Artist: unknown
Made by: Mai Mai Xiong Toys Factory
Count: 500 pieces
Final size: 14 x 20″
Piece Type/Variety: Straight ribbon cut, one shape
Piece quality: Average
Skin irritation: Yes, high
This puzzle annoyed me, but the more irritated I got, the more determined to finish it. The pieces are fairly large (and so is the lettering on the back! compared to these).
There is no shape variety. Lots of false fits. Lots of places where I actually made use of those letters, flipping groups of pieces over to check if I had them in the right spot. The last four pieces I had to do this, because I couldn’t figure out their placement. Not my favorite way to puzzle. It’s got a very shiny, plasticky surface, which caused a lot of glare. That plus the dull colors with very little contrast in much of the picture, and quite small details, made it hard to do. I tried to put the roadways together first, that was actually kind of fun. Made me think very differently. Brain challenge. Then had to peer at each individual piece and try to find its match on the picture guide (poster actually just a bit bigger than the puzzle itself, was helpful) to put in place. Also not my favorite way to puzzle.
The buildings along the main roads are so distinctive,
I felt that if you knew this place (it’s in Colorado) you’d recognize what the restaurants, churches, grocery stores, schools, etc all were. There’s ziplines and a hike to the peak and a water tower and ruins and cliff dewllings and some kind of rock formation on the hillside. All very intriguing. I thought at first wow, if you lived here, you could to find your actual house among all those little houses on the edges of town.
Then I realized there were a limited number of houses, shrubs and trees- repeated in different arrangements across the picture.
Eh. I wanted to do this one just because it was so very different from most of my puzzles, I found that intriguing. But I was so glad to be done with it.
