| Product: |
Ravensburger Puzzleball - Historic World Map |
| Date: |
02.01.07 (184 review reads) |
| Rating: |
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Advantages: Very cleverly thought out puzzles that take time and patience.
Disadvantages: A little expensive, but to my mind worth every penny.
Bored with Jigsaws ? Think they are old hat, old fashioned or just for the elderly ? Well, you got it wrong. I am not keen on the traditional jigsaw puzzles because they are frankly boring, but I do like a challenge. When I saw the Puzzleball a few years ago in the shop, I knocked huge hints for Christmas but they fell on deaf ears. It's quite costly at approximately 19 GBP, but when you see what you get for money, it's hardly surprising, and is indeed very good value, if you compare with the kind of computer games that are for sale around the same price.
If you want to get the kids off the computer, and doing something absorbing, intelligent and time consuming that will keep them quiet for hours, then this really is a good option. The puzzleball comes boxed in a good quality box. Why is the quality of the box important ? Well, believe me, after using this puzzle, you will understand that the sorting out of pieces becomes an art, and having a good quality box helps me enormously with the task.
The pieces are made of cardboard, but the makers were clever, and put a plastic backing on each of the pieces. Mine is a 540 piece puzzleball of the historical world. It has neat Latin writing around the top and the bottom, and instead of using this as a guideline as to whether I was getting the pieces in the right place, I impatiently ploughed through putting the first part of the puzzle together from guesswork, and guess what ? I got it wrong.
They also supply a cunning guide so that people can see where the pieces go, and this is in the form of a plastic strip with a rotating wheel at each side. Again, here I ignored the use of this and was wrong in doing so, since it became a very valuable guide towards the middle of the puzzle.
I decided to start out afresh and what I discovered was that although the pieces do come apart easily when you want them to, unlike their counterparts in 3D jigsaw puzzles, these parts really do not distort or bend when being taken from the puzzleball. Having said that, they are pretty firm when slotted together and do take manipulation to free them, so your jigsaw will not collapse.They are certainly smaller pieces than I imagined them to be, and my advice would be not to let a small child loose with them. I also discovered a kind of cheat, although I told myself that because the makers had put numbers on the pieces, they must have had intentions for users to use them, and sorted the pieces out into piles up to a hundred, a hundred to two hundred etc., and thus could determine which pieces went next (not referring again to the numbers).
The box has the first five pieces of the top and bottom of the Sphere already made up for you, and the sensible way of starting is from the bottom and placing the puzzle in the rounded plastic puzzle stand to continue up the puzzle til you reach the top. Guess what ? I hadn't realised that and started at the top, though since a ball is round, I figured that as long as I didn't mind working with upside down pieces, what the heck ! It worked, but was more difficult than it would have been had I taken the time to think.
Linking the pieces is pretty easy, and you get to know whether something fits or nearly fits, and nearly fitting isn't good enough. I learned not to try and force pieces, and that if you know that the piece is right but it really is not going into place, you can try fitting it from the back instead of pressing from the front, and sometimes this works easier. Beware though about complacency. Sometimes a piece looks like it fits though many pieces are similar and I found whole areas which were thrown off balance simply because of my impatience. Looking at the shaded backgrounds helps here as there are slight variances.
I love this puzzle and shall be collecting the whole series, because it really does take time to construct, instead of forgetting that kids or older users like me need the challenge factor. It's great, keeps you going for hours and hours, although for those with poor eyesight, it would be as well to have a magnifying glass to see the numbers when sorting. Although the pictures are very good quality and do show up easily, the numbers against the white plastic backing are tiny.
There are around six different choices when buying the Puzzleball, although I believe that their popularity will mean that Ravensburger will produce more. At the moment, the choice is quite classic, from Undersea World, to Famous Landmarks (the next one I shall buy), a Modern globe of the world, and I noticed they even took the popular theme of Penguins and produced a model this year sporting the penguins. Sizes range from 989 pieces up to 540 pieces, and perhaps if buying for a younger person, it may be an idea to start small and work your way upwards, because the difficulty level whilst challenging does present hard work and concentration.
As an alternative to games available, I really believe the makers got it right in producing these puzzles, and compared to the 3D ones where the pieces were foam backed and broke easily, making doing the puzzle several times almost impossible, this time the makers have made them strong enough even for clumsy hands.
Another thing to bear in mind is not to try and be clever and make the top and bottom and then try joining them together. It doesn't work, because you need to get your hand behind the work in order to slot pieces into place and this is impossible with a closed globe shaped puzzle. Working from one end to the other really is the only efficient way of doing it.
I am three quarters of the way through my puzzle and am already looking forward to the next one I have ordered from Amazon at the same price. When you compare this to the price of an average computer game, I believe this gives better value for money and more interaction between members of the family than a computer game would. It takes patience. It takes effort, but believe me, it's worth every penny.
Summary: A super idea that works well, and can be enjoyed by most ages.
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