Ravensburger: "Idylic Life" in Large Piece Format

"Idylic Life," Ravensburger, 500 pieces, 27 x 20 inches

I chose "Idylic Life" this time around because I wanted to get one more Ravensburger puzzle under my belt before adding the company to my list of "Company Reviews." I picked this one up at a local Goodwill Store for two dollars a while back, so it doesn't particularly bother me that there's a piece missing in the upper lefthand corner. It's not an image I would have chosen to glue or tape together anyway, so "Idylic Life" will go back into the box - and the box will carry a note about the missing piece.

This is one of those "large piece format" puzzles that generally go together pretty quickly, and that's exactly what happened here (it took just a few hours spread over three days). The box is quite large, and even the oversized pieces did not come close to filling it; in fact, when I first dumped this pile onto the puzzle board, I was afraid that a dozen or more pieces might be missing (turned out to be just the one piece, thankfully). After all, you never know with used puzzles just what you are going to get inside the box, or what didn't make it back from the last time it was opened.

It started out as a matter of grouping the more common colors and fitting them to the frame...a frame where that missing piece announced itself in no uncertain terms. That's what happens with these large piece puzzles, though - one missing piece leaves a large gap. I suppose, however, that I was lucky that the missing piece was almost all-white in color because that makes the empty spot less glaring on the white board that I use for puzzle-building.

After completing the white sections, and the two little girls in the foreground, it seemed logical to go next after the only building in the image. Even that went fairly quickly; the water wheel that just starting to show up here would soon anchor the whole building in place. At this point, I was starting to realize just how much the larger pieces simplify the whole building process. If it's true that a 500-piece puzzle is only one-quarter the challenge of a 1000-piece puzzle, I would say that a "large piece" 500-piece puzzle is maybe one-half the challenge of a regular 500-piecer...so one-eighth the challenge of a typical 1000-piece puzzle.

Soon, the puzzle looked like this, and it was just a matter of 15 minutes or so to snap the last few pieces into place.

If this particular puzzle is any indication, it appears that Ravensburger's "large piece" puzzles will have a tighter fit than the company's standard-sized puzzles. With a little care, I was able to flip this one over onto its face, and could have used tape on it if I had been so inclined to prep it for framing - I was never able to pull off that feat with any of the company's smaller-pieced puzzles.

As usual with a Ravensburger, there was never any doubt whether or not two pieces really fit together because the puzzle's cut is so clean and so precise that the pieces do rather softly "click" into place, just as advertised. But as often happens with something from Ravensburger, the quality I was most impressed by was the application of the image to the cardboard base of the pieces. This is such a seamless process that I can't imagine that any portion of the image will ever start peeling from a Ravensburger puzzle-piece -  a common problem shared by many other companies that do not cut their pieces as cleanly as Ravensburger.

Bottom Line: Despite its missing piece, this used puzzle was fun and quick to build. It's not the kind of image I usually go for, but there were enough contrasting colors and separate little images that I looked forward to getting back to it every morning after breakfast. If you like the large-piece format, you might want to look at this one if you can find it (it's from 2009).