The rarest Hanayama cast puzzle

True, I wanted to get your attention! :)
But I am sure I am right, so let's talk about a cast puzzle: cast oskar

This puzzle is old, not sure about the date, but just have a look at the package. There is no mention of Hanayama, the difficulty is not written, but the name beginning by "cast" is clearly shown.
So my assumption is that this is the old Hanayama company which produced some puzzles and then they changed their name and expand. My assumption is even stronger when I look at the small paper inside which shows some famous cast puzzles: cast jey, S&S, nut, star, elk.

However this oskar key has never been made by the nowadays known as the Hanayama company, not sure why, contrary to the other puzzles in the series that are still produced.

The small paper is in Japanese so I cannot comment about it. I assume that the designer is Oskar (as regards to the name of the puzzle), but maybe I am wrong?

So the goal of the puzzle is to extract the keys, basically there are 2 keys that slides on each other. Your challenge is made more complicated that the "oskar block" in where the keys slide has some internal contraints. I mean: the shape inside it makes it more complicated for the keys to slide.

 By analyzing carefully (that I did not not at the beginning) both key you should quickly understand how it should get out of the rectangular shape...or that's what I thought. I think I can spoil a bit as I am sure not a lot of people will be able to play with it. I thought a key should get free first and then the other key would follow. But at the end it appeared that both key got free at the same time while still "attached" to each other and when both keys were out of the rectangular block then you can separate them.

This nice cast puzzle is far from being simple as you need precise moves and many moves to solve it. But it's not overly difficult, so in my opinion it's clearly worth a 4/6 for the difficulty. It's a very nice concept and definitely collectible.

Apolaki

Apolaki is a puzzle designed and crafted by Rex Rossano Perez, this nice yellow puzzle fits perfectly in the coin series he has made so far.

As with all Rex's puzzles you can unscrew the puzzle to see the internals, but I do advise to take pictures each and everytime you pull up a layer or remove pieces. Else that may be a nightmare to reassemble the puzzles...Luckily this puzzles does not have so many pieces.

This is a sequencial discovery puzzle! Yes!! Well obviously not a lot of steps/tools, but let's call a sequencial discovery puzzle a puzzle with at least a tool that has to be used :)

Apolaki is different from the other puzzles in the series as it incorporates something new...sorry cannot say more.....it's very hard to speak about puzzles trying to avoid spoiling it...
So what can I say more? Humm several steps, an "AHA-moment" that will happen sooner than expected...and I am sure you should pretty much guess the internals without needing to open the puzzle. Still I encourage you to open it and check if your assumptions were correct or not.

What about the difficulty? Honestly this is definitely not the most difficult puzzle in his coin series. So far the most challenging is kussing 25. This is also a puzzle that should not take long for you to solve. Despite that, first this is not the easiest in the series. Secondly this is a nice and very cleverly designed puzzle. So anyway I am sure you will like it a lot!!


Being the 6th puzzle by Rex, I am sure you can expect many more puzzles from him in the coming months (maybe years? hope so). And I am pretty sure Rex will try to experiment new things for his next puzzles. Personally I find it great that a designer comes with a new kind of puzzle. I mean coin puzzles existed before but not in a so widely spread dimension.

I do tell you to buy it before it's sold out. It's not a limited edition puzzle but I guess Rex won't make it when he created a new puzzle. Grab it while you can. If you need Rex's contact, just PM me using the contact form.

You can buy the puzzle on Puzzle Master webshop!