One of the puzzles I picked up during the Puzzle Party was the Hanayama Cast Arrows. It’s the latest puzzle in the Hanayama stable. At the time of this writing, the Cast Arrows has still not be released outside of Japan. Those interested in purchasing may try Ebay Japan. I got my copy from the good puzzle folks of Torito Japan. Lucky me, it was also the last copy they had.

The Cast Arrows was designed by my puzzle friend from Russia Andrei Ivanov. Made of cast alloy, the Cast Arrows consist of 4 arrow shaped pieces and a heart. The puzzle comes with the arrows all arranged in one direction “pierced” through a hole in the heart. The hole is a rectangular slot and has some grooves cut along the insides. The object is to remove the 4 arrows from the heart.

All the 4 arrows look identical and most puzzlers would probably look at the grooves and notches and come to the conclusion that these are useful for positioning the arrows through the heart. The space of the slot is rather limited and only one arrow can come out at a time. The challenge is how to get the first arrow out.

simple looking and is anything but…

The Cast Arrows is rated 3 out of 6 stars by Hanayama, meaning it’s of average difficulty. But I would personally assess it to be at least 3.5 or 4 stars. While it is not frustratingly difficult, it is pretty tricky.

I spent quite a bit of time studying the pieces to see if they yielded any clues. None I could find, at least on the surface. All looked the same shape and size. Next using the trial and error method to see if by chance I could pop out an arrow, but no luck. Most of the time, after what I had thought would be the correct positions of the arrows within the slot for removal, I was confronted with a quiver of stuck arrows. And had to start over again.

But my puzzliing experience as taught me that one cannot defy physics. Given Hanayama’s tight tolerances for their puzzles, I know that somewhere within the puzzle, there must be a way to remove an arrow(s) without use of any force. And like many Hanayama puzzles, there is usually a correct starting point for the solve if you know just where where to look. I won’t say more as I don’t wish to publish any spoilers here. All in, it took me well over half an hour before I managed to get the first arrow out. Very “elegant” and smooth solution…but not obvious at all.

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The Cast Ring is one of the older Cast Puzzles around having been released 17 years ago in the year 2000. Not only is it one of the older puzzles (the first Cast Puzzle, the Cast Star came out in 1983!), it is also a fairly large sized puzzle and hefty, compared to some of the other Cast Puzzles around today. Measuring about 58mm x 53mm  x 30mm, the Ring is made from zinc alloy and finished with a two-tone polished gold and chrome surface for the four pieces.  My copy comes from the early versions of the puzzle and thus has that shiny look. The packaging is also the old style transparent window black box with gold text.

Today’s Cast Ring, while still retaining the silver and gold look, has a matt finish. Personally I feel the older version which has a polished surface all round looks better than the current matt copies today.  And the Ring looks like a real (giant) decorative ring which will probably fit the small wrist of an adult or a child. In terms of aesthetics, I think the Cast Ring is also probably one of the best looking Cast Puzzles around!

There is no information who is the designer of the Ring is, but it seems that the design came under the “supervision” of Nob Yoshigahara, the famous Japanese puzzle collector and designer. Today the annual IPP Puzzle Design Competition is named after him in his honour.

The Ring consists of 4 pieces which are looped against each other inside and cannot be separated. The puzzle does not “interlock” in the usual sense. Hence, the moment you take it out of the packaging, you can quite easily dismantle the puzzle and it comes apart (sometimes without warning) and automatically becomes unscrambled.

The Ring is rated 4 out of 6 stars for difficulty, meaning that it is above average difficulty. Hanayama Cast Puzzles are for me a bit of a 50-50 thing…meaning that I can usually solve them about 50% of the time. The Ring is one of those in the -ve 50%. When I took it out of the box, it didn’t look that difficult with the pieces all stacked together. But the moment I disengaged the Ring, I knew I would have a hard time re-assembling…and boy I did! Luckily Hanayama has a more mainstream and mass appeal and a lot of casual puzzlers (and non-puzzlers) buy Cast Puzzles for their affordability as well as their overall good quality and playability. Hence there are usually more than several videos from zealous folks on YouTube showing the solution to probably every Hanayama Cast Puzzle on the market today.

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I first saw the Mobius at the Singapore Puzzle Party in 2015, where Oskar was on a business trip to Singapore.  A bunch of us puzzle enthusiasts met him for a nice puzzle evening over dinner. There, he showcased an array of twisty puzzles (a number of them new prototypes) and also brought along a Cast Mobius (prototype?). I didn’t get a chance to try the Mobius that night. Finally at IPP37 in Paris this past August, I snapped up one during the Puzzle Party.

The Mobius is based on the Mobius Strip. The object of the puzzle is to remove the round disk from the curving “strip” which has protruding bumps and forms a maze along both surfaces. Without “entering” the maze, the disk can actually travel along the curves of the strip and the orientation of the disk as it travels the entire length changes. The strip is made of zinc alloy and the disk aluminium. Talking about the Mobius strip, Japanese designer Hirokazu Iwasawa also designed the Zipper using the same concept.

The Mobius measures about 6.5cm x 6cm. Quality of construction is up to the usual Hanayama standards. The puzzle itself is not hard but will still provide a fair challenge for novices. It is rated 3 stars by Hanayama and that level of difficulty I think is about right. Perhaps maybe even 2.5 stars. Still a bit tricky somewhat and not as straight forward as one would expect. It took me a couple of minutes and I had the disk out in no time. Putting the disk back was just the reverse. One of those puzzles where persistence would eventually get you to the solved state.

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The Dot was designed by Akio Yamamoto, who was also behind the designs of a dozen or more other cast puzzles and the multi-coloured series of Naked Secret Boxes. My prototype is made of zinc alloy (I think). For an early version, the quality of my copy is very good and the puzzle functioned as intended.

The object is to take apart the puzzle into two separate pieces. My initial impression was that the Dot is similar to the Cast Diamond, designed by Scott Elliot. (I don’t have the Hanayama Cast Diamond but I do have Scott’s 3D printed IPP37 Exchange Puzzle version reviewed here).  In some ways it is, but the solve in my opinion is harder than the Diamond. It took me a bit of fiddling before I managed to split the two pieces. I tried to remember the moves for later re-assembly but the latter was a tad more difficult than I expected.

The name DOT, according to one Hanayama insider familiar with the puzzle stands for (D)-Direction:(O)-Orientation:(T)-Twist. Seems to me very appropriate since you need to employ all three to solve the DOT.

The Diamond requires a “one-move” sort of motion” to “fuse” the two separate parts together once you have found the precise point of entry. The Dot requires a few more steps. The way the design has been carried out seems like you have to link the parts initially through a sort of mini maze. There are several twists and turns until you hit a certain “sweet spot”; and wah-la , the two parts suddenly come together and fit (just) so precisely and nicely. Get the orientation wrong at the start and you will remain stuck. Again, because you can see everything that you are doing, so long as you persevere, you will eventually solve it at some point.

Repeat solving becomes progressively easier as you memorise the moves. But my second and third attempts at re-solving took me almost as long as my first time, even though I knew how the pieces were suppose to interact with each other.

The parts of the Dot are very precisely cut and does look a bit delicate. While it is robustly made and can probably stand up to some rough handling, the Dot does not require any force whatsoever.  You may damage the puzzle if you force any move by overly twisting or turning. This particular Cast puzzle does require a bit more delicate handling during play than some of the other Cast puzzles in the series.

Like every Hanayama cast puzzle, the Dot has a nice (very pocketable) 5.7cm x 4.7cm x 1cm size. Just right on the challenge scale for some quick puzzling while on the go, for example during a commute or just to pass some casual time. I played and solved mine on the flight from Paris back to Singapore. It is rated 2 stars in terms of difficulty by Hanayama but I personally think it should be at around 2.5!

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