Another puzzle in the Funky Zoo series by Marino Degano, and perhaps my favourite of the ones I’ve done so far. (I have all nine Funky Zoo puzzles, but I’ve only done 5.) The date on the bag says May 2021, so a very fresh puzzle.
Transylvanian Habitat by Marino Degano, Heye, 1000 pieces. Completed on July 25, 2021.
This puzzle somehow had the perfect balance of having lots of funny details, but not being too busy. It came together really quickly.
The only way to arrive in Transylvania:
You can (probably should) buy some garlic before you enter. Nearby, some rabbits are making their friends pass out from garlic breath.
A blind vampire meets a blind man. Also notice the little vampire fish.
The tireless cleaning woman present in all Funky Zoo puzzles has her work cut out for her with a blood fountain.
Someone has put a puzzle in the trash! I can actually make out what puzzle it is, it’s Dog’s Life, also by Marino Degano, and in a triangular box by Heye. I’ve done it, and still have it. I’m also happy that there will be more Funky Zoo puzzles, they are great!
Great image by Loup showing Notre-Dame in Paris. The church was severely damaged in a fire in 2019, and Heye paid tribute by releasing this lovely image again (it was previously released in 1991, although some characters have been added for the new release).
Vive Notre Dame! by Loup, Heye, 1000 pieces. Completed on July 16, 2021.
This is my favourite kind of Loup puzzle, with funny details but not too busy. And it did turn out to be very enjoyable and quite easy.
Exorcism with a broom, a fleeing ghost and a flying nun:
I’ve been puzzling a bit less lately, and I’ve now used up all my photos. I’ve decided to abandon my schedule of posting always on Fridays and mostly on Tuesdays as well. Whenever I’ve finished a puzzle and written a post about it, I will publish it right away. I may still do in progress-posts about larger puzzles, but there may, of course, be longer periods when I have nothing to post.
But onto Hotel World, a great Heye puzzle from 2002!
Hotel World by Hugo Prades, Heye, 1500 pieces. Completed on July 6, 2021.
The fit was a bit loose for my taste, as it often is with Heye puzzles from this time. There was also something else that I noticed while working on Space Diner (1999) as well: while there is a good mix of piece shapes, there are no pieces with two tabs next to each other. All other common grid-cut piece shapes are present.
There are, of course, a lot of funny details. One of my favourites is the blob in the kitchen. Unlike in the movies, this blob looks as alarmed as the people around it:
I don’t remember where the blob came from in the movies, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t from a tin:
Is that supposed to be “Marinated blob”?
Here some horrified hens catch a cooking show:
There are some activities I would definitely not associate with a hotel, like surgery:
One theme that repeats throughout the puzzle is how everyone is online all the time, and it’s not presented as a good thing. Even in the surgery, everyone is looking at the screen.
In the chapel, the internet seems to have replaced the deity…
… while elsewhere people worship at their computers:
The internet also causes problems in the toilets:
There’s also an image which is much more political than I would expect in a puzzle like this:
A bunch of pigs are celebrating and playing with the world, and in the background a poster says “Be rich – Be happy” (I think it’s “happy”), and shows a small creature crushed under a boot. The pigs are entertained by the “Poor Band”, consisting mostly of non-Caucasian musicians. I can’t remember seeing anything this political in previous Hugo Prades-images that I’ve done, but there may of course be something that I just didn’t recognize.
Anyway, I loved this puzzle, the loose fit was the only thing I didn’t enjoy.
I finally managed to finish Space Diner, just in time before I again leave Dortmund for Helsinki. It was a lot harder than expected, and that was mostly because of the metallic effect that reflected light so that it was almost impossible to work on this except in daylight. It was very enjoyable, regardless, and I would buy other puzzles from the Cosmo Puzzle 2000-series if I ever come across any.
Space Diner by Jabo, Heye, 2000 pieces. Completed on June 24, 2021.
This definitely feels like a companion piece to the Happy 2000-puzzle. I already mentioned some similarities in my previous post about this puzzle, and I also remember a similar pint from Happy 2000.
There were lots of funny details throughout:
Dueling toasters.Cops and robbers.Here is something that from a 2021 perspective seems unlikely at a futuristic space diner: a phone booth 🙂
This Heye from the late 90s is proving a lot more challenging than I expected. It’s part of a series called Cosmo, all with space images and 2000 pieces (for the year 2000, I presume). The reason it’s difficult is that everyting except the black background has a metallic effect, making the pieces reflect light so that’s it’s almost impossible to make out the different colours unless there’s daylight. The poster is just a regular poster, without metallic effects. Since I do most of my puzzling late at night, this is going to be very slow, in fact I’m not sure I’ll be able to finish the puzzle before I leave Dortmund.
I love this image by Mordillo where the shepherd is playing cards with the sheep. He looks quite confident, too. This was a very fast puzzle, although the tree would have been difficult in a larger piece count.
Poker Face by Mordillo, Heye, 500 pieces. Completed on Deccember 26, 2020.
This was the last of my daily posts in January 2021, and now I will be going back to posting at least every Friday, and mostly on Tuesday as well.
An image by Mordillo with lots of relaxing activities. It was actually a very relaxing puzzle, one of the less busy Mordillo images.
Idyll by Mordillo, Heye, 1000 pieces. Completed on November 29, 2020.
A village surrounded by golfing, fishing and kite-flying. The car on the top of the picture is passing a sign that says Parma, a city in northern Italy that is home to Parmesan cheese and Parma ham.
Puzzler1909 