The Legend of Zelda - Addison Sign

The Legend of Zelda Addison Sign is probably the weirdest puzzle in the Hanayama puzzles series.

The goal is neither to separate pieces nor to reassemble them, but to balance them!

Indeed, you have to use the rods in conjunction with the sign to create a self-supporting structure without using the small human piece.

Not the official solution as you have to only use the pieces

So far I have not found the official solution, and I guess there are multiple solutions. It's mostly about dexterity (I don't really like that side of puzzles) and I am pretty sure a solution shown by someone may not work for you (it may as well!).

I feel this is a unique puzzle and the only (so far as I am wrriting this post) hanayama puzzle that uses this kind of solving process.

Do I like it? Yes and no. Yes because it's unique and a very beautiful puzzle. No because I prefer disassembly / reassembly puzzles.

 

You can get it, as usual, on Puzzle Master website! 

 

The Legend of Zelda - Hylian Shield

The Legend of Zelda - Hylian Shield is part of a Hanayama series with the Zelda theme.

Already having others in the series and being super fan of Zelda, I needed this one as well.

The goal is to detach the shield from the stand and reassemble as in the picture below

 

To be honest, this is not much of a puzzle as it should take you few seconds before solving, it's a merely 1/6 in terms of difficulty.

But it is a nice looking puzzle and displays well in your puzzle cabinet.

So if you're looking for a serious challenge, you can skip this one. If you intend to complete your Zelda series / hanayama puzzle collection and/or if you're a fan of Zelda, then you should get it. 

 

Get it on Puzzle Master website! 

 

The whole series is here 

The column by Curio

The column puzzle by Curio is a black metal puzzle with only 2 pieces and the goal is pretty straightforward: remove and put back the inner piece.

Taking it out is super easy, putting it back is definitely where the challenge is! 

First, the look of the puzzle: aestetically, it's perfect. Only 2 pieces in a dark black color and a shape that is more evolved as just a basic cylinder. The look matters and I can only say "congrats" for that.

The goal is easy to understand and only 2 pieces for this nice puzzle. I've learned in the past that the number of pieces is not always synonymous of difficulty. And the genius mind always tries to find the right balance between difficulty and frustration. Here, the balance is right between these 2.

I have played more than what I've initially planned to solve the puzzle (but don't get me wrong, it just means that I am bad at solving puzzles haha) and at some point I solved it. Then extracting the core and trying to solve it again proved not to be a success. Back to the starting point!

Honestly I am still wondering how this thing works (I am always frustrated when I cannot see the inner mechanism) as sometimes I manage to solve it, and sometimes not...And in anycase, I really enjoy the fidgety aspect of the column puzzle and this "feature", if we can call it so, is shared by many puzzle owners of this puzzle.

I guess there are several ways of solving the puzzle: one being the official way of course and I am sure all solutions lead to the same behaviour inside the puzzle. Try to find the most elegant solution.

 

This is definitely a puzzle that has something special, that you can proudly display in your puzzle cabinet and also let your friends play 

  

The Legend of Zelda -Triforce Puzzle

We're not talking about this video games (even if I am found of all Zelda games!), but again about a puzzle, with obviously a Zelda theme. Let me show you a new Hanayama puzzle: Triforce Puzzle.

Hanayama is famous for its metal puzzle series ranking from 1/6 to 6/6 in terms of difficulty (1 being the easiest) and from time to time they make their puzzle with a new "theme". I remember they made some puzzle with a Disney theme for some of their old creations. And sometimes they even make like special edition with black or gold coated paint on them.

This time they have decided to go through one of the most (if not the most!) famous video game license to make 3 gorgeous puzzles. I will only show one of them: the triforce puzzle.

 

You will immediately notice the size of the packaging: it's the double size of the usual hanayama puzzle. It honestly gives justice to the brand and quality of both Zelda and Hanayama. Hanayama did a really good job here. You can find all the stuff related to the video game: the famous triforce shape that appears on each side of the package (except the bottom -but who cares?) and the level of difficulty is not given in terme of stars of digits but in terms of gems (the gems are the currency in zelda). All of that makes sense!

Nothing bad to say about the quality, same as the other hanayama puzzle, you cannot go wrong with it!

I want to highlight something about the price. It's more expensive than the usual hanayama and many people (you know those who are ready to pay thousands for a puzzle...) were not happy with that. Let me explain some things: first the package is bigger and needed more effort to design and probably to make. Then, and for me it's pretty obvious: Hanayama must have paid some fees to Nintendo and Hanayama still needs to make to money. So again, disregard the small increase and go for it!

 

Now what about the puzzling part? Honestly I liked it a lot. It's a nice puzzle to fiddle with. I managed to make it move a bit and thn I could see the internals and I immediately knew what was going on there. Still I could not find a proper way to solve it until with a bit of.... and of ****

Spoilers avoided !!

Then I managed to find the solution online and there is a very clever way to solve that puzzle, which make it even a better puzzle. Way more clever than my fiddling solution...!

Now I will play with the other 2 in the series to make a ranking of my favourite. 

Despite its not huge difficulty, I am sure you will enjoy triforce, maybe even more when getting the proper solution!

You can buy this puzzle at Puzzle Master webshop!

The other puzzles are the Sword and the Emblem.

If you want to buy all the 3, you get a discount!

Kickstarter campaign for Oskar's metal puzzle is launched !

Puzzle Master has officially launched a new kickstarter campaign to raise funds so to mass-produce a metal puzzle from Oskar's mind.

 

This Honeycomb puzzle is composed of a black base and of 7 threaded gold pieces that you literally have to unscrew / screw from/in the base to solve and reassemble the puzzle.

Quality speaking this puzzle is very nice and the fit was perfect and precise. I can only speak for my copy but I guess some (I still hope not!) won't be as perfect as mine. Here comes a potential weakness: if the threads are not precisely made, then it may be either hard or impossible to solve the puzzle. But I guess Puzzle Master will follow up any issue. 

The puzzle feels solid and heaby in the hands and clearly this is usually a good sign! No red flags here :)

I still advise supervision of adults if children are playing with the puzzle. Threads can be sharp and you may cut a bit your fingers if you apply too much pressure on them while screwing. It does not happen to me but this is the usual warning when playing with metal threaded parts: take your time, no pressure, no force, be gentle !!

Now let's speak about the solving process. Obviously you will have to unscrew all the pieces, no doubt about that. It's pretty easy and straight forward to solve the puzzle. Anyone can solve it !

Reassembling the puzzle is more challenging. You need to figure out which pieces go where and fidle a bit about how to put them back. Still, it's not super difficult to achieve, it's pleasant though.

If you're a metal puzzle sucker, definitely you should pledge on the kickstarter campaign. If you're only attracted by the difficulty level of a puzzle, just consider another puzzle, or buy it for your friends :)

 

The link for the kickstarter campaign is: HERE

Your new metal puzzle designer is born !!

While more and more 3D-printed puzzles are popping up in the market, we were missing metal puzzle designers and my post will bring you an happy smile on your face!

With only 2 metal puzzles designed so far, I can you the level of skills behind the guy!

 

His name? Garrett Mathias

His website? CLICK HERE

Garrett designed 2 puzzles (OurGlass and Cogas) but I am sure he will come up with more ideas. From his first 2 puzzles, the future sounds very promising !!

 

Let's talk about the two puzzles now!

 

OurGlass

I hope you get the pun?

It can be considered as a fidget toy or a puzzle for the less experienced puzzlers!

It took me few seconds to solve and the mechanism is not new but the quality is so nice that, even if you're an experienced puzzler, you should buy it :) 

No need to mention that the shape is original and I have never seen a hourglass puzzle so far. Also you can use it as a display stand as well for a tiny puzzle (or a real hourglass?)

So I do advise you OurGlass puzzle (becoming MyGlass puzzle when you have it....ok sorry...lol) if you're looking for a nice small puzzle that will stand well in your puzzle cabinet.

Cogas

Now we can talk about "real" puzzle!

The look is nice and clean and may remind you of some famous Dutch puzzle designers. However there are many differences, the first one being the size.

So the goal here is to remove the lid, so far nothing special....but the lid does not move...and nothing seems to move. No external tools allowed, no saws!

What else can we say? There is like a small hole on the body of the cylinder. And unless I am blind there are no tools visible!

The puzzle can be classified as Sequential Discovery puzzle because you will get tools to use. This information can be spoilery but I am sure people like to know what puzzle they have in front of them :)

Cogas is perfectly made, it's amazing for a 1st puzzle from a new designer, really! And I have not talked about the mechanism and solution yet (don't worry, I won't spoil it)

The puzzle is a mix of already known mechanism and new ones, it's very very devilish and, trust me, this is a very challenging puzzle!

You may stare at his during long time.... I am pretty sure that you won't even understand the mechanism despite all being visible. This is definitively a super clever mechanism.

For me, among all the cylinder puzzles, this is the most interesting one and one of the cheapest.

Your ROI (Return On Investment) is very high with Cogas. As for puzzles, Return is measured in terms of how satisfactory the solution is, if it will bring you "ha-ah" moments, if you will want to solve it again, if you won't feel shame to show it to your friends, etc. The investment being only money, this one is cheap compared to other puzzles in the same category!

Cogas is on my favourite puzzle list for 2023, for sure!

You can buy them on Garrett website!

 

And if a good news does not come along, I have another good news: you can use my reduction code to get a discount on your total price to pay !!

Use PIW to get 5% off (puzzle for you: can you guess why "PIW"?)

 

 

What about some cast puzzles by Hanayama?

 Quick reviews for nice Hanayama cast puzzles !!

 

Cast Coil

Only 2 pieces to remove, but never underestimate seemingly easy cast puzzle. You will have to "perform" many moves and pieces will be like dancing around each other. A very clever puzzle designed by Edi Nagata.

Did I tell you that I usually like when the puzzles is composed of different colors, it looks more stunning!

 

 

Cast Keyhole

This puzzle has been designed Vesa Timonen and it's like a maze pattern that you have to solve to separate the pieces. I don't know if it's Vesa or Oskar the guy with more Hanayama puzzle, but definitely Vesa designed a lot of them and I am sure he will still have more clever ideas for future cast puzzles :)

 

 

 

Cast Hexagon

It's a puzzle designed by Mineyuki Uyematsu consisting of 3 pieces to free. The shape of the "tray" and of the pieces makes this puzzle unique in my mind. Ithave tricky moves and challenging to solve. Precision is a key word for this puzzle in terms of crafting the puzzle and solving it, no force needed. Gentle moves and maybe rotations or dancing moves? You will have to figure out, but I am sure you will have fun with it. Definitely a must-have in your collection!

 

You can buy them on Puzzle Master webshop, but you definitely should go for bundles if you intend to buy a lot in one shot!

The sequential discovery canon puzzle

In my opinion, this canon puzzle is a nice introduction to sequential discovery puzzles.

Well, there are some controversial talks about what is a SD (sequential discovery) puzzle. In my opinion, it's when you have several steps to open the puzzle and at least one tool to find and use to solve another step. Maybe there should be an even more difference between SD puzzles in the way that you cannot compare a SD with only one tool and a SD with many tools / secrets / steps.

So I would tend to classify as following: 

SD: puzzle with one tool to use and several steps

SD+: several steps and max 2 tools

SD+++: more than 2 tools and several steps

Now the difficulty would be to evaluate what is a tool and what is not, but that's another story.

So for this one it's a SD according to my classification, especially considering that it even suitable for beginners.

The goal of the puzzle is to find the cannon ball. What's nice with the puzzle is that it has a metal support, to try to look like a real cannon.

A not tool difficult but nonetheless nice puzzle that you should own and show to your guest (if they are not seasoned puzzlers!)

You can buy it on Puzzle Master webshop!

3rd lock from Sashko

You may already be aware of Sashko's previous locks: Titan and Her Key to the Treasure. Now you will be able to enjoy another lock (it's been long time that Sashko has not relesad a new puzzle).

And it's not a small one....it's HEAVY !

This big lock is called "Monoblock" and it's a 1kg puzzle. Don't drop it on your feet....

The goal is easy to guess: open the lock !

 

I quickly made some discoveries that lead me on the right track and I made some progress smoothly. Actually it did not take me long time to solve, but I assume if you don't get the right ideas at the right moment, then it may take some more time. Especially one step that may be a bit tricky and I am not even sure that I did it in the intended way... Nevermind it worked :)

Also about the last step, I don't really fully understand at 100% how it works despite having managed to perform it several times...

Obviously this is a must-have if you like trick locks and metal puzzles !

Compared to Saskho's previous lock, it's definitely less challenging than his Titan puzzle. 

But after all, a break in terms of difficulty is never a bad ide, don't you think so?

I am in a hurry to see what Sashko will prepare for us in the (hopefull soon) future !!

You can buy the lock at Sashko's etsy shop

Some bolts

The bolt puzzles are a nice market inside the nice market that are puzzles.

Indeed, not a lot designers made trick bolts (that the name of puzzle bolts) and even the famous ones don't implement a lot of things inside a bolt. Well....because of the size, it's obvious that you cannot have a lot of things inside a bolt.

The most famous designer is Rocky Chiaro who stopped making puzzle. Wil Strijbos also made some big bolts. Both designer can be considered as "premium bolts". For cheaper bolts, this review is for you.

I will quickly review 3 bolts. In terms of difficulty, they are very easy, with still an increase of difficulty among them.

Trick Bolt #1

A very easy trick bolt, actually it's more a trick than a "real" puzzle. It should not take that long, even for newbies. This also depends on how the previous solver reassembled the puzzle...

Trick Bolt #3

This is the most difficult among the series. So far this bolt has a "unique" mechanism, ie: I have not seen so far the same mechanism in a trick bolt puzzle. So a good surprise. Took me like 30 seconds to solve though :)

Trick Bolt #2

A nice bolt, easy, but I would say still a bit trickly to fidle as it can jammed. I mean not "blocked" nor been broken, but just things things not properly aligned can cause the puzzle to not open :)

I would recommend these puzzles more for children or newcommers to puzzles as they won't challenge you a lot. Still, they are nice and will display well in any metal / trick bolts collection !

If you want to get all the 3 and have a reduced price: you can find them on Puzzle Master webshop

SSSP & Valve puzzles

Quick review of 2 hanayama puzzles

SSSP Emblem Shooting Star

It's basically the same kind of puzzle that another existing puzzle in the hanayama series: cast diamond. But in a different shape. It's also a bit more expensive. I don't know if this (and the other in this special series) was released for a specific event. 

Personally I like the design a lot and for sure I love the solution. For a true collector, both cast diamond and SSSP are needed. For a newbie, only cast diamonde will be "mandatory" :)

Note that this puzzle is sold out at Puzzle Master webshop. But I still put the link of it. So check from time to time if there is stock again!

Cast Valve

Cast valve has a nice shape and it's very pleasant to play with it. Push, pull, turn the pieces to solve it. I managed to solve it blindly, and I am quite sure many of you will not completely understand how it works.

It's designed by Vesa Timonen who is famous for having designed many cast puzzles!

I have a mixed feeling about this puzzle: for sure it looks beautiful and it's pleasant to play with it. However I solved it by luck without by real analysis (even if I deduced that there must be some groves to be aligned, etc.).

Putting back together is way more difficult. I managed to find solution, but it was not easy at all. I wished that the outside part of the puzzle (not the silver core but the golden part) had some writtings on it so that we could better see which side we have to align with which part of the silver piece. Else this is very difficult to follow the explanations. 

So a nice puzzle, but definitely not my favourite one !

Many cast puzzles in a row !

In this post, I will quickly review some cats puzzles by Hanayama. Many of them are not that difficult, but all are enjoyable !

Cast Diamond

The seemingly easy puzzle that will puzzle you for some time. As with this kind of puzzle, I am sure you will be able to solve it, forget how you did, then solved it again....process should be this for some time.

A perfect puzzle to torture a beginner and to challenge an experienced puzzler!

Cast Key II

It's an interested maze-like puzzle. Well it's not a maze in the proper sense of the word. But it's a path-finding as you will move one key on the path of the other, with different kind of moves. I feel this is a must-have in any cast puzzle collector. I mean it !

Cast Marble

Long time ago it was rated as 4 and now it's 5/6. I pretty mcuh agree with 5/6 rating.

The goal is to separate the 4 parts of the puzzle: there are 2 part for the ball and 2 parts for its cage.

And to do so, you will have to find the perfect alignment. The disassembly move is very satisfying and unexpected!

This is a perfect level 5: it's challenging, but you should be able to reasemble it easily and quickly if you remember the trick. It's not going to take forever like it ca with some level 5/6 cast puzzle.

Go for it !!

 

Cast Loop

This embodies the perfect level 1 cast puzzle with very clever twist moves. I am sure you will love it.

Cast Harmony

This gorgeous looking puzzle is not that difficult bt still interesting: you need to navigate the music notes along each other. Personally I think the link is more interesting than the solving process, but the solve is still nice.

 

Cast Love

One of my favourite puzzle. The 2 halves go together is a loving twist move. It will need you some thinking on how to approach the puzzle. And once solved, you will want to solve it again and again like a fidget toy :)

 

Cast Slider

A very weird looking puzzle composed of 3 parts, all of them dancing like a fidget toy. You will understand once you've played with it. I would say the most original cast puzzle from this post. For only this reason you have to buy it. Of course, the solve is nice!

Cast Diamond, Cast Key II, Cast Marble, Cast Loop, Cast Harmony, Cast Love and Cast Slider can all be bought from Puzzle Master webshop.

Note that Puzzle Master also sells sets of puzzles for discounted price! The best way to start of complete your cast puzzle collection for a reduced price!

A set of 58 Hanayama puzzles

A set of 33 puzzles with level 4-6

A set of  23 puzzles with level 1-3

More chess pieces

I already reviewed a chess piece by Hanayama in a previous post and this time I will review all the other ones from the same series.

All these puzzles were initially designed and made by Marcel Gillen long time ago and since then mass-produced by several companies.

The mechanism are somewhat a little bit different from the original pieces in the way that the original pieces were a bit more difficult. Resulting in these recent ones being pretty easy. But it depends on the experience you have with solving puzzles!

 

The knight is the easiest one in the series and should not take you that long. A nice starter for the whole series.

Let's continue with the rook: a nice one with another trick. I like the design of it with the star on the top!

What about the pawn? In my opinion, this is the best in the series. I like the implementation of the tricks, pretty clever!

The queen is a bit like the king (well they love each other, don't they?) in the solving process. Does not mean the same ;)

And to finish: the bishop. It gave me a bit of difficulties. I would rate it the most difficult in the series. The solving process is satisfying. Don't break his head :)

In my opinion, the mass-produced version are an affordable way of playing with these very famous puzzles. I do recommend them if you're a metal puzzle lover or an hanayama puzzle collector.

If you're really looking for challenging puzzles, then they may not be your cup of tea: they are rather easy.

You can find them on Puzzle Master webshop and if you buy the bundle with all the pieces, it's cheaper.

Don't get fooled by the color: black, silver, gold or any possible color it does not matter. The solving process is the same!

Hanayama - chess piece KING

From the Hanayama series, there are not only the cast puzzles, but also the series of the chess pieces.

Basically all the pieces on a usual chess board !

So let's talk about the King.

First thing to notice: the packaging is awsome and give justice to the beauty of the puzzle itself.

Second thing: the quality is super nice, but you knwo that you cannot go wrong with Hanayama. The precision is perfect and I have never had any issues so far with their puzzles.

Now the solving process: it's definitely not the hardest hanayama puzzle: it's rated as 3/6. I would pretty much agree or maybe a 2/6 is you're seasoned with other chess pieces in the series.

The mechanism is clever and should puzzle your friends for some time until they solve the puzzle and get their reward (a small little coin inside).

The chess pieces exist in several color but the solution is the same. So the color does not matter but it would be better to collect the pieces in the same color :)

You can buy the puzzle on Puzzle Master webshop!