Fantasy Golf by Geoff Tristram (What If? #18) – Ravensburger – 1000 pieces

It’ll be no surprise that I had a great time assembling this puzzle, Geoff Tristram’s artwork is always so bright and colorful and full of his sense of humor. It makes for excellent puzzling!

With mystery puzzles like this where the box image is not the final image of the puzzle, I only show you the one character shown on the box as a hint. In this case the character was reversed and facing the other direction on the box, so I reversed the image of my picture to make it match. I also darkened around the edges so the character is the focus.

When I was starting my first What If? puzzle I searched for an image of the box to put on my homepage to show what puzzle I was working on, and the first thing that popped up in my results was a picture of the finished puzzle. To say I was disappointed would be an understatement. I couldn’t un-see it, and it ruined the fun I would have had figuring out the puzzle for myself. I never want to do that to anyone else, so I do not show the completed puzzles here. Ever.

In Fantasy Golf, the box says “Have you ever experienced the frustration, fury and despair that only golf can deliver? What If golf suddenly became easier to play – almost a “walk in the park”? The picture on this box shows the disheartened and gloomy golfers at Hacketton Hope Golf Club. The puzzle inside this box shows a new way to play this most challenging sport!”

In my opinion these puzzles aren’t terribly difficult. The box image shows you what the characters are wearing (most of the time), and you just have to figure out how things end up. You do that the same way you would assemble any other puzzle, by finding colors or patterns that match and putting them together. The more you assemble, the more the idea of the image takes shape and before you know it the mystery of the image is clear. The puzzles are in cartoon form, so the colors are bold and bright, and it’s easy to pick out a pattern or color and start building.

The wordplay is always entertaining as well. Did you catch it earlier in the name of the club? Hacketton Hope. Hack it and hope. It’s all over this puzzle in the names of golf clubs, people, even the brands of clothing. It’s one of the reasons his puzzles are a favorite of mine, we have similar silly senses of humor. 😁

If you’ve never given What If? puzzles a try, I highly recommend them. Great Ravensburger quality, excellent images, and a fun little mystery to solve.