Cast Amour is a metal puzzle in Hanayama’s Huzzle series, the work of Japanese goldsmith Akio Yamamoto. It is made up of two rings joined together, named “Adam” and “Eve”, that pass through a metal plate shaped like the “forbidden fruit”. The aim is to free the pair of rings from the plate and put them back in place.

• BrandHanayama
• SeriesHuzzle Cast (HZ 5-02)
• DesignerAkio Yamamoto
• TypeDisentanglement puzzle
• MaterialCast metal
• DifficultyLevel 5 of 6 (Huzzle scale)

Design

Yamamoto built the puzzle around the idea of love: the rings evoke the intertwined male and female symbols and the plate refers to the apple in the Garden of Eden. The gold finish gives it the air of a small piece of jewellery. Hanayama launched it in the early 1990s and it has remained in its catalogue ever since.

Skill level

It sits at level 5, “Expert”, on the series’ six-level scale. According to the maker, the fact that the two rings are linked to each other, rather than loose, is what makes it so demanding. As with every Cast puzzle, there are no hidden mechanisms: the challenge lies in the shape of the pieces and the paths they allow, and putting it back together is a second challenge.