Rant Review: Slice of Life 1,000 Piece Jigsaw Puzzle (Cardinal, Art by Royce McClure)

I've been interested in Educa's Life puzzle for years now, but the chances of me doing a 24,000 piece puzzle were approximately-- hang on, let me get my calculator and do the math here... hm, yes, approximately ZERO. When I found out that a 1,000 piece puzzle featuring a small chunk of the art existed, it was inevitable that I would get it. From what I found online, it's been released by both Cardinal and Milton Bradley. I ordered the Cardinal version because I found it first, and the price was cheaper than I expected. Maybe I should have taken that as a warning.

But we'll get to that in a minute. First, the art is vibrant and colorful, every bit as much as the larger version. Compressed to this much smaller size, it is absolutely packed with detail. The underwater section was my favorite, not only because I always enjoy underwater scenes, but because it has the most visual interest. I put this together from the bottom up, beginning with the coral reef and finishing with the space-bound doves and planets. I really enjoyed this puzzle, and it has whetted my appetite for the related one that arrived the day I started on it. But, I'm getting ahead of myself again!

I would have enjoyed it even more if the pieces were of better quality. Cardinal was an unfamiliar brand to me, and I wasn't sure what to expect. I actually quite like the feel of the pieces, but they're very thin, and the fit is quite loose. False fits were possible pretty much everywhere, though the amount of detail in the art made them pretty easy to avoid in most areas. The loose fit makes this one of the most crumbly puzzles I've ever done, and moving even two or three pieces without them separating was simply not possible. More than once, my hand lightly brushed against the puzzle, something which normally has no effect. In this case, it resulted in a bunch of pieces breaking apart and having to be reassembled. The included poster is comically small, and pretty much useless. The puzzle is easy enough that it was unnecessary, fortunately. On the positive side, there was virtually no dust. This level of quality is fine for a cheap puzzle, but I may grab the MB version at some point to see how it compares. I've done a couple of MBs before, and while the quality was not top-tier, it was better than this. Plus, it'll give me an excuse to do the puzzle again!