I’m a sucker for a good mystery. It piques my curiosity and I just can’t seem to help myself! When Artifact Puzzles announced that they were debuting a new line of wooden puzzles I knew I wanted to try them out. Then Artifact upped the ante and announced that the new Ecru puzzles would include Mystery Puzzles. I was doomed!!
The Ecru puzzles are different from the main Artifact line in that they are made with a closer cut and a matte finish. The Mystery Puzzles are made to be ephemeral, they are only made for a few months at a time, then they are “revealed” and added to the main Ecru lineup.
I love this. I was sent Mystery Puzzle #1, and it arrived in a plain gray box.
Like all Artifact puzzles, the box and contents are curated for maximum sustainability. The box has a magnet closure in the lid and as you can see, you are given an envelope of resealing stickers so that you can be sure no pieces have escaped while in storage.
These pieces look fiendish! I’ve never worked with anything quite like these. The pieces look like interconnected hexagons or simple chemical formulae. In fact, while assembling, I swear I saw a piece that looked like a sugar molecule!!
I’d been following InGooooD, a new puzzle company for about a year now. In May, I won their Mother’s Day contest; which let me choose one of their original run of puzzles. This is the hardest part of being a puzzler, I swear.
I ended up picking Romantic Star Sea. It’s soooooo pretty! Galaxies of stars reflect from a seashore where a couple holds hands.
InGooooD is a little different from traditional puzzles. They make their puzzles from basswood, not cardboard. This makes for a lightweight, but very nice puzzle.
InGooooD prides themselves on quality and presentation. Each puzzle comes in a nice mesh bag, and includes a fullsize poster and a postcard. I’ve heard from puzzlers that have bought some of the newer puzzles that now they have saver sheets as well!
Poster
This is a really challenging design. Thankfully, InGooooD has labled the back of the puzzle. The puzzle is divided into 8 grids, labled A-H. I was smart and sorted my pieces.
Pandemonium loves smelling the pieces!
Being a laser-cut wooden puzzle, the pieces fit very tightly. I spent a lot of time flipping my sections over to check that I had placed correctly.
Zane playing Dragon and sleeping on a horde of pieces!
I enjoyed this puzzle, and will admit to having a very large wishlist on Amazon full of InGooooD puzzles. I did learn my lesson, next puzzle will be an easier image.
Back!Tada!!
PUZZLE SPECS
Company: InGooooD
Title: Romantic Star Sea
Artist: Unknown
Year released: Unknown
Pieces: 1000
Cut-Style: Ribbon Cut
Finished size: 19½x 29¾ inches
Bonus poster: Yes
Made in China
QUALITY:
Box: sturdy, 8¾ x 11¾ x 2 inches
Board: Very sturdy and rigid, wooden pieces
Cut: Laser cut
Image Quality: Excellent
Finish: Semi-gloss
Puzzle Dust: None
Piece shapes: One shape with two orientations
Piece Fit: Incredibly Tight!, If you misplace a piece, you must be wary to not break the piece when removing it.
Disability Notes: This design was rather difficult, and I do not reccommend it for anyone with eye issues. However, InGooooD has tons of images, and is always adding new ones. The pieces are nice and light, easily handled when my hands were mildly arthritic. The alphabet grid is nice and clear.
Where to buy: At the time of this post, Romantic Star Sea is listed for sale on the Ingooood website for $23.17 USD. Ingooood puzzles can also be found on Amazon.
Disclosure: I won a complimentary puzzle from the manufacturer. The opinions are my own. All links are direct, I do not make money from them.
Thanks for reading, and please click the Follow Button under my profile on the right side of the page. To support posts like this in the future, consider joining my Patreon!
Okay, to explain my title for this post… Yesterday, May 2nd, was Eric Dowdle’s 51st birthday. I’m incredibly fond of Eric’s artwork, which is the basis of Dowdle Puzzles. For his birthday, Dowdle puzzles is having a 51% off sale that ends today, May 3rd. Code: ERICBIRTHDAY
What? you’re still reading?!? Scroll to the bottom of my post, hit the link to the Dowdle website and get shopping! I’ll wait…
You’re back? Ok. So the other part of my title has to do with the fact that SC has been out-of-town for a week now, and I’ve been busting butt and stressing more than usual. So of course, my body decided I needed a few days of pain flares and unbelievable fatigue. No matter how much I wanted to be active and do a ton of chores, I just didn’t have the spoons. Thankfully, SC reminded me I’d received a wooden travel puzzle at Toy Fair.
Dowdle’s Travel Puzzles were not what I expected! Most travel puzzles are either magnetic or have too small a piece count to be a challenge. This is a wooden puzzle where the image is giclee-printed directly unto the wood before being laser cut. At 150 pieces, there is enough complexity to keep my fuzzy brain engaged.
Such pretty pieces!
As you can see in the above picture, the pieces fit snugly in the frame, which works just as well on my lapdesk as it would in a car, train, or hotel room! Like the other wooden puzzles I’ve done, to connect the pieces, you have to slide one piece on top of another. Due to the precision of laser cutting, this makes for a really tight fit. While I was assembling this puzzle, I watched a documentary on Roman Catacombs, just so I’d have the full “travel experience”.
I really love the sheer number of animals that Eric has managed to fit into one image! There are the usual suspects: lion, elephants, giraffes and hippos. But there are some real surprises as well. I found a fennec fox, African painted dogs, a rhinoceros beetle and even a tortoise!
All Done!
The best part of this puzzle? It’s so easy to store! It is only a quarter-inch high, and a little bigger than a sheet of paper. If you travel a lot, space can be at a premium. Or, if you’re like me, my puzzles war with the cats for space on the bookshelves. Collecting all of the travel puzzles currently available would take the same space as a standard puzzle box from one of the other puzzle brands.
About the Company: Dowdle Puzzles is a part of Dowdle Folk Arts. The artist and owner is Eric Dowdle, who has over 200 folk art paintings, mostly focusing on American cities and national parks.
PUZZLE SPECS
Company: Dowdle Puzzles
Title: Wild Africa
Artist: Eric Dowdle
Year released: Unknown
Pieces: 150
Cut-Style: Random
Finished size: 9 by 11 inches
Bonus poster: No
Made in USA
QUALITY:
Box: N/A Plastic sleeve
Board: Lightweight , sturdy wooden pieces
Cut: Laser Die
Image Quality: Excellent, great color saturation
Finish: Semi-gloss, with great color saturation
Puzzle Dust: None
Piece shapes: A good mix of traditionally cut and irregular pieces
Piece Fit: Very tight! Some of the irregular pieces make it so that pieces can only be moved in small groups.
Disability Notes: The smaller piece count and wooden pieces are wonderful for someone traveling or trapped in bed! I can recommend this for people with mild arthritis or good to excellent hand/eye coordination.
Where to buy: The Wild Africa Travel Puzzle is not listed on the Dowdle website, making me think it is a Toy Fair/Vendor Exclusive. However, there are currently 5 different designs available on the Dowdle Puzzles website for $34.95 usd.
Disclosure: I received a complimentary puzzle from the manufacturer in exchange for review. The opinions are my own.
Thanks for reading, and please click the Follow Button under my profile on the right side of the page.To support posts like this in the future, consider joining my Patreon!
Today’s a little special, there will be a bunch of posts as I catch up from my cold earlier this week. The first one is featuring Zen Art & Design’s Peapod Puzzles series. Peapod puzzles are their children’s line, and I have to say …. They are really cool! I was sent three puzzles to share with my godsons, Minions 1 & 2.
The boys were stooked to see me come over with new puzzles for them to try!
The third puzzle I’d assembled at home to get used to before helping the boys with theirs. I love the designing of the packaging! The embossed pea-pod is so minimalist it’s cute, and the boxes are easy to open and reuse.
My puzzle is the World Turtle, something that fans of Terry Pratchett’s Discworld series are sure to recognize! It’s the flat disk of the world sitting on the back of four elephants which are in turn, standing upon the back of a gigantic turtle! Peapod puzzles come in either 25or 53 pieces, which makes it easy to adjust any design for the age range of the child it is meant for!
World Turtle is a 25 piece puzzle, which comes with one whimsy, or as Zen calls them, figural.
The boys worked on Sea Turtle 1 and T. Rex. My Minions had 53 piece puzzles, which come with four figurals apiece! They loved these! Once I showed them the technique to putting together a wooden puzzle, they had a blast assembling them. I had worried a little about the fact that there would be a squabble about who owned which, but the boys exclaimed over each others’ puzzles, assembled their own, then switched! For an 8-year-old and a 5-year-old, it was a miracle!
All finished!
One nice touch I found with the Zen puzzles is that each of them comes with a small card letting you know who made your puzzle. It’s a great way to help the company track any errors and to also adds a personal feel to each puzzle!
PUZZLE SPECS
Company: Zen Art & Design
Title: Sea Turtle 1 / T.Rex / World Turtle
Artist: Unknown
Year released: 2018
Pieces: 53 /53 /25
Cut-Style: Random
Finished size: 7½ by 7½ inches
Bonus poster: No
Made in USA
QUALITY:
Box: Sturdy white cardboard, 4 × 4 × 3¼ inches
Board: Birch wood
Cut: Laser
Image Quality: Excellent, great color saturation
Finish: Semi-gloss
Puzzle Dust: None!
Piece shapes: A good mix of traditionally cut and irregular pieces
Piece Fit: Excellent. Some of the irregular pieces make it so that pieces can only be moved in small groups.
Disability Notes: These are great puzzles for people who are bed bound using a lap desk or for those with failing mental capacity. While the Peapod series of puzzles are marketed to children ages 4-8, the artistry of these wooden puzzles is such that they will appeal to all ages!
Minion Notes: Minion 1 thought that the puzzles were great, and loved the figurals, but thought that paper-based puzzles were easier to disassemble. He really liked the fact that his herbivore dino figurals were hidden in the foliage of the T.Rex puzzle, while the carnivores were part of the Rex itself. He also noted that Minion 2 would not have been able to handle a 53 piece puzzle without an adult to help him. Minion 2 had fun learning the names of his figurals and pulled out the BIG DINO BOOK to figure out that the herbivores were a hadrosaurus and a parasaurolophus!
Where to buy: PeaPod Puzzles, which is the series of puzzles that Sea Turtle 1, T. Rex and World Turtles are from; is available on the Zen Art & Design website, which is running a sale, for $19.99 USD.
Disclosure: I received complimentary puzzles from in exchange for a review. The opinions are my own.
Thanks for reading, and please click the Follow Button under my profile on the right side of the page.To support posts like this in the future, consider joining my Patreon!
SC says I’m stubborn. I claim it’s more being so determined that I ignore my limits. The end result is usually the same. I push too hard, and end up in bed staring at the ceiling. Not this time! Well….sort of this time. I spent the day in bed, but thanks to my incredible stubbornness/determination; I had this awesome puzzle to do.
I really love this box. Artifact Puzzles boxes are sturdy, covered in a ribbed blue cloth that helped my grip and has a little magnet in the lip of the lid for reusability.
Artifact Puzzles are made with environmentally friendly plywood and soy-based inks. The pieces are thick, about 1/2cm, which is great because unlike chipboard puzzles, these will last a really long time if you take care of them. SC still has the wooden puzzle his grandfather made back in the 1950s! (SC Edit: I can’t remember what it looks like, it has no reference image!)
Because the pieces are laser-cut, there is a wide range in shapes available. This includes the themed whimsies! I’m not sure who liked the puzzle more, myself or SC!
Hurricane really wanted to help with this one! She smelled all the pieces and hid under the lap desk while I assembled.
This is one of the most delightful puzzles I’ve ever had the pleasure of assembling! Engagingly tricky to assemble, but not so much that it is disheartening; this puzzle brightened an otherwise deary day. I loved the interplay of whimsies and computer technician jokes! I found myself laughing so loudly I woke Hurricane when I found the ID10T ERROR!
Problem exists between keyboard and chair!
Also giggle-worthy were the computer bugs, test tubes of viruses and random mice!
Then there was this guy, my favorite of the whimsies, a three-part dragon.
All in all, it was a productive afternoon! I got to work this fantastic puzzle, SC got to keep me in bed and resting. CFS is no fun, but I hope that my blogging will help others see that not only are they not alone, but there are tons of fun things to do working around the fatigue.
PUZZLE SPECS
Company: Artifact Puzzles
Title: Computer Catastrophes
Artist: Randal Spangler
Designer: Jef Bambas
Year released: 2018
Pieces: 182
Cut-Style: Random
Finished size: 10″ by 10″ inches
Bonus poster: No
Made in USA
QUALITY:
Box: 6.5″ by 8.75″ by 1.75″ inches
Board: Thick and sturdy wooden pieces
Cut: Laser-cut
Image Quality: Excellent, great color saturation
Finish: Semi-gloss, with great color saturation
Puzzle Dust: Nonexistent!
Piece shapes: Irregular with plenty of themed whimsies
Piece Fit: Loose, but the addition of certain pieces will “lock” a section so that they can be moved in small and medium blocks
Disability Notes: Honestly, I think the review speaks for itself. I managed to assemble this on a lap desk in bed without losing any pieces! I did rely on the advice I’d received that to place the pieces together, they had to be put in from above and not the usual sideways motion.
Where to buy: Computer Catastrophes is available on the Artifact Puzzles website for $40 USD. No sticker shock, here guys! These are high quality, artisan puzzles that will last for decades if well cared for. These puzzles are a definite birthday/Christmas/Yule/I-messed-up present!
Disclosure: I received a complimentary puzzle from the manufacturer in exchange for review. The opinions are my own.
Thanks for reading, and please click the Follow Button under my profile on the right side of the page. To support posts like this in the future, consider joining my Patreon!
PuzzlePaws 