This turned out to be just as entertaining as I’d hoped, although it also kept me up far too late one night 🙂 It reminds me of a game I played on PlayStation 3, called Alice – The Madness Returns, and I loved that game. Most of the time was spent in a beautifully done wonderland, some of it in steam punk style, and then there were some shorter interludes in Victorian London. Anyway, despite being a bit dark, the puzzle was great, and even though I don’t think the Cheshire Cat was in any way dangerous, this is going to be #3, a nightmare, in my puzzle challenge. Because the overall feel here is definitely nightmarish.
Adventures with Alice, Ravensburger, 1000 pieces. Completed on January 11, 2022
Golden Solar System, Ravensburger, 500 pieces. Completed on January 8, 2023.
I’m taking part in a puzzle challenge in a Finnish Facebook group, where there are 30 different subject matters or other aspects of puzzles, and we will try to complete a puzzle for every point during 2023. This is for #8 Horoscope.
This is one of the original Alice in Wonderland illustrations by John Tenniel. Great image, and it made for a pleasantly challenging puzzle. I also liked the random cut. The New York Puzzle Company has been on the European market for a few years now, but I now noticed that they have production in Europe as well. This puzzle was made in Germany. The markings on the bag looked like markings I’ve seen before in Heye puzzles, although the cut is completely different.
Alice in Wonderland by John Tenniel, New York Puzzle Company, 1000 pieces. Completed on January 7, 2023.
I didn’t quite know what to expect from this, I’ve never done a puzzle quite like this before. Fortunately, it didn’t turn out to be all that difficult, and the hardest part was the middle.
Green Flashdrive by Robert Swedroe, Schmidt, 1000 pieces. Completed on January 6, 2023.
Not the kind of puzzle I often do, but I liked it. Much to my surprise, the red dress turned out to be the most difficult part, and it was the last thing I completed.
Swans by Cris Ortega, Heye, 1000 pieces. Completed on January 1, 2023.
I closed out 2022 with two WASGIJ? puzzles. First up, Strictly can’t dance:
This was probably the first WASGIJ puzzle where I didn’t really know where it was going until close to the end. Usually they’re pretty easy to work out, for example, you might have an image of some horrified poodles, and when you spread out the pieces there’s lots of grey fur and teeth, and then you know it’s wolves, and the rest is just filling in the details. (As far as I know, there is no puzzle with poodles and wolves, that was just an example). Anyway, this was great fun, even though there was one piece missing. You can have a peek at the finished puzzle here.
The second WASGIJ was Late Booking:
Here I did know immediately why the tourists are not happy, but it still turned out to be my favourite WASGIJ so far. In fact, I’m going to have to think about possibly keeping this to do again, I loved it so much. You can have a peek at the finished image here.
That was it for 2022, more to come in 2023, of course!
This was just as nice as it looks. I worked this from top to bottom, and it was of course easy to pull the pieces for each part of the puzzle. Loved it!
Rainbow Beach Huts, Clementoni, 1000 pieces. Completed on December 25, 2022.
As always, I start the year by looking at my puzzling statistics for 2022. I assembled 145 puzzles and placed 134 854 pieces in 2022, up from last year’s 96 puzzles and 97 529. I did no really large puzzles in 2022, which at least partly explains the difference. In fact, the largest puzzle I did was 2000 pieces, and I only did three of those. Here’s the breakdown according to piece count:
pieces
puzzles
%
1000
94
70%
500
28
10%
1500
9
10%
2000
3
4%
600
3
1%
1060
1
1%
1040
1
1%
1003
1
1%
750
1
1%
550
1
0%
501
1
0%
350
1
0%
300
1
0%
Total Result
145
100.00%
While I always do more 1000 piece puzzles than any other piece count, last year the percentage was only 51%, now up to 70%. Also, I’ve done a lot less 500-piece puzzles than in 2021, that percentage is down to 10% from 25%.
Here’s the breakdown according to brand:
brand
puzzles
%
Ravensburger
25
17%
Heye
18
12%
Tactic
13
9%
Clementoni
12
8%
Trefl
8
6%
Cobble Hill
6
4%
Schmidt
6
4%
Bluebird Puzzle
5
3%
Falcon
4
3%
Gibsons Puzzle
4
3%
Eurographics
3
2%
Grafika
3
2%
Jumbo
3
2%
Lautapelit.fi
3
2%
Piatnik
3
2%
Buffalo
2
1%
D-Toys
2
1%
Educa
2
1%
Ricordi Arte
2
1%
Sunsout
2
1%
Anatolian / Perre
1
1%
Arrow
1
1%
Art Stones
1
1%
Ass
1
1%
eeBoo
1
1%
Laurence King Publishing
1
1%
Master Pieces
1
1%
New York Puzzle Company
1
1%
NK
1
1%
Paul Lamond Games
1
1%
Peliko
1
1%
Pintoo
1
1%
Pomegranate
1
1%
Re-marks
1
1%
Spiel Spass
1
1%
The Gifted Stationary Company
1
1%
Unidragon
1
1%
White Mountain Puzzles
1
1%
Zee
1
1%
Total Result
145
100%
The top two are unchanged (although the Ravensburger percentage is down to 17% from 23% in 2021), but there’s a new number three, as Tactic has passed Clementoni. This is entirely due to the fact that I did a lot of Stenvall duck-puzzles this year, including the two most difficult in the series (both of them mostly white). If I keep it up, I’ll have gone through all the Stenvall puzzles in 2024.
One thing that I definitely failed at in 2022 was limiting acquisition of puzzles so that I would complete more puzzles than I acquired. In 2022, I acquired 197 puzzles and 187 165 pieces. That’s quite a bit more than I would ever be able to complete in a year. I’ll try to do better in 2023.
Puzzler1909 