Out In The Forest

This puzzle sat on the table for far too long; we had a number of visitors, and half-way through I even decided it was a good idea to transfer it onto one of those fancy ‘roll up your jigsaw’ mats, which was about as easy as you might imagine it was!

It was rolled up and unrolled several times, and got sorely neglected. I say all this because I can’t rule out my own carelessness as being at least one of the causes of this puzzle having not one or two, but eleven pieces missing by the time I got to the end.

This was a charity shop purchase, but these days they are pretty reliable - and even in my youth picking up puzzles at jumble sales, you’d only expect to be missing one or two. So it’s possible that somewhere in my house is a pile of jigsaw pieces, but whatever the reason it was all a bit of a frustrating end to a puzzle that I’d actually ended up rather enjoying.

Pieces - 7/10

The individual pieces are good; thick enough to be sturdy, easy to pick up and without any signs of disbonding. It has to lose a point or two for missing so many pieces, even though it’s not exactly the fault of the puzzle itself.

Fit - 8/10

The fit is good; firm enough to confirm that the pieces are right together, but loose enough that disassembly is a breeze. It’s on the edge of being too loose - catch the edge of the puzzle with your sleeve and the it struggles to stay in one piece.

It’s marginal though, and if you’re not manhandling the puzzle too much it doesn’t pose a real problem.

Confusion - 9/10

There are enough similar coloured and toned areas in the picture to carry a real risk of confusion, but the distinctive fit between pieces means that there is no way real chance of ending up with things in the wrong place.

Differentiation - 9/10

Just about the right level of variation here; there are couple of small areas which are indistinguishable from each other, but mainly there’s just enough difference to be able to tell, while remaining close enough to make things challenging.

In a funny way, it looks tougher than it is; there were periods I felt stuck because I couldn’t see which area to attack next, but once I stopped worrying and got on with things, it was all very doable.

Picture - 9/10

It’s a lovely forest scene; the animals point to the American origin of the puzzle (your average UK forest lacks both chipmunks and raccoons!).

If I was being fussy, the flowers are relatively boring (they’re literally all the same daisy-like form) and oddly scaled (the ones up by the deer must be huge compared to the ones next to the foreground squirrel). Also, colour aside most of the butterflies look suspiciously similar but I’m happy to grant the artist some license here!