Her Own Squzzle ... and We Broke It

After we discovered that little Squzzle puzzle in Julian, and Anne wanted to keep trying it, I ordered one online the next day.  That exact version from 20-30 years ago was no longer available, but I got her one with a Zoo design.  I looked at both brands, and went with the original Squzzle brand because they were a few dollars cheaper.  It took about a week to get here, and then it was a nice surprise.  The art has improved, and the tiles are of good quality.

She spent about an hour working on it, and got all but one tile a few times.  That seems to be the best outcome on a normal day.  Then I checked the website for the one-tile hint for this specific Zoo design.  I made sure there was a hint to be had first.  We were really curious about whether knowing that one tile placement for sure would really make the puzzle that much easier to solve.


The answer is ... yes.  To our surprise, knowing the placement of one piece, we were able to piece the rest together on our first try.  So it went from billions of combinations down to just a few, and it was easy to eyeball the last few animal parts.  And it was done in 3 or 4 minutes.

That was an interesting experiment.  I left the printout of the hint in the box, but would recommend NOT cheating next time.  It does, in fact, take all the fun out of it.

If, by "fun", you mean that tantalizing kind of bother that these puzzles hit you over the head with, of course.  ;-)

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