Bigger Doesn’t Always Mean Better
Here’s a case where bigger does not always mean better. Ravensburger Puzzles (one of the big kahuna’s in the puzzling industry) is about to release their response to Educa’s current record holder (Life) for the World’s Largest Puzzle. This new puzzle will be 30,000 pieces! But the major difference? This new puzzle is UGLY! Of course there will be those die hard puzzlers who will complete it not because they love the picture, but simply because it’s going to be the new world record holder. I gaurantee I will never buy or want to make this puzzle. I do not like the picture at all, and if I don’t like the picture there’s NO WAY I would ever finish. It’s going to be difficult enough to finish “Life” and I LOVE that picture.
10 thoughts on “Bigger Doesn’t Always Mean Better”
100% Agree with you!!!!!!!
I agree as well. I find it rather depressing.
Yeah, it's just an ugly, ugly picture. I can't believe Ravensburger is making this puzzle. They generally do such beautiful pictures. I certainly hope someone else comes out with another one that's the same size or slightly more that has a better picture so this one won't be the World's Largest Puzzle for very long.
Hi Penny,
I completely agree with you. It's hideous. By the way, it's 32000 pieces (well actually 32256 pieces). It comes in 8 bags of 4000 pieces wich means you puzzle 4 pictures each time. The box comes with a trolley so you don't have to lift it!!!
And the first to finish it will get his own lenght in puzzles from ravensburger just as a present. In case of team building, the amount of puzzles are determined by the tallest of the team 😉
Yeah, I did my homework but just like you, I will never ever do this one… It's awful.
Maybe ravensburger themselves will release another one of this size with a different picture? they did it for the 18240 piece puzzles (the fourth is coming out along with this one in a few weeks)… Let's hope. And for now, let us enjoy the amazing artwork that is 'life'
How's work on 'life' going?
Maarten.
I concur with you all, but Penny you already know my opinion of the montrosity! Icky!
By the way, I hope to be starting to put together sometime this weekend! 🙂
Yay, Cortney! You must be soooo excited to be getting to the point where you can actually start putting pieces together instead of just sorting them into buckets! Woo hoo It's a great feeling. I know I was super excited when I got to that point, and I was only sorting the first 6,000!
I agree about the picture. But I don't think they did it about how pretty it is, but for what it represents. The artist of this puzzle died of AIDS in the 1990's. He was American. You can research about his life. I want to get this puzzle, complete it, and hang it up on my wall. I know it won't be a pretty picture, but what it represents is worth a lot more than just the picture.
I did not know that the artist had died of AIDS because I never really looked into the artist as I didn't like the artwork at all. I understand if Ravensburger is doing the puzzle as an honor to him having died of AIDS and that's great, but for me it still doesn't change the fact that I wouldn't consider doing the puzzle because I truly don't like it at all. It's hard enough to contemplate doing the "Life" puzzle and that's a picture I absolutely LOVE. But thanks, Anonymous, for sharing something that makes the puzzle not quite as hideous as I original thought. LOL
Hello Penny, I'm Izabela from Poland, age 35, and I love puzzling too – the bigger puzzle the better 🙂 I found your story at the "Hall of fame" site and started to read your blog yesterday. I am very impressed – your determination do put the puzzles together is huge and makes me feel sure that I can put them too 🙂 My LIFE box stands upstairs since May and I still have not enough time to start puzzling. But I will be watching your progress (and the second puzzler Cortney too) and keep my fingers crossed for you both 🙂 Maybe in January I'll be able to start, and maybe I'll catch you up 🙂 See you soon and have fun!
Hi Penny,
Peter here. Think our situation is pretty similar to yours.
We have an 18 month old toddler who has taken a liking to eating jigsaw peices so now we can only do this puzzle when he is in bed. I say, we, my wife mun is helping too.
At first, sorting of course is the key thing, even with only 6,000 pieces….did i say only?? never done a jigsaw of more than 1000 pieces before :). So the idea was to sort all the pieces into different sections, but soon got bored with this as not being very familiar with the puzzle picture at first, it is really difficult and we were impatient to get started. So we just sorted the edge pieces and put those together first. Amazingly, only missed 4 pieces.
Next, my wife decided to lay claim to the fish, think she thought it looked easy but is really deceptively hard. So I decided to start on the top left, ie the balloons. First though we had to sort again.
We decided to organise it in such a way that it can be easily put away from curious little fingers during the day. That meant buying a piece of 3mm hardboard measuring 1200 by 2400mm from our local diy store. The cost of this was just under 5GBP. Got them to cut it (free), first into 2 equal squares (1200 x 1200) then to cut 1 of the squares into 4 identical squares (600×600) and the other large square into 2 1200 x 600 rectangles.
The idea was to work on just a 1000 piece section at a time. But in practice I am working on the top 2 sections and mun on the bottom 2 sections.
When (if??) these sections have been completed the top 2 will be transferred onto one of the long boards with wallpaper liner underneath.
then the next double section will be placed on top of the first with the same lining paper underneath it. So eventually we will have 12 2000 piece jigsaws laid onto the 1200 by 600 boards with lining paper in between them, ready for mounting.
We have set ourselves a target of completion by easter, but I am beginning to think that is not likely to be achieved.