Puzzling

Jigsaw puzzles need to cover a few bases in order for them to really work well. First of all, the image chosen needs to have areas of similarity - making it challenging to work out which pieces go where - and also areas of distinction so that you have a chance of sorting out the obvious pieces and placing them first. Ravensburger, who currently produce the Doctor Who jigsaws, seem to have these elements down to a tee in the designs they choose for their releases.

The latest two jigsaws in their range feature imagery from Season 6, and as usual their designers have done a sterling job in coming up with some superb pictures.

The 60 piece jigsaw features a great image of the 11th Doctor with his Sonic Screwdriver, flanked on one side by two Silent, and on the other by River, Rory and Amy. The bottom of the image is mostly dark and the top is a similar sky all the way across, making for some challenge in those areas. There are two Silent ... so if you have a Silent piece, then where does it go?  Brilliant stuff.

The other jigsaw is slightly larger at 100 pieces, and the image here really deserves to be released as a poster it's so good. It's a collage (again) of monsters, and there are tons crammed in here ... from left to right we have a Silent, two Weeping Angels, the Siren, Gangers, an Ood, a Sontaran, Madame Vastra, three Daleks, two Cybermen and a CyberController ... trying to sort out which pieces are which from that lot would be quite challenging!  However as every part of the image is different, it shouldn't be too impossible ... in fact I can see that the 60 piece one might even be harder to do than the 100 piece.

There have been calls for Ravensburger to produce a larger-still jigsaw. Maybe a 1000 piece one which fans could really get their teeth into. From the design prowess available in the company, I'm sure that whatever imagery they chose to use, it would be spectacular and impressive.