Jigsaw Reviews: Q - S

• Animal Trial - Select puzzles from small thumbnail pictures.
• Ron's Puzzle Page
• More sites that use this puzzle are listed at Examples.

Drag pieces to join them. There's a satisfying locking sound when pieces are joined correctly. The puzzle controls are easily available on the silver bars at the top and bottom of the puzzle. Rotate pieces (if rotation is used) by holding down shift while clicking the piece. Pieces must be rotated right side up to be joined. You can save unfinished puzzles.

Here are the steps I use after the puzzle loads:

• Press the Mix button to move all the pieces to one side (warning: Mix separates joined pieces)
• Press the Edges button to display edges only
• Assemble the edges
• press the Edges button again to display all pieces
• Complete the rest of the puzzle.

These puzzles no longer work in AOL. See Shockwave's Response to my report of this problem.

Use JigsawMaker to create a puzzle from your own picture. However sending a jigsaw from online JigsawMaker 3 and purchased JigsawMaker 1 does not work and is needed display the jigsaw on a website. The problem has been reported to Shockwave many times. Atom Entertainment Customer Support responded "We're aware of this issue, and our engineering staff is working to fix it." on April 17, 2008 but it has not been fixed yet.

History: Beginning in November 2000, a new twist was added to make some of the puzzles unique and more difficult - colors changed when the pieces were joined. I don't believe any of these are still available on this site - but similar functionality is found in the JigsawMaker available to paid members. Beginning in July 2001, puzzles are provide by Article 19 rather than Jim Collins and the number of puzzles was reduced.

A PuzzleMaker was available as a download with a free trial version and $24.95 for full functionality. Then PuzzleMaker was replaced by JigsawMaker, an online version, on January 15, 2003. For about a year, all functionality in JisawMaker was free, then starting in January or February of 2005, JigsawMaker 3 requires a paid membership for creating fancy puzzles (controlling puzzle shape, piece shape, color change). In May 2006 the online version of JigsawMaker had problems and could not display the jigsaw puzzles sent in emails - this was fixed later in the same month. Also starting in May 2006 Jigsaw Madness and JigsawParty were added and JigsawMaker began requireing Internet Explorer with ActiveX enabled. Jigsaw Madness is a fast paced game where pieces are presented one at a time and are placed in a mosaic-style jigsaw while competing for points. JigsawParty is the internet's first multiple player collabrative jigsaw puzzle - take turns moving pieces in the puzzle while chatting online with the other players.

Shockwave Unlimited is Shockwave's paid membership area and replaces Gameblast. Members can play additional jigsaws plus many other premium games and can use the advanced options in JigsawMaker. Pricing plans vary from $9.95 per month to $59.40 per year with a 10 day free trial.

Shockwave also offers jigsaw downloads of 60 puzzles for $19.95 with limited demo versions.

Shockwave puzzles are implemented at:

• Third Age - Daily puzzle has same picture as at Shockwave.
• WebShots - Daily puzzle has same picture as at Shockwave.

Shockwave's jigsaw motto is "A puzzle a day keeps the brain sharp". See also the Shockwave entry in my Jigsaw Comparison Chart.

The silver bar above the puzzle is the control bar. The menu under the word Jigsaw on the control bar contains toggles for displaying the picture, showing only edge pieces and moving pieces, plus other controls. You can save and reload a partially finished puzzle and change the color of the background. See Help on the control bar for further instructions.

Jim's puzzle program is used at

• Atlas Archives - A daily puzzle plus archived puzzles for the past year.
• uClick - Provides a daily jigsaw puzzle service for other websites - puzzles are archived by date. Four sample jigsaws are available here to play online, but not the daily puzzle. The daily jigsaw is available at:
  • Puzzle Society - Free demo of three styles of the Universal Puzzle. Daily puzzle and jumbo weekly puzzle, plus lots of other games, are only available with paid membership ($3.95 a month or $19.95 a year). Site is also called uPuzzles.

See also my review of Shockwave, which formerly used Jim's jigsaw engine and PuzzleMaker.

• Billy Bear 4 Kids
• Billy Bear 4 Kids St. Patrick's Day page
• Council of Elrond - Over 50 pictures of Elrond characters are subdivided by difficulty.
• Dobhran - One picture.
• Dotty's Online Jigsaws - My implementation of this puzzle
• Drake's - Over 100 pictures organized by category
• Les Holmes' Anagramania - Over 50 pictures.
• Thinks.Com Daily Jigsaw Puzzle - Picture selection list, and choice of 12 to 90 pieces

Version 2 has a front end that allows the user to select the picture, rotation, background, showing the picture and other controls, but the java applet is the same v 1.4.

Version 3 has a similar front end as version 2 except it only uses pictures on your own computer and it also uses v 1.4 of the jigsaw applet. V 3 requires Internet Explorer and changing it's security settings, which many players will not want to do. (Other jig saw puzzle creators have opted to require download of their program rather than changing security settings.)

See also the Steve's Jigsaw entry in my Jigsaw Comparison Chart.