I Discovered Plastic Puzzles, and I’m Not Looking Back
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Every serious puzzler has a common foe: puzzle dust, the granular detritus of puzzle pieces that coats your hands with a layer of silty grime. At worst, one might open a fresh puzzle to find it nestled in a layer of malevolent sand that gets all over your house. Some brands are even recognizable by their debris, like Ravensburger’s telltalebluepowder.
Puzzlers often talk about ways to obviate the dust. Some strain piecesthrough a colander, others shake them around in afine-mesh laundry bag. I tried the colander method a few times before I came to the conclusion that this was not how I wanted to live my life.
I first read aboutPintooplastic puzzles onr/Jigsawpuzzlesand was intrigued by doing a puzzle that would have material consistency. In the puzzle universe, cardboard and particle board are king, with higher-end wood options making their way in as a luxury alternative; plastic puzzles are a far rarer breed. Upon seeing that you could get a 1,000-piece puzzle for my ideal price — $25 — I orderedone. I also threw in a2,000-piecer, which was $42, practically a per-piece deal.
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I decided to start with the latter. At first, I was befuddled. There were no traditional edge pieces that are the foundation for classical puzzle solving. Instead, it came with a white-edge frame that would snap onto it once it was finished — very convenient for those who are into displaying their puzzles. I was forced to figure out new ways to solve the puzzle, which made it even more of an exciting challenge.
Once I got into it, I was jamming with this puzzle. Craving a sensory puzzle experience? Look no further. Snapping the pieces together was deeply satisfying — it’s a soft snap, and although they fit tightly together, they are not difficult to separate — as was the musicality of how they clinked together while I sorted them. Because of the snug fit, it’s easy to move sections of the puzzle around, rendering moot another puzzle annoyance — when pieces are too loose and fall apart when you try to shift them to another area. I was a bit skeptical that plastic pieces wouldn’t be brittle, but they are sturdy while not being abrasive. They’re also smaller than standard pieces, so all 2,000 pieces fit on my 35-by-25-inchpuzzle board. Most important: puzzle dust? What’s puzzle dust?
Another common puzzle foe is the false fit, where pieces look and feel like they fit together but actually don’t. The plastic puzzle vanquishes this possibility, which makes doing solid-color areas a lot less onerous. And one last incidental advantage: The pieces don’t warp when you spill on them, making them a great gift for the messy puzzler in your life (me).
Pintoo also makes 3-D plastic puzzles, likeglobes,vases, anddecorative plates. For the purposes of this review, I tried out avase, which was fun but I didn’t love it. It’s less a puzzle than a feat of engineering, and getting the curved pieces to hang together was a challenge. (Leakage is not an issue because you build the puzzle around a small water-tight vessel.) Still, it’s kind of cute.
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Wooden puzzlesareall the rage these days, but in this economy … get real. I can’t be spending $210 on a 1,000-piece puzzle, no matter how beautiful the final product. Mercifully, there are some non-plastic brands that are low on dust. I likeEeBoopuzzles a lot, Magnolia has somestunners, and theMaxwell Tilse seriesfrom New York Puzzle Company was a favorite. I covet almost every puzzle fromTop Puzzle Shopin Japan, but it ships to America only by sea at a cost of $60 (not a knock on the company — it has excellent customer service — andtariffshave hit the puzzling community hard). But Pintoo is my new favorite. I’m even thinking of hanging one on my wall.
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