MicroMacro Jigsaw: Funfair – Unravel the City's Secrets in this Mystery Jigsaw Puzzle

Dive into a vibrant city scene and answer intriguing questions scattered across a lively funfair in this jigsaw-based spin-off.

Published by Edition Spielwiese, this is a jigsaw-based spin-off of their game MicroMacro: Crime City.

Gameplay

The puzzle shows a city scene, with various vignettes, showing them evolving across the city scene at various points in time. So, for example, in one place, the puzzle shows a father and son arriving at the fair, and they appear elsewhere in the puzzle to show them walking through the fair, and then the boy getting separated from his father.

Once the puzzle is complete, there are a series of questions for players to answer that require them to search the image of the city. Most of them are very straightforward, such as ‘what is this character watching’, while a few require players to take in more of the scene.

Review

As a spin-off of MicroMacro: Crime City, Jigsaw Funfair was a little disappointing. Crime City has players solving a series of mysteries, hunting through the vignettes of the city, tracking characters, and trying to find where they pop up next. The questions here are a bit more of a mish-mash. Some of them do require players to track characters across the scene. Others are as simple as just finding the right spot indicated by the question.

There is also no answer or hint system involved. This is probably because there’s less deduction than in previous games in the series, but an answer sheet would have been a nice touch.

Like its predecessor, the game has a lot of character in both the artwork and the little stories playing out in the picture. It’s delightful to look at and explore this mini-world.

As a jigsaw, it’s surprisingly challenging. The lack of varying colors and the fact that the perspective of distance is the same across the whole puzzle, along with the same characters appearing several times, ensures that this is quite a tricky one to put together — even if it’s only 500 pieces.

We wished that a bit more of the mystery element had been preserved for this game. A jigsaw puzzle was a fun twist to the gameplay, but a little bit too much of the spirit of the original was lost in the transition. Still enjoyable and imaginative, just not quite as special.

Pros: Fun artwork, scene has a lot of personality, puzzle is very challenging

Cons: Lacks the mystery and deduction element of the previous game, no answer sheet, some questions felt too simple

Disclosure: we received a complimentary review copy of this game.