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Creating a jigsaw

Objective

Learn how to create a jigsaw puzzle using the creator form

To create a jigsaw, you must have an image. Select your desired image, and then follow the steps listed below. For this tutorial, we're going to use this image.

Creating a puzzle​

Creating a jigsaw game
  1. On the PuzzleMe dashboard, on the navigation bar at the top, select "New Game"
  2. On the New Game page, select Jigsaw
  3. Enter your game title
  4. In the Jigsaw options panel, enter your puzzle details. Upload your own image or enter the image URL and specify the number of rows and columns fields a little bit. We'll discuss these in greater detail below.
  5. Click the "Create Game" button on the bottom right of the page.
Jigsaw creation options
(1) Image URL, (2) Background color, (3) Dimensions (Rows and Columns)

We'll discuss the creation options in detail below. Along with this, we'll also highlight some best practices for each creation option, considering the overall aesthetic appeal, solvability, and engagement factor of your jigsaw puzzle.

Image hosting​

  • If you are on a premium plan, you can upload your own image for jigsaw.
  • If you are a free user, PuzzleMe expects a URL that links to an image on the internet. This means your image must be hosted somewhere online, either on your website or some other platform that allows a direct image file to be served. Please refer to the guidelines below on hosting your images externally.

Image hosting guidelines​

  • You can host the images with any image provider that allows you to use directly link to the images.
  • Please ensure you use secure image URLs that start with HTTPS:// .
  • Ensure that the link you paste into PuzzleMe editor ends with an image extension (eg. PNG, JPN, JPEG, GIF etc). For example https://i.ibb.co/18NqXVN/bell-pepper.png
  • Please ensure that wherever you host the images allows direct linking (hotlinking) to the images. Some image hosts might not allow direct linking to the images. Here is a list of free image hosting services that allow hotlinking.
  • If you copy image URL from Google image search results, you may sometimes get an image URL like this :

    data:image/jpeg;base64,/9j/4AAQSkZJRgABAQAAAQABAAD/2wCEAAoHCBUWFRgWFRYYGRgZGRg

This kind of URL is not compatible with PuzzleMe. Please get the link to the original image that starts with https:// and ends in a suitable file extension.

  • On the web, you can often right click an image and copy its address.
Copying image URL

Recommendations​

Best Practices

  1. Use a high-resolution image. The PuzzleMe platform will compress the image you use to ensure that your jigsaw can be played smoothly across different devices.

  2. Images with vibrant colors and strong contrast work well for jigsaw puzzles. This will make it easier for your players to differentiate between pieces and sections of the puzzle. However, ensure that the colors aren't so similar that it becomes confusing to distinguish between pieces.

  3. An image that is too busy or overly intricate might make it excessively challenging for the solver. Similarly, an image with excessive empty space might make it too easy. Look for images with a variety of details, textures, and colors that will translate well into puzzle pieces.

Background Color​

Your jigsaw puzzle will be laid on top of a background. The PuzzleMe platform allows you to choose the color of this background.

Best Practices

Pick a background color that has a gentle contrast with the color palette of your chosen image. High contrast can be visually jarring, whereas low contrast can make your jigsaw difficult to play.

Dimensions (Rows & Columns)​

The PuzzleMe platform slices up your image horizontally and vertically to create a rectangular puzzle grid. The dimensions determine how the image will be divided into pieces.

There's no exact formula for determining the dimensions. It is a matter of your desired look and feel. A jigsaw puzzle will look visually appealing if the individual pieces are approximately square. Too many rows will make your puzzle pieces vertically thin; too many columns will make the pieces horizontally thin.

Best Practices

To achieve roughly square pieces, you can use the following formula as a good approximation:

  1. Find the height and width of your chosen image. If you're not sure, you can use a free online tool such as this.
  2. Set the number of columns. This is a matter of choice. For the jigsaw in this example, we set the number of columns at 6.
  3. To get the rows so that your pieces are roughly square, substitute Height, Width and Columns in this formula:
    Rows = (Height / Width) * Columns
    For our example above, this turns out to be (796/594) * 6 ≈ 8 rows.

So using 8 rows and 6 columns, we get a set of jigsaw pieces that look good for our image.