Plastic Puzzles From Hanayama...

They make me anxious but are still fantastic...

Lucky Cube

Double Cube

Not had much time for play recently after my Pelikan puzzle solving marathon whilst I had some annual leave - Now I am back at work, I have barely touched a puzzle.

I suspect that many of you will have never even heard of these before and yet they are made by Hanayama puzzles. They are not seen very often and I don't think they have been put up for sale outside of Japan. I was captivated when my friend Nigel (the very originator of the Midlands Puzzle Party) posted a few pictures of these last year on his FB page and asked whether anyone had solved one of the last challenges in the book. I had never seen one and asked a question or two and Nigel was very encouraging about them - he even went as far as to say that one was a candidate for his best of the year choice. Nigel is a highly skilled solver and very much a connoisseur. If he says to get something then I really do sit up and pay attention. In fact, he is pretty much responsible for my 25th wedding anniversary present - he put me in contact with someone to help me acquire my grail puzzle - the Berrocal Goliath sculpture. Duly motivated to try them, I found someone selling these in Japan and got in touch - after an exchange of Yen, they were whisked across the planet and arrived Chez moi where I delightedly unpacked, photographed and started to play...

The instructions on the back are not terribly helpful - to this day, I still have no idea what they say:

Does anyone know what this means?

Despite not understanding the instructions I took the puzzles out of the packaging and looked at the booklets that came with them hoping for some more information...Nope! But despite this it does seem quite clear what to do - make the drawn shapes out of the pieces inside. Easy? Nope!

These really are quite pretty to look at and wonderfully tactile. Then I got stuck! (what did you expect?) It would appear that they are really REALLY difficult. Not only are they tough to solve but they are also quite difficult to describe - I have them classified as a sequential movement puzzle in my catalogue but others might call them assembly puzzles. Each of these is a pair of complex plastic structures with shapes that are connected together along an edge. This edge allows them to be flipped and folded into lots of interesting shapes and as there is a pair of them in each box then for some of the challenges the pair needs to be interlocked with each other to make more complex shapes.

Lucky Cube looks like a Hashimoto cube

Really complex pieces

These things make absolutely fabulous worry beads as they fold in and out of themselves. After you have made a few flexes, it is quite hard even to get them to fit back together. There are 30 challenges in the booklet and I have so far only managed about 15 of them. They are even highly repeatable (unlike most Hanayama puzzles) because once you have solved a challenge and moved on it is still just as hard to do it a second time. Here is one of the easy first challenges:

Even this took me a few minutes to work out

Some of the more difficult challenges have a Japanese description which I would love to understand as it may help me work out what to do

The bottom of the right page looks fearsome and maybe the text might help?

My real favourite of these two puzzles is the Double cube which looks a lot simpler in construction with many less faces to the pieces but somehow this does not necessarily make it a significantly easier puzzle:

Double cube - easier than Lucky cube? Not for me!

There are only 14 challenges in the booklet and yet after more than a year with this puzzle I have only solved half of them. It is really really tough.

An easy challenge

Challenge 2 - I couldn't solve again today

Just imagine how tough it is creating these:

So why do they make me anxious? I am terrified of breaking a hinge. They do seem pretty robust and I have spent many many hours twisting and turning without causing any harm but still I am frightened. Also for some reason just trying to solve these puzzles and failing after 15 - 20 minutes, I seem to get anxious. This is not something that happens with other puzzles but somehow is a problem with these and forces me to put them down after a limited amount of fiddling time. Despite this they are great and I cannot recommend them any more highly. Thanks Nigel for the heads up on something I would never normally have gone for.

What I really need is a way to translate the boxes and booklet text into English - any volunteers out there?

If you get a chance to buy these then don't hesitate...just buy - they are fabulous. In fact they are so good that they are candidates for my top puzzles of the year.

Keep safe out there everyone.