I was at a game store with a buy two get one deal- bought two escape room puzzles, and for my third, I picked this one.
Balloon Dreams
Manufacturer: Buffalo
Pieces: 1000
What I liked about this one was how unique the vivid reflections were in the water. Hot air balloons are one of the most common jigsaw puzzle themes, and sometimes over water, but rarely is there such an emphasis on the reflection. That made this puzzle fun to sort- separating the reflected balloons from the originals was a game within a game.
I also appreciated how distinct the balloon patterns were. Often times hot air balloon puzzles have designs that make it difficult to tell which piece goes with which balloon, but every one of the major featured balloons is different enough from the others to make this sortable.
I started with the border, then the shoreline, then the sky. Those sections were quite easy to assemble start to finish, and after that I tackled one balloon at a time.
The only component that posed a challenge was the water. Looking at the finished puzzle, it doesn’t look like there’s that much of it, but it took me a surprising amount of time to match the grays.
One more note on this puzzle- I purchased it new, but it was missing a piece and had a bit of damage on the front of another piece. Thankfully, Buffalo Games has a good policy on replacements. I followed their online replacement form to get a replacement copy of this puzzle free of charge; they were unable to fulfill but gave me a few other options of puzzles I could choose instead. I’m looking forward to the one I picked.
Generally speaking it’s a better experience as a puzzler to get a different puzzle as a replacement, but I also understand why Buffalo doesn’t offer that off the bat- if customers could get different puzzles by complaining, there would be a problematic incentive to lie about missing pieces. So their solution of sending a replacement puzzle is the best option I would expect from a business, and I was very happy with how they resolved the case.
Piece total since 3/20/2020: 17045
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