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First review of the year, and what else, another Cast Puzzle... And a mighty difficult one at that. The Cast Cyclone comes from an already known designer in the Hanayama family, Kyoo Wong, who also designed the Cast Rotor, the Cast Snow and the Cast U&U - All very nice additions to the series.

There's no deceptiveness in this one. It looks difficult just by looking at it, and it doesn't disappoint. It is indeed a big challenge. Four rings are interlocked to the point of having almost no room to maneuver them other than rotating them along their central point. Although the rings appear identical, there are in fact two groups: one with grooves and another without. Each ring has an opening, but there's not even a space between the extremities, just a couple of notches that will allow the rings to pass through each other.

Solving this kind of puzzles can be more frustrating than fun sometimes, but the rewarding feeling you get when you finally solve them will compensate for any frustration you might experience until then. Give it a try. You won't know if you can solve them until you take a chance.

How do you solve this then...? It's a good question, because I haven't been able to do it yet. To me, this is one of those puzzles that you need to spend some time with them to figure them out. It's not something one could solve in a few minutes... For most of us anyway. So, for now, all I can do is keep fidgeting with it and see if I can make some sense out of it. This is rated as a level 5/6 by Hanayama, but so far, I don't see any reason to think it's anything other than a level 6. It's really challenging.

Closing Comments:

The Cast Cyclone is a fiendish puzzle that only the brave ones can tackle it. It's as difficult as they get, but if you like a good challenge this is an ideal puzzle for you to test not only your skills but your patience as well.

Availability: The Cast Cyclone is available at PuzzleMaster for $15.99 CAD. You can also find many others in the Cast series with different levels of difficulty.