5 Easy Criteria to Choose Your Next Jigsaw Puzzle
How to choose the right puzzle for you or as a gift for family and friends.
Enjoy puzzles as a hobby? Buying one as a gift? It’s hard to make the right purchase.
First off, there are LOTS and LOTS of puzzles out there. Second, you’re likely to spend LOTS of hours completing it.
So it’s important to choose the right puzzle, so you have the most fun you can while solving it.
As an aficionado for years, I’ve developed a sense of what makes a puzzle fun to solve or just a slog.
Here’s 5 simple criteria (from most to least important) to help you choose which puzzle is right for you.
(1) Visually Pleasing
By and far the #1 criteria. It’s CRUCIAL to choose an image you like. The joy of a pretty image is what gets you through the painful part of solving it.
First off, don’t limit yourself by what’s available at the store. Browsing is fun and is a good way to get a sense of what you’re looking for. But there’s a limited selection in person or even at just one online store.
So browse first to find a theme, artist, or brand that you enjoy. Then search online across multiple websites to see all the puzzles that are available.
Buying as a gift? It’s hard to guess what your recipient might like. Everyone’s taste is highly individual. So just get close with a theme to match their personality. Then include the receipt so the person can return it if they don’t like it.
(2) Number of Pieces
Obviously more pieces means more difficulty. But how many exactly?
50 or less
Great for young children for general fun. They are a nice way to build spatial thinking and hand-eye coordination.
100
Easy difficulty. Good for older elementary kids. Good for adults who don’t like puzzles or haven’t done one in a millennia. This can be done in an hour or less, so equivalent to 1 sitting.
300
Medium/low difficulty. A good starting point for middle, high schoolers, and adults new to puzzles. Challenging, but definitely doable. Good to determine if you like puzzles and want another, or if it just isn’t your cup of tea. This will be done in several hours, so usually 2 or 3 sittings.
500
Medium/high difficulty. This is a weird middle ground. I’d say it’s good for ‘smart’ teenagers/adults who would like puzzles but haven’t done one in a while. It’ll take you a few sittings, so up to a week at most. Pieces tend to be physically smaller at this point.
1000
High difficulty. The standard size for the puzzle aficionado. It’ll keep you satisfied for many hours over several days, but won’t be so large that it is truly overwhelming. It’ll take many sittings, so up to a week or more depending on your free time.
2000 or more
Very high difficulty. These are very large puzzles that strain the patience of even the most expert solver. Expect to be frustrated and want to flip the table — though please don’t do that as you’ll probably lose a piece lol. These puzzles will take you a month or longer to solve.
(3) Quality of Pieces/Brand
Beyond the image, the most satisfying part of solving a puzzle is the tactile “click” you feel when you match two pieces that are supposed to be together.
It’s not just satisfying. The click is often how you can tell if your connection is correct or incorrect.
The click is determined by the quality of the material (ie cardboard or thick wood). Closely related is the quality of the printing, ie how the colors were printed on the piece.
The easiest way to tell quality is by looking at another puzzle by the same brand. So look at a puzzle you already have or a friend/family has. You can also visit a puzzle specialty store that has puzzles on display.
Don’t bother looking too closely at the material though. The wood-making materials and the printing process is all jargon. The general gist is:
You get what you pay for.
So the more expensive the brand, the higher quality pieces are in both tactile and printing quality.
In general, wooden puzzles tend to be thicker, easier to handle, and are more satisfying to connect. One specialty retailer that I enjoyed was Liberty Puzzles, which I visited in person on my last vacation to Colorado.
(4) Expert Puzzles or Unique Experiences
Do you want something truly unique? Like really out there in terms of difficulty? Get something different from the standard 2D rectangular puzzle. Here’s some inspiration:
In general, difficulty is increased the more the puzzle has regions of the same color, as well as if the image lacks unique corners or shapes.
For example, I have a puzzle based on a beautiful Renoir painting. But the painting has many sections of black, white, brown, and grey. Within each section the color is the same or it blends together. This made the puzzle very difficult to solve.
The hardest puzzles take these points to the extreme:
- Gradient puzzles: Usually rainbow colored
- Solid color puzzles: Only for masochists!
But in my opinion these puzzles don’t have the beauty of a painting (back to point #1), so they aren’t worth the time.
3D puzzles are too gimmicky and low quality. However, they are quite similar to another good suggestion…
(5) Try Legos Instead
Finally, consider legos as an alternative. They are similar to puzzles as in you have small pieces and build them up to something large.
But they’re 3D, come with instructions, and even encourage thinking outside the box for pure creativity. The Lego Architecture line is a particularly fun one for adults.
I own the San Francisco one. It’s beautiful and was really fun to complete.
There’s many more sets for adults who are still kids at heart.
In Review
To summarize, remember these criteria when you’re choosing your next puzzle for yourself or for a family or friend.
- Visually pleasing
- Number of pieces
- Quality of pieces/brand
- Expert puzzles or unique experiences
- Try Legos instead
Good luck and have fun solving :D
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