Anyone who knows me and my siblings knows just how competitive we are. In fact, there are some board games that are completely banned whenever we're together because things get a little too intense! Recently, my sister Siobhan and I have found a new way to compete with our puzzles.
While speed puzzling has become increasingly popular, we've put our own spin on it. Rather than racing the same puzzle, we've been completing different puzzles at the same time and introducing challenge modes for the winner of each round.
Our Setup
After finally setting up our puzzle wall from moving houses, we decided that we wanted to be doing more puzzles after work and on weekends. And being as competitive as we are, it started to be a low effort whoever finishes first would get a challenge mode on the next puzzles we did (we had to wait for the person still finishing their puzzle before starting the next).
For challenges, we’ve decided that we wanted to keep them simple enough that we won’t give up but challenging enough that the same person won’t just keep winning. Our challenges so far have been no box image, no edge pieces, and only using a small image of the puzzle. Other ideas we’ve had is the person has to do the puzzle upside down or can only reference the box image upside down. We’re excited to come up with new challenges as we go.
How We Choose Our Puzzles
To choose our puzzles that we will compete with, we simply choose a number between 1 and however many we have now and whatever it lands on is the one that we have to do. We allow for a slight adjustment if the number lands on a 2000+ puzzle as those take up a lot more space and tend to be the ones that we work on together, so as long as it’s a 1000-1500 piece puzzle then we’re good to go. Then the person who finished last gets to choose the challenge mode for the winner.
How the Competition Works
To start with, we needed someone to win before we could introduce the challenge modes. While I worked on the Harlington’s Lilo & Stitch puzzle, Siobhan started with the Ravensburger’s Elsa Castle. In the end, while I was close to finishing my puzzle, Siobhan was tediously lining up her blue pieces to figure out where each one went, and I ended up winning! Unfortunately for me, that meant the next puzzle would have a challenge mode assigned to it.
For the next round of puzzles, my number landed on Ravensburger's Rapunzel Castle, and Siobhan got Ravensburger's Disney Alice in Wonderland puzzle. Her challenge for me was to complete the puzzle before her without using the box image as a reference. It was hard! Trying to figure out where each of the rooms fit within the castle was a nightmare, to the point that I ended up focusing on the solid colours to establish the castle's shape first. She won that round.
We then had a couple of puzzle brands that we wanted to try out, one of which was eeBoo, which we both loved. The square puzzle was a nice change from the classic rectangle, and we didn't feel the need for a challenge because we wanted to simply enjoy the experience. We also tried a new puzzle brand that I want to bring into Book Hero. The artwork was gorgeous, and the quality was amazing, so it's sure to be a winner!
After working through those two new brands, we decided to return to our number selection, and boy did I pick the wrong number! While I worked on the beautiful Ravensburger Nefertiti on the Nile puzzle, Siobhan picked Ravensburger's Magical Potions puzzle. Both were gorgeous, and both had solid colours that should have been easy enough to complete. However, I also had a challenge mode assigned to my puzzle: I wasn't allowed to complete the border.
I thought it would be easy. I had my solid colours, I could see clearly defined areas, and I was allowed to use the box art! By the time Siobhan was almost halfway through her puzzle, I had only managed to connect a small section of pieces. By the time she had finished, I had connected a couple more sections together. Needless to say, it was very quick to add in the border once I was finally allowed to complete it but I was definitely not the winner!
Luckily, with Siobhan winning, she gets a challenge mode for her current one. I chose that she can only use the small Polaroid image we keep on each of our puzzle folders to figure out where all of the characters belong.
While we haven't quite graduated to speed puzzling yet, these little challenges have made every puzzle feel different and it's easy to see where each of our strengths are in puzzling. Whether it's doing the puzzle without the box image, skipping the border, or relying on a tiny reference picture, it's been a fun way to add a bit of friendly competition to our hobby. We'll definitely be keeping the challenge modes going and I'm already planning my revenge for the next round!