I am a pretty big fan of jigsaw puzzles.  I love that moment when you dump out the box on the table.  The contrasting images of the picture of the box top on one hand, and the pile of broken pieces on the other, is irresistible.  As is the challenge of turning that pile of jagged edges back into the image on the box.  The problem is, now that I have three kids, it can be pretty hard to find the time or space to actually complete an entire puzzle.  So, now our rainy Saturday afternoons are spent watching SpongeBob and Thomas and Friends.  If only there were some way to watch TV with the kids, and solve jigsaw puzzle at the same time…without using up the entire kitchen table.  If only I could carry these puzzles with me everywhere I want, and pick up right where I left off.  And that is exactly the problem which Spb Software House attempts to solve with Spb Puzzle.

Spb Puzzle, as you may have figured out, is a jigsaw puzzle on your Windows Mobile device.  When you load the game, it includes 10 puzzles, each of which depict famous works of art, in a pack titled, “Restorer”.

When you load the game, only the first puzzle will be unlocked, but solve it to unlock another, and each time you solve a puzzle after that, the next will be unlocked.

If the ten puzzles included in this pack are not quite enough for you, well, don’t worry.  Spb is constantly developing new image packs for the game.  Spb has already developed three new puzzle packs, each of which can be accessed directly from the program (just select load new packs from the Internet) or by surfing over to Spb’s website.

If this is still not enough for you, you can also grab any photo on your device, and instantly turn it into a new puzzle (you can even choose the difficulty level for each photo.)  I did think it would have been nice, however, if you could store this newly created puzzle in the main menu, or even create a new puzzle pack out of images on your device.  This way, you could quickly and easily access these puzzles to solve them again and again.

All right, so let’s take a look at what happens once you start a puzzle.  The first thing you are going to find is a nice long look at the full image.  Go ahead and stare at it as long as you like.  But don’t feel like you need to memorize it right now, you can call it back at any time while you are solving a puzzle.  Just hit that green arrow to review the picture.  just like keeping the box top on the table, so you can steal furtive glances at the solution.  And just like a real puzzle, it won’t help you all that much.

Once you start the puzzle, you’ll find a board, which features an outline of the pieces, as a guide.  I thought it would have been nice if you could toggle this outline to remove it, but it was really pretty faint anyway.  So, I did not find I relied on it at all.

Scattered across that board are your pieces.  As you would expect, the goal is to arrange the pieces on the board, so they fit together and create the picture.  Now, there are two things which you should know: the board is exactly the same size as the completed puzzle, and it can be significantly larger than your screen.  This means you will need to scroll around in order to place all of the pieces.

This is where things can get a little treacherous.  In order to move a piece, you need to grab it and drag it with your finger or stylus.  In order to scroll the screen, you need to grab an empty space on the board and drag it around.  To make things a little easier, you can skip pieces around the board by tapping a piece and then an empty space, or holding one piece with the stylus and moving the D-pad or joystick.

Still, what I really found to be missing in this scheme was the ability to zoom the view closer and further away, so that the whole board could be viewed at once, or you could zoom in closer on a specific piece or area.  Not only would this enable you to quickly navigate across the board, but it would also better approximate the real experience of solving a jigsaw puzzle.

The most “puzzling” aspect of the game for me, however, was the inability to set pieces aside, or create a separate workspace.  As it is, the only space you have in which to work is the board which, as I explained, is the same size as the finished puzzle.  This means your work space is always lying on top of other pieces or finished puzzle parts.  I found this got to be a bit confusing, resulting in my grabbing the wrong piece, or simply losing track of where I had left a piece.   It would have been nice if there had been a separate workspace, in which you could move pieces in order to set them aside while working on another part of the puzzle.

These minor triflings aside, I found this to be a fantastic game.  I mean, where else can you start solving a jigsaw puzzle in bed, before going to sleep; continue it on the morning train; work on it some more over soup at lunch; and then finish it off in the evening…all without disturbing a single piece.  Toss in the ability to create infinite puzzles with your own photos, and this one is practically a steal at $9.95.

Spb Puzzle is available from the JAMM Store or directly from Spb Software House.  It costs $9.95, but additional puzzle packs are available for free.

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