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This is the Cast Duet, one of many designs from Oskar van Deventer produced by Hanayama, for the Cast series. It was released together with the Cuby (another one from Oskar) in October 2005.

The puzzle is a 3x3 grid with grooves on every square and a ring, which is actually two rings that are bound together by magnets. Your task is to separate the ring in two and remove them from the grid, one at a time by moving them around the grooves, until you find the exit. The challenge is similar to the one found in the Cast Bike or the ABC Puzzle, where you have to follow a path full of grooves in order to solve them.

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This is probably the only Cast Puzzle, at least that I can think of, that has multiple challenges. It's great for replay value, as after you've accomplished the main task of removing the rings and return them to their original position, there are another four challenges, each harder than the last one. You'll notice around the four corners of the center square, small triangles with dots in them (1 through 4), indicating the level of difficulty. These challenges require that you place the rings, joined together, inside those particular square vertices. Below is a picture of the rings in the position number two, the only extra challenge that I solved so far.

The Cast Duet is rated by Hanayama at level 5 (out of 6) and PuzzleMaster at level 9 (out of 10), which is no surprise given the high level of difficulty of those harder challenges. The main challenge is somewhat easy enough to get the hang of it, but as you try the extra levels, you'll start to feel the frustration as you try to get the rings across the grid with no apparent result. Sometimes, you might get the rings in the right location, but with the wrong orientation, so you need to start over and try a different path.

Solution: Feeling trapped? Get the solution .pdf here. Alternatively, you can click here for a video solution.

Closing Comments:

The Cast Duet is among the most enjoyable puzzles by Hanayama. It's a great design by Oskar van Deventer, who always tries to get the most out of his puzzles. There's a level of difficulty that will suit anyone from a casual puzzler to an experienced puzzle buff. Definitely recommended...

The Cast Duet is available at PuzzleMaster for CAD $12.95.

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Links:

Hanayama's Factory Visit (Many thanks to Roxanne Wong for sharing these pictures)

Cast Elk, a concept that's been around since the 19th century and perfectly redesigned by NOB (Nobuyuki Yoshigahara), is one of Hanayama's best in their Cast series. The Cast News is another one of the great NOB's designs. The Elk was the fifth Cast puzzle release by the company, way back in 1986.

The Cast Seahorse is one of the most beautiful of this special set, alongside the Cast Starfish. You have two seahorses that are bound together, and you have to carefully disentangle them. There's a silver seahorse with two closed loops and the second, a golden seahorse has two gaps that will work as two open gates to navigate your way across the other one. Wonderful design with the two different colors that adds a nice touch to the overall presentation.

This is a Hanayama level 3 puzzle (out of 6) or PuzzleMaster's level 7 (out of 10). I agree more with the PuzzleMaster's level classification, because it was a bit more challenging than what I was expecting (around 20 minutes solving time). You start with the golden seahorse, hooked by the head to the bottom of the silver one. Your next step is to rotate the golden seahorse to its bottom loop, while still joined at the bottom of the silver one. Next, you have to transfer it to the upper loop of the silver seahorse and you end up separating them at the top by their heads. It's a bit complicated to visualize all this, but for guidance, you can use PuzzleMaster's sheet solution found here. Like most disentanglement puzzles, putting them back together can be a tougher task than to separate them. This is because you spend many time concentrated on how to solve it, that you forget all the steps that were required to successfully disentangle them. So, by the time you achieve your goal, you are so thrilled at that moment to have solved the puzzle, that when you finally try to put them back, it's a whole new challenge. It isn't necessarily a bad thing if you like tough puzzles.

The Marine Series are a fantastic addition to the Cast collection. They follow Hanayama's excellent presentation standards and philosophy and for a collector's point of view, a must have (all of them). The actual puzzle concept is not new, but it's its design approach that makes all the difference between an ordinary puzzle and a brilliant puzzle.

The Cast Seahorse can be bought at PuzzleMaster, as well as all other Cast Puzzles.

Note: In previous reviews, I had as the Cast Puzzle's official website, the English version, but apparently this site has been down for a few weeks now, and I'm not sure if it will return. For now, I will only list the Hanayama's website, which unfortunately is in Japanese only.

The Destroyer is designed and produced by PuzzleMaster. There's a wide variety of these puzzles, all made by PuzzleMaster and you can find them here.

Wire disentanglement puzzles date back from a couple of centuries ago, and back then were recognized as some kind of magic tricks, because of the steps required to separate them. This type of mechanical puzzles are also among the most difficult ones to solve, mostly because of their design, which is always different for each one. This implicates that whichever puzzle you solve, you won't gain much experience for solving a completely different one. Over these couple of centuries, thousands of different designs have been made, which fall into several categories. You can see a comprehensive guide on these puzzles at Robb's Puzzle Page.

The goal of The Destroyer is somewhat easy to comprehend, compared to other designs. There's a red string with a green bead attached and you need to remove them from the puzzle. The puzzle is rated by PuzzleMaster at 9 out of 10, which is pretty difficult, but I found it much easier than I was expecting it to be (around 10 minutes to solve)... You just have to look at it with a different approach, much like any other wire puzzle, for that matter. At first glance, when you try to work out how to remove the string, it looks like the only possible way is to pass it around the big ring. It's an impossible task though, because the red string is smaller than the diameter of the ring. The correct method to get the string out, is actually through the bottom part of the 4-shaped frame, but since you have that black string with the ring blocking your way, you need to shift it to another part of the frame, leaving open space to finally remove the red string. You'll need to pass the ring through the frame in order to make the black string able to move freely around the wire. To get the red string back on its original position, just repeat the same steps backwards.

I was pleasantly surprised by the clever design of The Destroyer. I was able to solve it in a fairly amount of time, probably in a lucky move, but I bet there'll be others that will struggle to see the solution so easily, because after all, this is a level 9 puzzle. While Wire Puzzles aren't among my favorite type of mechanical puzzles, they do provide a serious level of challenge and creative thinking. I recommend it for anyone that likes to think outside of the box.

The Destroyer is available at PuzzleMaster, along with many other great wire puzzles.

The Cast Medal is comprised by two medals that are linked together and a ring. Basically, you have to remove the ring, but to do that, you must work with the two medals at the same time. You start with the medal that has a salmon in a flowing river and a ring in its mouth (it's this ring that you have to free). Then, you must join the two medals, as if they were one, to allow the ring to get across the two paths and out. On the other medal there are six holes scattered between the "rocks" that will make your journey through the river, a little bit more complex. The challenge resembles the one found in the Cast L'œuf, because of its two different paths that must function as one and, although a bit more complicated, is plays like the classic Cast Plate, for its similar design with holes.

The Cast Medal is available at PuzzleMaster, as well as other Cast Puzzles.

Right out of the box, I was very impressed by the Xmatrix design. The golden and silver frames look extremely elegant and the mazes on both puzzles seem a little complex, especially the larger version. The packaging used is different for each version: on the Quadrus you're presented with a nice card drawer box that can be used for display purposes and on the Cubus, you have a gold plated clear plastic box, however it can brittle very easily due to the nature of the material and doesn't have much use after you open it. Other than that and besides looking very pleasing to the eye, both puzzles are of great quality and should withstand the more careless handling of the younger puzzlers.

There are two different size versions, the Quadrus (large) and and the Cubus (small), with both having two color choices for the mazes (yellow and blue). If you can afford the two designs, I recommend the Quadrus in yellow and the Cubus in blue - For being larger, the Quadrus will look much nicer with a complete golden appearance and the Cubus, because it's smaller, will accentuate the contrast between the blue labyrinth walls and the golden and silver frames.

Your task is to guide the ball from one side to the opposite one and return it to the starting point. You'll usually start at the golden frame and only one of the four openings is large enough to let the ball pass through - This is also true for the silver frame, where you have just one way in, which proves that there's only one correct path. The Quadrus is supposed to be slightly harder than the Cubus, but to put it mildly, slightly is an understatement... It's frustratingly tougher and you're gonna have much more trouble to complete it, not just because it's bigger, but also for having a lot of dead-ends. I found myself walking around in circles on several occasions, without finding the right path to the middle of the opposite frame. The Cubus, on the other hand, is a joy to play. The overall size of the maze is much smaller, which ultimately will facilitate the memorization of the labyrinth for faster solving times. If you get easily frustrated by a hard puzzle, then I recommend starting off with the Cubus to get used to the nature of the puzzle. However, if you like a real challenge, then you won't be disappointed by the Quadrus.

*Solved Golden Sides*

Both puzzles are classified, in terms of completion time, as "Genius!", "Bravo" and "Well done", with 4, 10 and 20 minutes respectively for the Cubus and 5, 15 and 30 minutes for the Quadrus. ...Well, I'm not a "Genius" with the smaller puzzle, as my first completion time was around 10 minutes for both journeys and I didn't count the time for the larger one, but it was way more than the 30 minutes... The trick is, if you're stuck on the big maze without any real progress, just put it down for an hour or so, and you're gonna return with a fresher mind for another session.

As I said in previous reviews, presentation is everything when you launch a new product in the market. The Xmatrix puzzles do this in great style, as the overall visual appearance is very attractive in both puzzles, capturing your attention right away. The designer didn't leave anything to chance and you can witness this even in the logo, where an Ambigram is cleverly used to read Xmatrix from both sides.

After almost two and a half years of collecting, I have acquired a lot of different Dexterity puzzles, but none of them can be compared and don't come close to the Xmatrix puzzles. Not only do they look good, but the level of complexity put into them is astonishing. As I first looked into them, they seemed pretty hard and after I played with them for several hours, I can say that each of them provide a very satisfying level of challenge for everyone. Like everything, practice makes perfect and if you play with the Xmatrix long enough, perhaps you'll be able to aim for that "Genius" score.

You can buy the Xmatrix Puzzles on the official website.

Youtube Video - Demonstration of both puzzles

*Solved Silver Sides*

The L'œuf has a similar concept of the Cast Laby and Oskar's Cube/Maze (another Oskar's creation), in that you face multiple paths and in order to solve the puzzle, you have to think of them as one single labyrinth. You may think that, because both labyrinths are made of only one continuous path, without dead-ends, that it's not really a labyrinth or a maze. Well, you'll find out soon enough that it may actually be considered a maze, after you solve the puzzle...

The goal couldn't be simpler... You have to separate both "eggs" by guiding the two pins along their paths. Now, doing this can be a bit trickier than it looks. Both paths are different, and this is where the beauty of the puzzle is: you'll need to flip the puzzle constantly to look at the paths and see where your next move takes you. The overall path (the combination of both paths) will not be linear, so there'll be occasions where you need to go backwards a little on one of them and try to move the other a bit more forward. This is what I was saying earlier about the maze classification, where you can consider these back and forth motions the dead-ends of a labyrinth. Pretty clever...

The difficulty on the Cast L'œuf is rated by Hanayama at 4 (Fairly Hard) out of 6, although I think difficulty 3 would be more suited. The puzzle is not that easy, but when you look at it for the first time, you'll probably know  exactly what you're supposed to do in order to solve it, so it'll be just a matter of time with some trial and error. However, this is not true for other difficulty 4 puzzles, like the Cast Rattle or Cast Marble, where you need to do a more thorough close inspection, before attempting a solve.

The design of the puzzle is very elegant, and that's what distinguishes Hanayama's Cast Puzzles from other metal ones. Presentation is everything and the utmost attention for detail is superb. There are two egg-shaped metal pieces, one golden and the other silver, and on the upper side of the golden egg there's a chicken carving. In terms of size, it's a little bit bigger than most cast puzzles. Not sure if it's the bigger Cast Puzzle, but definitely the biggest I own so far (for size comparison, it's just slightly bigger than the Cast Duet).

The Cast L'œuf can be purchased at PuzzleMaster, as with most of the Cast collection.

Hanayama Curiosity (courtesy of Roxanne Wong)

Hanayama tries to release a new Cast Puzzle four times a year. Check out their website and you can get an estimate of when the next one could be out.

Hanayama's Factory Visit (Many thanks to Roxanne Wong for sharing these pictures)

This puzzle was purchased several months ago from Georges Helm's puzzle shop, but I have no information about its designer or the year that was built.

UPDATE (22 Nov.) - Thanks to the information provided by Brett, I now know that the puzzle was designed by Jean-Claude Constantin. You can find more about his puzzles at his website.

'Pilled Logs' has nine identical wooden pieces with holes and six aluminum rods intersecting them in a symmetrical way. Each piece has two holes cut perpendicular to one another, following two distinct cutting patterns: one has six pieces with a hole in the center and another adjacent to it, and the other has the remaining three pieces with the two holes in the piece's extremities. You have to assemble a cube so that the six rods can intersect, from one end to another, the entire cube. The solution is unique and the only way to it is to get two rods, equally separated in each of the three possible directions (x y z).

The cube is similar to the 'Albert's Cube' or Stewart Coffin's 'Corner Block', both interesting examples of the use of this nice concept. The main difference between 'Piled Logs' and 'Albert's Cube' is in the way that is solved. By having an exact way of placing the rods, contrary to the asymmetrical solution of the 'Albert's Cube', makes it a bit more easy, because you can exclude right away, any possible configuration that doesn't apply to this symmetry.

One of the things that I most like in wooden puzzles, is the use of different wood types or colors. It gives the puzzle a more professional finish and it's much more visually pleasant. This puzzle, not only does that, but also uses two different materials: wood and aluminum - a perfect combination, indeed. In this case, the wood that was used is the same, as it seems and the pieces were only colored, but it doesn't change the fact that it looks a lot better, had it been used only one color of wood. Another cool design feature is the stand that has an oblique cut in its base, to display it in a desk or shelf with a bit more style.

The store where I bought this doesn't have any more in stock unfortunately, but you can check regularly John Devost's Puzzle Paradise, and see if you can find it in one of the new puzzle auctions.

The Dael 'O Ring is actually an improved version of the classic Dool 'O Rinth. First released fifteen years ago, also by Cor Vissers and Gert Santman, the Dool 'O Rinth had the lack of possibility to return the ring to its starting position, once it was separated from the stick. This prevented the puzzle to be easily reset in order to start over from the beginning (read this for more details about its history). I actually see a silver lining here, in that after you successfully separate the ring from the stick, you have another challenge in your hands, which is to solve the maze backwards to its starting position.

Now, the Dael 'O Ring is presented to us with this new feature, a straight path across the maze that allows the ring to be clicked in placed to its starting position again, and a couple of nice finishing touches as well. If you own a Dool 'O Rinth, then you'll notice that the new version feels much heavier than its predecessors. The stick or shaft is now made of a single piece of hard plastic, which feels much better to hold, contrary to the hollow stick on the Dool 'O Rinth. Another cool design feature is the contrast color between the ring and the shaft, which is black in all six versions. Now, only the ring changes color according to its difficulty, emphasizing its nice glossy and shiny finish. Maybe it's just a matter of personal taste, but I actually prefer the contrasting colors, instead of a unique one for both pieces. Besides these minor tweaks in the presentation of the puzzle, its overall design remains unchanged.

With six different levels of difficulty, it's only natural to start with the easier one, to get used to the maze's features and to train for harder levels. On my first try with the "Easy Yellow", I took around 20 minutes to separate the ring from the shaft. It was more like a lucky solve, because I had encountered numerous dead-ends and after a while of going around the maze unsuccessfully, the ring was finally freed from the stick. I was far from having the maze memorized to do it in one flawless attempt, though in my second and third tries, I only needed  just a little more than 5 minutes. I have now solved the puzzle several times and although I can do it in just a minute or two, I'm yet to completely memorize the maze to solve it without running into a dead-end. The reason for this may be that you spend so little time opening it, that when you do, you're not sure of the exact path you took. This will probably change with harder levels, because you'll need more time to solve them, which allows you to get more accustomed to the right path, so by the time you succeed, you already know how you got there. It's actually great that after you complete the maze, you still have a replay value. You can solve it multiple times to try and beat your previous records, until you finally memorize it to do it in one go.


The only version available right now is the yellow. The others are being released one at a time, with the orange being the next in line. It's understandable that the company chose not to release all versions at once, because it wouldn't be prudent after what happened with the original game fifteen years ago. They have to see if the product is widely accepted in the market first, to provide a safe release of harder levels and to create enough expectation, so that each new version can surpass its predecessors. The "Simple Orange" is just a few weeks away, and I'll be reviewing it here also once I have it, so check my Blog regularly for updates.

Closing Comments


I didn't have the opportunity to play with the original Dool 'O Rinth, but I can say that I was impressed by this new updated and improved version. To my knowledge, the Dael 'O Ring are the cheapest puzzles of the "Hidden Maze" category (by cheapest, I mean in price, as their quality is anything but cheap), and at €10 a piece you can enjoy this affordable addictive puzzle, that even a non-puzzler will find it intriguing enough to try his luck. It's the perfect puzzle for the masses, because it's the kind of puzzle that everyone knows exactly what they're supposed to do, so they'll keep trying until they manage to solve it.

UPDATE DEC./2011 - I have now a new review for the two new colors from the set (Simple Orange & Silly Green). Click here to read it.

Youtube Video

The Bicone 2 is the second of ten different Bicone versions, designed and built by Vinco (Václav Obšivač). You can read a bit about him at the end of the post. It was entered at the 30th IPP Design Competition.

Perfectly crafted, the Bicone 2 is a beautifully shaped four-piece Interlocking puzzle (or Take-Apart and Put-Together), made with cherry and maple wood. Although it's built with two different wood types, you can clearly see tree different colors, which makes for a wonderful contrast on the checkerboard pattern. As a nice finishing touch, the puzzle is polished and waxed for a nice clean and smoothing surface, making it a visually stunning piece of craftsmanship.

For an interlocking puzzle, the Bicone is quite difficult to take apart. It's rated as difficulty 5 out of 5 and classified as a coordinated motions puzzle, meaning that you can't use a sequence of movements to open (or close) the puzzle. You need to carefully manipulate its pieces simultaneously in a certain way, so that you can separate all the parts at the same time. There's no need to use excessive force, also because you can break the inner pieces that make the "key" of the puzzle. These key pieces are four triangular prisms that are glued into the inside structure on each of the main pieces and together, they interlock to close and maintain the puzzle in a locked state.

When you're trying to solve the puzzle, you can think about those triangular prisms to figure out how they keep the puzzle from opening. Since they're triangular, there's only one way to separate them: by sliding the four pieces together, each in an opposite direction. Once you have accomplished this "simple" task, you face another big challenge, which is to put the puzzle back together. Now that you know how the puzzle works, this should be easier, right? - Well, not quite, because as I said above, you need simultaneous movement on all four pieces and it also requires a lot of visualization and dexterity to manipulate every part of the puzzle, and slide the pieces back together.

As mentioned before, there's six different versions for the Bicone, each with its own design. The solution is the same for every one of them, though. One cool thing about the Bicone is that a particular version may have different wood types used, giving them a slightly distinctive look. For example, the Bicone 4 has at least four of these looks, each with a different wood combination. This is great for a puzzle collector: even though the puzzle is the same, the appearance is different and therefore, highly collectible. The design you own may become rare, because they're produced in small quantities and after they become out of stock, it could be a long time before they're available again. If you really like a particular design, grab it while you can...

When it comes to wooden puzzles, you can't get any better than this. Vinco's attention to detail and presentation is incredible and his craftsmanship is one of the most outstanding you'll find in the  puzzle market. For €50, you'll get a very high quality handcrafted puzzle, polished and waxed, that will look great in any collection. Vinco's puzzle offer changes quite often, so if you want more puzzles to choose from, check his site regularly, because when he has new puzzles available, they sell like hotcakes...