid, including rotations to get the pieces to end up with 90º position changes. However, after the first move it became apparent that this was not quite so simple - the end positions are always at 90º from the start of a move but to achieve each position change requires very slight angulations to get the bulkier sections of each piece past obstructions. The moves need to be very very precise. This frightened me a little as my usual to and fro technique often resulted in me really struggling to undo a move or sequence. At one point during my exploration I tried to turn a piece in a particular direction and it seemed to be blocked. Stupidly I put a tiny tiny bit of force on it and it clicked past the obstruction allowing a whole bunch of new moves which didn't seem to help me. It had perturbed me that this had used force (albeit only a minuscule amount) so I thought I would backtrack again and realised I couldn't do it! Aaargh! Panic ensued and I had to put it down until the lunch break in the conference as I couldn't concentrate on both at once.

When I did return to the Cross, I spent a good ½ hour on it before managing to undo my stupid earlier move. Having learned my lesson (I can learn something once in a while but it has probably made me lose something else more crucial - there is not much room in my tiny brain!) Having got back to the beginning, I started again but tried to move in the opposite direction. The crucial move proved tough to find but I got there and after that managed to separate the pieces:

Finally! It took me a good hour or two

As you can see, the pieces are almost identical - only one has the required gap to allow them to be separated. I left the pieces for the rest of the day before reassembly which then took me another hour having forgotten the moves.

This is a really nice design by Edi Nagata who also designed the Cast Coil which was one of the first Hanayama puzzles I ever attempted and reviewed way back in 2011. Both are beautifully designed requiring a fun and well hidden sequence of moves. I think that the Cast Cross is probably the same difficulty as the Cast Coil (rated as 4/6 Hanayama and 8/10 Puzzlemaster) and I would tend to disagree with the difficulty rating for the Cross and increase it by one point. It is definitely one that should be in your collection. I would suggest that it probably should not be handed to non-puzzlers to play with because if forced then it may be irrevocably locked up.

Cast Cyclone

Yes, it's another Hanayama review! I have felt a little guilty over the last year or so because I have focussed a lot of my attention on craftsman made puzzles and this might have excluded a number of puzzlers because this is a rather expensive hobby and not everyone has the ability to spend hundreds or even thousands of pounds/euros/dollars/AUD on toys. I am well aware that I am in a very privileged position and am trying to make up for it a little by reviewing at least a few more reasonably priced puzzles for you. The Hanayama cast puzzles are probably the greatest example of a quality item available for a small price. Over the last 11 years I have managed to buy almost all of them and do try to keep up with the recent releases - this is me catching up.

The Cast Cyclone is a level 5 on Hanayama's 6 point scale and I think they got it just right - this is a proper tough puzzle but definitely solvable if you fiddle, look and think©. Designed by Kyoo Wong, this looks gorgeous with 4 interlocking rings that have single gaps at one point on their circumference. One ring is a gold colour and the others are shiny chrome. All four interlock with each of the others. This, along with the sheer width of the ring means that movement of the individual pieces is really quite restricted. If you look carefully at them then you can spot some obvious differences between them (2 are labelled Cyclone and 2 have Hanayama engraved on them) - I would advise you to really look closely because the subtle differences will make all the difference between success and failure.

This is a disentanglement puzzle and will require planning to dismantle. Looking at the gaps in the rings, it is clear that these need to be aligned to allow individual rings to slide off each other but the bulks ends at the gaps prevent them from reaching the appropriate position easily. It also becomes quickly obvious that these may not align at 90º to each other when they slide. I began playing with this one about 2 weeks ago and had to be careful because it is pretty jingly and might cause upset in the Sadler household. For 2 weeks I got absolutely nowhere. I knew roughly what I wanted to achieve as my first move but I could not work out which combination of pieces and orientations would actually achieve it. This impasse pretty much lasted the whole two weeks until suddenly I did something ever so slightly different and a sliding move started to occur. I had no idea what I had done differently so I backtracked and undid that critical move. Of course! I couldn't do it again! I spent another 3 days before that move worked again. At least, I did not waste any time trying it with the wrong pieces - that first move requires extremely precise positioning and having done it a second time, I was careful to watch it and still cannot manage to reproduce it regularly. That sort of exact placement is exactly why Hanayama make such perfect puzzles.

That initial slide move was very exciting for all of about 5 or 6mm! The pieces slid along each other and stopped dead - they would not separate due to being blocked by the rings of the other pieces. Now what? At this point there is an obvious feature that you are desperate to utilise and the obvious sequence is started and gets you... nowhere! I got stuck here for a while and eventually realised that the next move was being done correctly but needed a tiny tiny bit of force. This is the only negative feature of this puzzle - I personally think that you should never ever need to use any force as it leaves a puzzler questioning whether they have done it correctly and may prevent them ever finding the solution if they are not willing to use that force. This is not the first time that a Hanayama has needed force - the Cast Helix which I reviewed way back in 2013 here had a similar requirement and I was quite critical of that one for the same reason. For an experienced puzzler or a collector then the Helix and the Cyclone are good puzzles to continue challenging yourself but a novice stands a high chance of getting stuck.

Having realised what was required, I was well on my way and the remainder of the disentanglement continued with only a little interruption for thinking© and I quickly had my 4 pieces laid out for the photo.

That was quite fun and took me much longer than expected

At this point, my hands were a little sore so I left the puzzle for a few days which was probably rather foolish. I am well known for not being very bright and I have proved it here - I cannot reassemble the puzzle - I had not paid attention to the orientation of all the pieces as I separated them and now the reassembly seems to get stuck no matter what I do. It is not the force move - I get to a point where that looks like the next thing to do but there is no way that is happening - it would require a LOT of force which is not right.

This is definitely a nice puzzle for the experienced puzzler but probably not a good idea for kids or novices. I reckon all the readers of this blog (all 10 of you!) should be perfectly able to solve this one.

Next week, I will be back to craftsman puzzles! I have received the upcoming batch of Pelikan puzzles and am going to have to work on these as fast as I can for a week. wish me luck! See the New additions page for a quick preview photo.

Cast Valve - I Think They Need to Speak To Derek

Cast valve - level 4/6

Cast valve - Damn, these things are hard to photograph!

Last week I started with my return to the Hanayama Cast puzzles/Huzzles with the pretty easy (level 3) Cast Dice. I have not had much time for puzzling this week apart from continuing with those nice pocketable puzzles and working my way up the difficulty levels. I unfortunately have to report that my Cast Snow remains in a locked up position with only a tiny amount of wiggling possible. 

The Cast Valve seems rather oddly named - I work with several different types of valves in ventilators and obviously have valves for my car tyres and none of them look like the shape of this puzzle but, to be honest, I cannot think of anything better to name this one. It was designed by Vesa Timonen who has been extremely prolific over the years and has had nine other Hanayama puzzles produced as well as several others over the years. His designs are always fun and usually just the right level of difficulty to challenge you without putting you off. Hanayama has rated it as level 4 out of 6 and PuzzleMaster as level 8 (in their silly 5 - 10 scale).

The puzzle here is a rather attractive hexagonal shape with a frame into which there are three further pieces inserted. It is 4.5 x 4.2 x 1.6cm in size and made from a yellow brass-like metal frame and matching colour centre piece and two shiny silver semicircular pieces that fit between them. The aim is to dismantle the puzzle and then put it back together by navigating the interior moving maze formed by the pieces. Now, the master of this sort of puzzle is the genius himself, Derek Bosch, the designer of the original (and many subsequent) helical burrs which I have gone completely bananas over on this blog. Having solved this puzzle by Vesa, it reminds me of the very first of Derek's designs, the Tubular burr which is effectively a stick burr in a frame but with circular pieces that can rotate around and through each other. The Cast Valve is just like this.

My early fiddling showed a fairly constrained bit of movement as the pieces lock and unlock each other. I realised early on that I would probably need to take notes to keep track of the moves that I try so that I don't go around in circles (literally as well as figuratively) - I sort of needed to make up my own notation for it. Within about 10 minutes, I had made great progress and the pieces were rotating and rising and falling within the frame nicely. Great I thunk, I'll have this done in no time and have one in the bag for the blog. Except, I felt I had made reasonable progress and could not advance any further. I must have missed an exit of the maze pathway somewhere so time to backtrack and trace it out with pressure on different bits to try and find the hidden path. It's a fiddly bugger when you try and do that - just a bit too small to allow you to do this with ease. After an evening of playing and swearing (I seem to do that a lot!) I realised what was going on - yes, it is just like any other burr in that it has blind pathways that lead you the wrong way. Yes, of course, my first exploration had taken me completely in the wrong direction.

Having realised my error I made pretty good progress again until I reached a point where I was almost able to remove a piece but not quite. Here again I got stuck for a while. The tolerances on these are very very tight. Things need to be lined up just right to let you progress at certain points. After a couple of days I had managed this:

Not a spoiler - you cannot possibly see enough to work it out.

I put the pieces aside for a few hours before attempting the reassembly. I have to say that this would be a huge struggle if I had not spent so much time going back and forth on the disassembly. I had enough muscle memory that I was able to reassemble it with only a short period of getting lost. The level of 4/6 is just about right in my opinion.

This is a nice little puzzle which I enjoyed a lot. What it did reinforce to me was that Derek's helical type burrs would be fabulous made as a cast puzzle (the original would be a perfect difficulty level) - I am sure that Steve and Ali have looked into making one out of brass but they would be hellishly tough to mill - it would be perfect to cast. Please Hanayama, have a little chat with our friendly genius!

Cast Dice - A Fiddly Little Bugger

Cast Dice

It says level 3

Over the last year, I have watched on Facebook as various puzzlers show off the latest of the Hanayama cast puzzles/Huzzles. I watched with interest but never seemed to get around to buying them and by now I think 5 or 6 have been released and I am way behind. I can only blame the pandemic as I just never seemed to find the time. At the end of last week, I suddenly got the motivation to ask my usual Hanayama supplier (Nic Picot in the UK runs the Hanayama puzzles UK site and I usually buy from him due to the ease of having him in the same country as me. If you are in North America then I can recommend PuzzleMaster or if in Europe then either my friend Hendrik or Tomas and of course in Australasia then you cannot beat Brian and Sue Young. All are personal friends and are very trustworthy suppliers.

I asked Nic about the most recent ones and he had all apart from Cast Planet in stock and I placed an order for what he had - they arrived 3 days later much to the disgust of Mrs S who is thinking about where they are going to be stored and also about how jingly they will be whilst we watch TV. A couple of days later Nic told me that Cast Planet will be in stock shortly and it is currently in my porch waiting for me to open the post. Yay!

Part of my motivation for buying these is that they are almost invariably really fun challenging puzzles which are beautifully made and also because I need something lightweight to work on for a bit. My work life seems to be out of control and I struggle to find time for any serious puzzling - Mrs S has actually complained that I am hardly ever home which I am surprised about as I thought that would be a good thing for her. She only shouts at me for being in the way when I am at home! 😱

Of course, thinking that these may be a bit of puzzling light relief may be a bit silly - the Cast Hourglass  has been sitting on the desk next to me for 2 years in a position where I cannot seem to go forward or back! But at least I may have a little light relief with the easier ones here.

I started initially fiddling with the level 2 cast snow and after 2 evenings of exploration have to shamefacedly admit that after a little click occurred with a simple movement, it is completely locked up with only a little wiggling possible, I must have forced a move with minimal force and gotten it locked up. Hopefully, a pair of pliers will help me reverse my predicament.

Having failed so spectacularly on Cast Snow, I picked up the rather attractive Cast Dice puzzle. This 3cm cubed challenge was designed by Timothy Collins (a name I have never come across before) and has been beautifully made with a grey anodised holed cubic frame into which have been fitted 3 eccentric cotton reel like pieces. The three pieces all overlap inside the frame so they do not drop out. The aim is to remove them and then, of course, put them back. It has been rated as level 3 on the Hanayama scale of 1 to 6 and by PuzzleMaster as Level 7 (in their 5 to 10 scale). I really did not expect much of a challenge which would be a nice refreshing change (but then I did not expect the Snow to get into an uncorrectable position).

Yesterday morning after breakfast, I had a little time before chores would be expected of me and I picked it up and had a fiddle. It is pleasantly tactile but could do with being a little bit bigger to make it easier to control the pieces. All the offset cotton reels appear to be rotated to about 45º and this made me think about possibilities. After a bit of fiddling and within about 5 minutes I had a plan in my empty head.  After some further fiddling, I was able to remove a piece without losing the position of the remaining ones. I put it back quickly and reset it to ensure that I knew the approach.

The second time I attempted that same move it would not work. Was I oriented wrong? I wasn't sure but carried on trying the same thing a few times and suddenly a pair of pieces fell out. Well, that was unexpected - there seem to be two possible dismantling methods. I took the obligatory photo for my album and the blog:

Clever idea - now to reassemble

The photo above is not a spoiler as it is on the packaging of the puzzle. Having taken my photos, it was time to put it back together and here is where the title of the post comes from. I could not remember either of the positions that I had when the puzzle came apart but figured that I could work it out fairly easily. But, when it actually came to doing it, I really struggled - I could get 2 of the 3 pieces in and interlocked but the third would not engage properly. This took me an extra 15 minutes of swearing (luckily not whilst watching TV with Mrs S) before it went back together. Phew!

Even now, a day later, I am sitting with the bloody thing half-assembled next to rebut not quite slipping into place. It might be a little bit easier if it was an extra cm inside across each access. This inability to put it back together definitely earns it the difficulty level 3 grading as the disassembly is pretty simple. I think it will take me several more attempts before I have it properly worked out.

Definitely worth adding to your collection.

Plastic Puzzles From Hanayama...

They make me anxious but are still fantastic...

Lucky Cube

Double Cube

Not had much time for play recently after my Pelikan puzzle solving marathon whilst I had some annual leave - Now I am back at work, I have barely touched a puzzle.

I suspect that many of you will have never even heard of these before and yet they are made by Hanayama puzzles. They are not seen very often and I don't think they have been put up for sale outside of Japan. I was captivated when my friend Nigel (the very originator of the Midlands Puzzle Party) posted a few pictures of these last year on his FB page and asked whether anyone had solved one of the last challenges in the book. I had never seen one and asked a question or two and Nigel was very encouraging about them - he even went as far as to say that one was a candidate for his best of the year choice. Nigel is a highly skilled solver and very much a connoisseur. If he says to get something then I really do sit up and pay attention. In fact, he is pretty much responsible for my 25th wedding anniversary present - he put me in contact with someone to help me acquire my grail puzzle - the Berrocal Goliath sculpture. Duly motivated to try them, I found someone selling these in Japan and got in touch - after an exchange of Yen, they were whisked across the planet and arrived Chez moi where I delightedly unpacked, photographed and started to play...

The instructions on the back are not terribly helpful - to this day, I still have no idea what they say:

Does anyone know what this means?

Despite not understanding the instructions I took the puzzles out of the packaging and looked at the booklets that came with them hoping for some more information...Nope! But despite this it does seem quite clear what to do - make the drawn shapes out of the pieces inside. Easy? Nope!

These really are quite pretty to look at and wonderfully tactile. Then I got stuck! (what did you expect?) It would appear that they are really REALLY difficult. Not only are they tough to solve but they are also quite difficult to describe - I have them classified as a sequential movement puzzle in my catalogue but others might call them assembly puzzles. Each of these is a pair of complex plastic structures with shapes that are connected together along an edge. This edge allows them to be flipped and folded into lots of interesting shapes and as there is a pair of them in each box then for some of the challenges the pair needs to be interlocked with each other to make more complex shapes.

Lucky Cube looks like a Hashimoto cube

Really complex pieces

These things make absolutely fabulous worry beads as they fold in and out of themselves. After you have made a few flexes, it is quite hard even to get them to fit back together. There are 30 challenges in the booklet and I have so far only managed about 15 of them. They are even highly repeatable (unlike most Hanayama puzzles) because once you have solved a challenge and moved on it is still just as hard to do it a second time. Here is one of the easy first challenges:

Even this took me a few minutes to work out

Some of the more difficult challenges have a Japanese description which I would love to understand as it may help me work out what to do

The bottom of the right page looks fearsome and maybe the text might help?

My real favourite of these two puzzles is the Double cube which looks a lot simpler in construction with many less faces to the pieces but somehow this does not necessarily make it a significantly easier puzzle:

Double cube - easier than Lucky cube? Not for me!

There are only 14 challenges in the booklet and yet after more than a year with this puzzle I have only solved half of them. It is really really tough.

An easy challenge

Challenge 2 - I couldn't solve again today

Just imagine how tough it is creating these:

So why do they make me anxious? I am terrified of breaking a hinge. They do seem pretty robust and I have spent many many hours twisting and turning without causing any harm but still I am frightened. Also for some reason just trying to solve these puzzles and failing after 15 - 20 minutes, I seem to get anxious. This is not something that happens with other puzzles but somehow is a problem with these and forces me to put them down after a limited amount of fiddling time. Despite this they are great and I cannot recommend them any more highly. Thanks Nigel for the heads up on something I would never normally have gone for.

What I really need is a way to translate the boxes and booklet text into English - any volunteers out there?

If you get a chance to buy these then don't hesitate...just buy - they are fabulous. In fact they are so good that they are candidates for my top puzzles of the year.

Keep safe out there everyone.

I Just Don't Understand It!

Hanayama Cast Rotor

Today's post is going to be a quickie because 1) I don't have much solved to write about today and 2) I have been writing my New Year's Eve "Top puzzles of the year" post which has taken me quite a long time! The Hanayama Cast Rotor is the latest puzzle from the Hanayama company and continues its Huzzle series with an extremely difficult level 6 out of 6 challenge. My copy was bought from the UK based Nic Picot here but for those of you in the Americas, I would suggest buying it from PuzzleMaster here. It is great value for money like all of the Hanayama puzzles at approx $13USD/€9.50/£8.65.

This puzzle was designed by the amazing Kyoo Wong who also gave us the Cast U&U, Cast Delta and Cast Trinity. This puzzle, like many Hanayma puzzles, consists of 2 complex metal pieces (in this case they do appear to be identical) which need to be separated from each other. I personally categorise this puzzle as more of a Maze type puzzle than a Disentanglement. This is because a pathway through a pretty complex maze needs to be navigated to get the pieces into a position where the can just slide apart.

Two seemingly identical pieces

I am sure that you are wondering why my post is entitled "I Just Don't Understand It"? Well, let me tell you that I have managed to solve the puzzle just the once BUT there are 2 reasons for my Exclamation - firstly, I always maintain that a puzzle has to be understood to be truly solved and as a mark of this achievement, it is essential that it should be possible to repeat the task at will. It may require a fair bit of work to solve it each time but it should still be possible. I have managed to disassemble this puzzle twice now but cannot say that I know it well enough to do it at will every time and therefore I just "Don't understand it!". The second reason for my title is that in the 2019 IPP Design Competition this puzzle won a Jury Honourable Mention (I'll not dwell on the incorrect spelling they use of honourable on the results page!) I have to say that I cannot possibly understand how it won that prize. Most puzzlers spend a few hours each day of the IPP playing with the competition entries and usually only a short period on any one specific puzzle. I personally think that this puzzle is MUCH too difficult to have been solved by many people there to allow them to appreciate this as worthy of such an award.

Obviously, the puzzle won the award fair and square but I really don't understand it! I wonder whether someone had solved it and thereafter it had been left in a state near to the solution and hence people did not struggle with it as much as me? Or, much more likely, I am just showing off that I am really NOT terribly bright and my lack of understanding of this puzzle is just me being generally inadequate. I'll let you decide the truth of that - comment below......on second thoughts, please don't let me know how inadequate I am!

Right then, back to the puzzling experience...the Rotor consist of two 3 spoke wheels and the rim of the wheels have gaps in them between each spoke. The spokes are quite thick apart from 1 on each piece which has a groove engraved through it which is obviously there to allow the pieces to slide apart. It quickly becomes apparent that the gaps in the rim won't go across the groove unless the correct gap is used and it must be done in exactly the correct orientation. Very unhelpfully the pieces arrive with the pieces arranged so that they are 180º out in their orientation on each other and they must be manipulated so that they have been rotated into the correct orientation but also at the same time placed into the correct position at the same time. This is where the puzzle gets tough...only certain movements are possible at first and later other ones become available.

My problem here is that there is no way to keep track of what you are doing and no way to make a definite progression whilst being sure that that is what you are doing. It is a maze that almost changes as you solve it! I very quickly got lost and then was unable to backtrack to the beginning. I did start with the intentions of keeping track and even took a few basic notes but rapidly realised that I could not adequately describe on paper what I was doing and taking photos just produced dozens of identical-looking pictures. After a short while, I thought I had found a pattern but this just led me back to the beginning again and I needed to find something else to do outside of the pattern. I found a few things possible and followed them and promptly got lost - unable to return to the beginning. At this point, I was left trying lots and lots of random movements. I knew what I needed to achieve but none of the random movements allowed it to happen in a single move and yet more random moves were needed. Eventually, by pure chance, I recognised that the 180º move had occurred and then I needed to advance towards the correct position. After about 2 hours, with a little squeal of satisfaction, I separated the two pieces:

Finally! 2 Hours of random movements!

Mrs S looked up with annoyance at the noise (I'm surprised she tolerated the clinking noises, to be honest) and I was forced to admit that I had absolutely no idea how I had solved it!

OK! Time to put it back together. The entry can only be done one way and thereafter the maze needs to be negotiated. Another 2 hours and it was at the beginning...again, pure chance. I thought that maybe a second solve would help me understand it and I began again.

All I have to say is that I got it apart for a second time but have no real clue what the correct moves were to achieve it. I agree that this is a pretty tough puzzle, very worth its' 6/6 star difficulty rating (PuzzleMaster 10/10) but, unlike many of the other puzzles of this difficulty (in particular, the Cast Enigma - reviewed here) I found this one less than pleasing. For those of you who collect Hanayama puzzles then this is an essential purchase. For those of you who like to struggle for a long time then also buy this but if you just want a bit of fun then I'd look elsewhere.

I still do not understand how so many puzzlers at the IPP could have rated this so highly - maybe I am just terribly dim?

On New Year's Eve, I hope that you will join me on the blog for my summary of my top 10ish puzzles of the year! In the meantime, here are my top tens from 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 and 2014.