I just noticed that I hadn’t posted about this puzzle that I completed back in January. It’s one of the Crazy Shapes-series by Trefl, and I (vaguely) remember enjoying it.
Tropical Island, 2023-01-24
Tag: 2023
In Blue, 2023-08-25
This puzzle, bought in 2018, still had the random cut that all Eurographics puzzles used to have. I was very happy to see this, since now some of them have a cut where all the pieces have the same basic shape.
I usually find that Kandinsky paintings make great puzzles, and this one from 1925 was no exception. It was a very enjoyable and fast assembly.
The Archaeologist’s Desk, 2023-08-22
Ok, so this is my favourite Aimee Stewart image ever. So far, I should say. I loved it! This was one of those rare cases when I put away the box almost immediately to make the puzzle last longer. It didn’t help much, I still finished it in one sitting. I would very much like to have this in a larger piece count, and this got me thinking that I’ve never seen an Aimee Stewart in a really large piece count. Wouldn’t be nice to have an image in this style with 5000 pieces? I would definitely buy that.
Thunder Over New York, 2023-08-22
I just realized, this is my third New York-themed puzzle in a few weeks. Not intentional! This was a gift from a friend, and it’s part of the Ravensburger Star Line, meaning that parts of the puzzle glow in the dark. In this case it’s the lightning as well as all the city lights. It looks really impressive, but you’ll have to take my word for that, since I couldn’t get a photo of it no matter what settings I tried.
Pantone: Red Hibiscus Aroma, 2023-08-21
This was my second puzzle in the Clementoni Pantone-series. It was reasonably challenging, definitely more difficult than the lime-toned first one. Fortunately, Clementoni is good quality, and the only area where I had to sort the pieces according to shape was the red strip on the right.
Vintage Posters: New York, 2023-08-18
This is part of Tactic Vintage Posters-series, and unfortunately not one of the better ones in this series. All the pieces are of the basic shape, which I find boring, and the pieces are fairly thin. You also have to look out for false fits. Not all Tactic puzzles are like this, but unfortunately, you never know what you’re getting with Tactic, even within the same series.
I was, of course, expecting this to be a bit of a chore, but against the odds, I really enjoyed it. It was also a lot easier than it looks. I worked the puzzle from the bottom up, and only the text “New York” and the black pieces around it was difficult. I ended up enjoying this a lot more than expected.
Mother Earth, 2023-08-17
I’ve done a few eeBoo puzzles, and found them nice, although prone to the odd false fit. Because eeBoo puzzles are quite expensive in Europe, I usually pass on them, but some time ago Puzzle Offensive (a German online store) had an amazing sale with many eeBoo puzzles for 6 EUR, so I got five. This is the first of those. It was an entertaining puzzle, but as before with eeBoo, I did have a few false fits. I wouldn’t like to do a large area of the same colour, but that’s not the kind of image that eeBoo does.
Seasons of New York, 2023-08-14
I think this is my first image by Lars Stewart, known to puzzlers as husband of Aimee. I might not have gotten this at all, but it was sold as a set together with another puzzle I really wanted (a map with pirates by Heye). Well, I’m very happy I did get it, because it turned out to be very entertaining, and much easier than I expected. Also, while Ravensburger is, of course, usually great quality, this turned out to be especially smooth, somehow. Loved it!
Vintage London, 2023-08-11
Eight images with famous London landmarks. As expected, this was very enjoyable and quite easy. I did the texts first, and most of the skies last – there were only about 50 completely blue pieces, and even those had many shades. Loved it!
Gradient, 2023-08-10
The prismlike shapes made this slightly more difficult than a smooth gradient puzzle I’ve done, but it was still great fun. I started in the top left corner with purple, moved on to red, then yellow and green in the bottom right corner, then blue and finally light green. There was quite a lot of puzzle dust, which occasionally happens with Clementoni, but otherwise the quality was good, as usual.
Puzzler1909 