Puzzle 29 is a jigsaw puzzle designed by Yuu Asaka, and it’s a doozy.
Right off the bat, the puzzle stacks the deck against you because the pieces are acrylic and have no front or back, so either side can be used. Then the base measures about 5x5 pieces, so you would think about 25 pieces would fit in it, but there are 29 pieces! And last, but not least, there are five corner pieces!
I started off by attempting the standard “get all the edge pieces together” tact, but that didn’t work because the pieces that fit together wound up being too long for the base. I spent a good deal of time trying, but couldn’t figure out how to get the edges to work. I went to Plan B, trying to figure out which non-edge piece would fit with one of the edge pieces.
On one run through the pieces, I accidentally dropped a piece, and while it didn’t magically fit in perfectly, it did make me rethink how I was approaching the puzzle. After trying the new paradigm, I found several pieces that fit together to form a corner. Continuing down that road led to even more pieces fitting together, and in no time, I had solved the puzzle. I had never encountered a puzzle that used pieces the way this puzzle had. I had spent over three hours trying to get it stared, and once I saw the light, it took less than 30 minutes to complete it.
Well done Mr. Asaka. Well done indeed.
(I’m not going to reveal the solution on this page, in case you want to challenge yourself, but you can see a hint and the solution if you really want to.)
