This review is from: Ravensburger The Tower of Babel – 5000 Piece Puzzle (Toy)
Just completed this puzzle after starting it seven years ago (it spent most of the time partially assembled and stored on felt-covered boards). Amazingly, despite moving from Indiana to Alaska and then from there to Berlin, Germany (and between apartments in Berlin), not a single piece went missing.
For those considering getting this, be aware that the size of the puzzle can be a real issue. It is too big to fit on many kitchen tables (and even under the best of circumstances takes enough time to complete that a kitchen table probably isn’t an option), so plan for a space where you can leave it set up for the long run. For any large puzzle like this, be aware that piece management will also be an issue: this isn’t a puzzle where you can leave the pieces in the box and just rummage around. You can easily need three to four times the area of the puzzle to set pieces out and make them accessible. (For this purpose hard-board trays with felt glued on them are a good option since you can then rotate the boards while looking for pieces and stack them when not working on the puzzle.)
The large Ravensburger puzzles have some inner structure to the shapes that can be used in a given column in the puzzle: figure that structure out and you can often reduce the number of pieces to consider and make it a lot easier than it would be for other puzzle brands where the shapes are truly random.
One interesting challenge to this puzzle was that, as a painting, it has a limited palette (even though it looks like it uses more colors than it does). As a result you will often find a piece that looks like it belongs in one area but find that it actually fits on the other side of the puzzle in an area that, on the box, doesn’t look like it is the same color at all.
The one thing I wish Ravensburger had done differently is to provide a bigger poster of the image: the box top is just a bit small for picking out detail. But that is a minor complain that does not detract from a high-quality product.
A final note: this is not really a puzzle to do with young children. It is enough of a challenge that most pre-teen children would quickly lose interest and motivation. Since I got it for myself this wasn’t a problem, but we could only practically involve our children when we got below about 300 pieces left and they could see the results of their efforts. They wanted to help earlier, but there was no practical way for them to do so.
0
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
This review is from: Ravensburger The Tower of Babel – 5000 Piece Puzzle (Toy)
This puzzle is huge! Be sure to measure your working space — in my case it was a dining room table — before buying this puzzle. I’d also recommend bringing in card tables or pieces of cardboard to separate the puzzle into more manageable sections.
There is a decent variation of colors which makes this puzzle enjoyable. Of course, Ravensburger puzzles are high quality and in my opinion, well worth the money. The pieces “click” satisfyingly when assembled, so it’s near impossible to accidentally put the wrong two pieces together.
Just FYI, I completed it in 2.5 months amidst working a full-time job, but everyone’s speed is different.
We hung this puzzle on the dining room wall- some tips for mounting it: 1. Flip the puzzle upside down in sections with the aid of a cookie sheet and reassemble the sections upside down. 2. Measure carefully — it is NOT EXACTLY 60″x40″ when assembled! It’s something like 60.25″x40.75″. 3. I got a piece of foam core board with one adhesive side from a local sign shop, costing approximately $40. They cut it exactly to size. 4. Peel off the sticky backing and carefully lower the board, sticky side down, onto your upside-down puzzle. This is a 2 person job. 5. Press down firmly all over to stick all the pieces to the board. 6. Use multiple 3M Command Strips to stick the puzzle to the wall. I used the 2-part “picture hanging” strips 7. I put Hercules Hooks underneath and above the puzzle to take some weight off of the Command Strips, and as a safety should the strips fail. However, this seems unnecessary since 6 months later the strips are holding up fine.
0
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
This review is from: Ravensburger The Tower of Babel – 5000 Piece Puzzle (Toy)
I am going to save you some time if you get this puzzle. What follows might be considered a “spoiler” by some.
I am working this puzzle now and discovered the horizontal cut symmetry by accident when I placed a sky piece on the left side of the tower that actually belonged on the right side. Each row has 42 different shapes, then the pattern repeats exactly.
I have further discovered that there are not only 2, but 4 pieces of each shape in the entire puzzle. This is because the top half of the puzzle has exactly the same cut pattern as the bottom half, when rotated around. So, for example, the upper left corner is the exact same shape and fits perfectly in the bottom right corner of the puzzle. That follows with all the pieces emanating from it. For example, the piece 4 positions to the right and 3 positions below the upper left corner is precisely the same shape as the piece 4 positions to the left and 3 positions above the lower right corner. And I mean, *precisely*. So be careful you have the right pieces placed, especially in the sky, before you glue this one together.
**Update 1/29: I have now completed the puzzle and it is indeed four identically cut 1260 piece puzzles contained in one bag. Discovering this probably shaved over a month off my completion time, and in the last day I placed the final 590 pieces in less than 5 hours.**
Some might be a little irritated about this “shortcut” that Ravensburger has made, others may wish to use it to their advantage. I prefer the latter, taking pieces out of solved areas to find the corresponding identical shape for the area I am trying to solve. Much easier when you know, for example, you are looking for what must be an adjacent two-tab piece rather than looking through all shapes with at least one tab to find the piece you need. To make the horizontal offset easier to deal with, I mark my positions (42 places apart) on a row with a couple of coins.
Other than that, this puzzle is very high quality and recommended.
0
Help other customers find the most helpful reviews
A fun challenge,
For those considering getting this, be aware that the size of the puzzle can be a real issue. It is too big to fit on many kitchen tables (and even under the best of circumstances takes enough time to complete that a kitchen table probably isn’t an option), so plan for a space where you can leave it set up for the long run. For any large puzzle like this, be aware that piece management will also be an issue: this isn’t a puzzle where you can leave the pieces in the box and just rummage around. You can easily need three to four times the area of the puzzle to set pieces out and make them accessible. (For this purpose hard-board trays with felt glued on them are a good option since you can then rotate the boards while looking for pieces and stack them when not working on the puzzle.)
The large Ravensburger puzzles have some inner structure to the shapes that can be used in a given column in the puzzle: figure that structure out and you can often reduce the number of pieces to consider and make it a lot easier than it would be for other puzzle brands where the shapes are truly random.
One interesting challenge to this puzzle was that, as a painting, it has a limited palette (even though it looks like it uses more colors than it does). As a result you will often find a piece that looks like it belongs in one area but find that it actually fits on the other side of the puzzle in an area that, on the box, doesn’t look like it is the same color at all.
The one thing I wish Ravensburger had done differently is to provide a bigger poster of the image: the box top is just a bit small for picking out detail. But that is a minor complain that does not detract from a high-quality product.
A final note: this is not really a puzzle to do with young children. It is enough of a challenge that most pre-teen children would quickly lose interest and motivation. Since I got it for myself this wasn’t a problem, but we could only practically involve our children when we got below about 300 pieces left and they could see the results of their efforts. They wanted to help earlier, but there was no practical way for them to do so.
0
Was this review helpful to you?
|So much fun!,
There is a decent variation of colors which makes this puzzle enjoyable. Of course, Ravensburger puzzles are high quality and in my opinion, well worth the money. The pieces “click” satisfyingly when assembled, so it’s near impossible to accidentally put the wrong two pieces together.
Just FYI, I completed it in 2.5 months amidst working a full-time job, but everyone’s speed is different.
We hung this puzzle on the dining room wall- some tips for mounting it:
1. Flip the puzzle upside down in sections with the aid of a cookie sheet and reassemble the sections upside down.
2. Measure carefully — it is NOT EXACTLY 60″x40″ when assembled! It’s something like 60.25″x40.75″.
3. I got a piece of foam core board with one adhesive side from a local sign shop, costing approximately $40. They cut it exactly to size.
4. Peel off the sticky backing and carefully lower the board, sticky side down, onto your upside-down puzzle. This is a 2 person job.
5. Press down firmly all over to stick all the pieces to the board.
6. Use multiple 3M Command Strips to stick the puzzle to the wall. I used the 2-part “picture hanging” strips
7. I put Hercules Hooks underneath and above the puzzle to take some weight off of the Command Strips, and as a safety should the strips fail. However, this seems unnecessary since 6 months later the strips are holding up fine.
0
Was this review helpful to you?
|Spolier alert!,
I am working this puzzle now and discovered the horizontal cut symmetry by accident when I placed a sky piece on the left side of the tower that actually belonged on the right side. Each row has 42 different shapes, then the pattern repeats exactly.
I have further discovered that there are not only 2, but 4 pieces of each shape in the entire puzzle. This is because the top half of the puzzle has exactly the same cut pattern as the bottom half, when rotated around. So, for example, the upper left corner is the exact same shape and fits perfectly in the bottom right corner of the puzzle. That follows with all the pieces emanating from it. For example, the piece 4 positions to the right and 3 positions below the upper left corner is precisely the same shape as the piece 4 positions to the left and 3 positions above the lower right corner. And I mean, *precisely*. So be careful you have the right pieces placed, especially in the sky, before you glue this one together.
**Update 1/29: I have now completed the puzzle and it is indeed four identically cut 1260 piece puzzles contained in one bag. Discovering this probably shaved over a month off my completion time, and in the last day I placed the final 590 pieces in less than 5 hours.**
Some might be a little irritated about this “shortcut” that Ravensburger has made, others may wish to use it to their advantage. I prefer the latter, taking pieces out of solved areas to find the corresponding identical shape for the area I am trying to solve. Much easier when you know, for example, you are looking for what must be an adjacent two-tab piece rather than looking through all shapes with at least one tab to find the piece you need. To make the horizontal offset easier to deal with, I mark my positions (42 places apart) on a row with a couple of coins.
Other than that, this puzzle is very high quality and recommended.
0
Was this review helpful to you?
|