Tag: Spin Master

Battleship

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles10 Comments

Battleship – Spin Master – 1000 pieces

These board game puzzles seem to be growing on me, each one I complete seems to be more entertaining than the last; this one was my favorite assembly so far. The quality remains the same, but perhaps I’m more used to it now and it doesn’t seem as disappointing as before. It’s a good quality puzzle, overall.

There’s only one more left here at the house to assemble (Guess Who?), but there are actually three more in the series. The other two, Life and Monopoly, aren’t ones that we’ve been able to find; that’s alright with me though, neither of them were ever games that I enjoyed playing very much. The puzzles themselves would most likely be much more fun than playing the games, although you never can tell.

In all honesty, I’ve never even played Guess Who?, but the puzzle itself looks like it’ll be both challenging and engaging and I’m looking forward to it.

Unfortunately I’ve already told my best story about 70s commercials in the post about this puzzle when it was in progress. I did get more of the story recently though. We had a small get together at the house to celebrate both mine and my father’s birthday, and he re-told the story of my doing jingles and commercials at the grocery store (I told you my parents love to tell this one). He told me that my mother ordered me to “stop singing commercials next to me!”; my response was to go to the next aisle over, where I wasn’t next to her, and kept right on singing and quoting tv ads. What a little imp I was!

The blue background here was one of the last bits to be assembled, but it wasn’t as difficult as I thought it would be. In fact, the entire puzzle was easier than anticipated. Not too easy, of course, but the challenge level was just about right. There was never a point where I needed to separate by piece shape, and overall it was a great assembly from beginning to end.

Scrabble

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles4 Comments

Scrabble – Spin Master – 1000 pieces

Scrabble is one of my favorite board games, and it made for quite an entertaining puzzle too! The quality was a bit underwhelming; but having assembled Clue earlier in the year, my expectations were appropriately managed before I began. Even so, I enjoyed the assembly, and it was just about the perfect amount of challenge.

My beautiful daughter bought me this puzzle after I made the mistake of telling her about the board game puzzles from Spin Master that were exclusive to Target. She made it her mission to visit every Target near a friend’s house, her work, etc. to see how many she could find for me. Is she the sweetest girl or what? I’m a very lucky momma who raised a kind, thoughtful, generous daughter.💖

Back to the puzzle…the pieces are on the thinner side, but somewhat sturdy (there were a few problems with bent pieces); there are a good variety of piece shapes and the fit was good. The image reproduction is fuzzy in some places and crisp and clear in others, and the finish is shiny.

There wasn’t much that needed close up pictures in this image, but I took this one just because I like the look of it. I always loved pouring out the tiles when beginning a game, the little wooden pieces clacking against each other – I know, my weird brain again. I make no apologies. 😜

Overall I enjoyed this puzzle. It took forever to sort because a) I wasn’t feeling well, and b) I really didn’t feel like putting this one together. As you can probably guess my son picked out which puzzle I’d be assembling. But once it was sorted and the assembly began it went rather quickly. I started in the morning and was finished in the evening before bed. It was more entertaining than I thought and in the end I’m glad he picked this one out – it was fun!

It’s been forever since I’ve played Scrabble, even though it’s one of my favorites. No one in my family will play with me anymore. The way my weird brain works also makes it so that I’ve got a ton of odd words stored up there, and I’ve never lost a game. I don’t blame them though, if there was a game I always lost I wouldn’t want to play it either. I feel that way about strategy games, hubby kicks my a** every time and it’s so frustrating!

Hubby and I now just stick to games that usually have a small element of luck in them as well as skill or strategy; cards, yahtzee, etc. It’s more fun if we both always have a chance. 😊

Battleship In Progress…

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling6 Comments

Battleship – Spin Master – 1000 pieces

Finally got myself out of bed and back at the puzzle board – Battleship got sorted and started yesterday, it’s looking good already!

So far this one has been more entertaining than both Clue and Scrabble (I haven’t posted about Scrabble yet, but it’s coming up in a few weeks). I’m not sure my muddled brain can express exactly why this one is more fun, but whatever the reason I’m just trying to enjoy it.

Any other oldsters out there remember the commercials for Battleship? I do. There are two old men at the opera – their wives are watching the performers and the men are behind them playing the game. Of course once one sinks the other’s battleship the loser stands up and yells “You sank my battleship!” causing everyone to stare and shush them. Those commercials from the 70s have that phrase imprinted in my brain.

Commercials were always more important to me than the actual programs when I was young. Mom always told me that I would be playing in the house, ignoring the television, but when the commercials came on I would run into the living room and stand there transfixed until the commercials were over. Once the show was back on I would leave the room and go back to whatever it was I was doing.

My parents used to love to tell the story of little 4-year-old Stacey at the grocery store walking along beside my mother, stopping at the products I recognized and reciting the commercials. Everyone in the store thought it was adorable, but for my mother it became exasperating. She had her three young girls with her, she was just trying to finish her shopping, and I was holding things up with my relentless in-person advertising. My poor momma.

I probably should have saved that story for my post about the finished puzzle, but it was right at the front of my brain this morning so why not share it, right?

Anyway, I hope whatever puzzle you’re working on right now is interesting, good quality, and most of all entertaining. Happy puzzling!

Clue

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzles3 Comments

Clue – Spin Master – 1000 pieces

I enjoyed this assembly, but was underwhelmed with the quality of the puzzle itself. The image is a wonderful collage of cards and pieces from the game and made for a fun afternoon of puzzling; but I was hoping with all the hype surrounding these board game puzzles that they’d be great quality. Perhaps managing my expectations would have been a good idea before I started.

In general, the quality was fair/good; I was hoping for better. The chipboard was quite thin, but relatively sturdy although there were still plenty of bent tabs. The image reproduction was very good, but with a shiny finish that made for a somewhat difficult time underneath the artificial lights in my puzzle room. There were a very good variety of piece shapes and the fit was somewhat loose.

I liked that it looked as though this were a picture of an actual board game, with the crease in the middle where it gets folded to fit into the box.

LOVE the doily in the corner and the pistol too. It was a fun image to put together, and not as difficult as I thought it would be; it was finished the same day I started.

If nothing else this puzzle had me watching the movie Clue again, it’s a family favorite and most of us can toss out quite a few quotes when the moment is right. Tim Curry, Madeline Kahn, Aileen Brennan and the entire lineup is just about as perfect a cast as you can get in my opinion. Hubby, my youngest son and I watched it together the night before I started the assembly and we all had a great time.

The images of the characters in the game just didn’t seem right to me; Miss Scarlet is supposed to look like Lesley Ann Warren, and Mr. Green should look like Michael McKean. I know the game came first, but the characters to me will always be the actors from the movie. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration if I told you I’ve seen it at least twenty times. (When I said the movie is a family favorite I wasn’t kidding 😊) It’s probably been at least 25 years or more since I’ve played the actual game, but I’ve seen the movie much more often – so those are the characters I think of when you say their names.

Clue In Progress…

On By Stacey at myjigsawjournalIn Jigsaw Puzzling27 Comments

Clue – Spin Master – 1000 pieces

I just finished sorting this morning and quickly put together the logo that goes in the middle – and I got all the pieces on the initial sort – way to go me!

The quality is less impressive than I was hoping for; the pieces are thin, the fit is very loose and there are a LOT of bent pieces. It’s quite different than Harmony Harbor by the same brand that I just posted about two days ago. That puzzle had quite a few bent pieces as well, but the chipboard was thicker, the finish was matte instead of shiny and the fit was very good.

According to the blog this is my first 1000 piece puzzle by this brand, and unfortunately so far I’m underwhelmed.

Apparently this is one of a series of six puzzles with images of classic board games, the others are Guess Who?, Monopoly, Battleship, Life, and Scrabble. They aren’t available online other than on resale sites; you can only get them in-store at Target and they seem to be extremely difficult to get. I wasn’t aware of any of this when I purchased it, and honestly I’m finding it quite frustrating just trying to get any information about this puzzle and/or the series.

Here’s hoping the assembly is less exasperating than the search for info about the puzzle itself. Fingers crossed!🤞