Cassette Tapes

Not, perhaps, the most traditional of jigsaw images and yet, to those of us of a certain age, utterly irresistable.

For those who grew up with cassettes, this is a real trip down memory lane and it really brings home the huge variety of designs that they had. Because each cassette is so distinctive, it almost becomes a collection of 42 mini-jigsaws, which makes it simpler and more approachable - almost impossible to put down!

Pieces - 9/10

Almost ideal pieces; thick enough to be stable and easy to pick up, with no sign of the picture disbonding from the underlying card. This is always a good sign of quality!

Fit - 8/10

A good, solid fit between pieces, with no play between them so the whole puzzle holds together well. Because the nature of the puzzle leads you to start assembling little ‘sub-puzzles’ of individual cassettes, this robustness makes life a lot easier when it comes to joining everything into the main puzzle.

Actually the fit is almost a little too good, because it becomes fiddly to get the thing apart again, and back into the box - not quite to the extent of having to detach each piece individually, but certainly harder than it could be.

Confusion - 10/10

Another excellent area; the fit and the cut is reliably distinctive that there is no doubt whether a piece is in the right place or not.

The strong grid-like nature of the image gives an extra layer of reassurance here; especially along the edges of cassettes, you can readily tell if things are all on the same level.

Differentiation - 10/10

Utterly perfect; there are 42 different cassettes, each with their own tones of case, label and spindles. Even fairly early on, I was able to pick up just about any piece from the box, and by studying it hard figure out which cassette it was a part of.

I think this aspect played a big part in it being such a hard-to-stop puzzle; while it wasn’t exactly easy, there was never a stage of feeling stuck and unsure where to go next.

Picture - 10/10

Ok, so it’s not a beautiful scene, but it’s a big pile of one little plastic wonders that played such a significant role in feeding us music for decades.

Don’t get me wrong, I don’t miss the uneven sound quality and the ever-present danger of the tape wrapping itself around the innards of your player, but cassettes still have a precious place in my heart - even if I no longer own any technology capable of playing them!