TWO-DIMENSIONAL PUZZLE WITH ASSIGNMENT AID

Description

AREA OF THE INVENTION

The invention is in the field of parlor games and relates to a puzzle which facilitates finding the position of individual puzzle pieces.

TECHNOLOGICAL BACKGROUND

A puzzle is a mechanical game of patience, or more precisely a tile game in which the aim is to reassemble the individual puzzle pieces into a whole. The English word for this is jigsaw puzzle (‘jigsaw puzzle’), since the first games were made with a jigsaw. More precisely, the first jigsaw puzzle was made in England in 1766 by the engraver and map dealer John Spilsbury (1739-1769). He did this by gluing a map of the country of Great Britain onto a small wooden board and sawing it along the boundary lines of the various counties. Players then had to try to complete the map again.

Today, puzzles are among the most popular forms of games, as they can be played alone or in pairs or in a small group and can be interrupted at any time. The coronavirus pandemic and the associated lockdowns have given the toy industry a further boost. Market leader Ravensburger reported that it sold more than 32 million puzzles in 2020 alone, an increase of more than 10% over the previous year.

As popular as puzzles are, the higher the level of difficulty, the more likely it is that players will give up because it seems too difficult or impossible to fit more puzzle pieces into the existing motif. This is typically the case when the edge and perhaps some prominent sections of the motif have been put together and the remaining puzzle pieces are so similar in colour or motif background that each additional assignment requires a laborious process of trial and error.

RELEVANT STATE OF THE ART

DE 20 2013 009963 U1 (FEHRENTZ) relates to a puzzle with a large number of individual parts (2) that have been cut out of a carrier material (4) and can be put together to form a picture, characterized by the fact that the carrier material (4) has a grain (5) on at least one surface (1′, 1″), formed by the use of a natural material. However, the relevant content of the puzzle is solely that it has a frame.

FR 2385420 A1 (BOHBOT) relates, in accordance with the claim, to an ‘entertainment device’ based on a surface that carries a pattern or an image that is divided into interlocking pieces like a puzzle. On the other side, there is another image. These pieces can be turned over so that they can be reassembled into a different pattern or image. The backs of the images may be coloured differently and may have markings or characters corresponding to their position. After assembly by one player, a second player uses a transparent frame, divided by a numbered grid, to create an image from the given information. The document is not relevant.

US 2005 0167913 A1 (MUCCI) relates to a puzzle that has both a color code and numbers on the back. Puzzle pieces of the same color belong to the same areas of the puzzle, otherwise the pieces are numbered consecutively, but no coordinate system is used.

EP 12 93 236 B1 (HAUSEMANN) relates to a puzzle with several puzzle elements (2; 4), each of which is to be placed in a certain position in an arrangement (1), with at least some of the puzzle elements (2; 4) having a marking (3, 5), the marking (3, 5) containing a code that relates to the position of the puzzle element (2; 4) in the arrangement (1), characterized in that the code is hidden in the marking (2; 4) in such a way that it only becomes recognizable when a specific action is carried out. A coordinate system is not present.

In Japanese patent JP 6755232 B2 (KOYO), the back of puzzle pieces is printed with QR codes. If the player wants to know where a specific puzzle piece is to be placed in the puzzle, they have to read the QR code and then receive a piece of positional information that is not explained in more detail. However, this approach is extremely laborious, both in terms of production and application. In addition, the alternative lacks clear positioning, since the puzzle has no coordinate division.

JP 09299610 A1 concerns a puzzle in which all the pieces have coordinates on the back, so that each piece can be localized in a coordinate system. It is not disclosed that the puzzle has an edge that also contains the coordinates.

TASK OF THE INVENTION

Based on JP 09299610 A1, it should be noted that the targeted application of exactly one letter as the Y-coordinate and exactly one number as the X-coordinate proves to be extremely difficult in practice in terms of production technology, as deviations of several millimetres in the horizontal and vertical direction can occur during printing of the front and rear sides and during subsequent punching out of the puzzle pieces. For this reason, a missing puzzle piece in a puzzle cannot be easily replaced by the “same” puzzle piece from a puzzle with the same motif. There is a high probability that the puzzle piece will fit in terms of shape, but will not fit correctly into the overall motif. The same applies to the motif on the back. The coordinates for the puzzle piece in question may be missing, incomplete or even ambiguous. It is therefore impossible for all the puzzle pieces in a production process to have exactly the coordinates on the back that are needed to correctly classify the individual puzzle pieces in the coordinate system.

The task of the present invention was therefore to make it easier to find and assign puzzle pieces in such a laying game without reducing the fun of the game and at the same time to provide a solution that is simple and reliable to implement in terms of production technology and thus eliminates the disadvantages of the prior art.

DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

The object of the present invention relates to a two-dimensional jigsaw puzzle with assignment aid, consisting of a plurality of irregularly shaped puzzle pieces, each of which has at least one recess and/or at least one protuberance, so that they can be arranged together in rows and columns in such a way that they produce a predetermined motif, such as a picture, a photograph or a geometric pattern

• • wherein
    • the puzzle has a coordinate division along the X-axis and the Y-axis of the rectangle formed by the puzzle pieces, so that rows and columns are formed, and
    • the puzzle pieces have an indication on their rear side which assigns them their associated position in the coordinate system spanned by the X and Y axes, wherein the indication of the X coordinate is present several times in each case when viewed over a complete row and the indication of the Y coordinate is present several times when viewed over a complete column.

The aim of the game is to arrange and fit together the puzzle pieces in such a way that the given image is created. To do this, the puzzle pieces are arranged in rows parallel to the X-axis and in columns parallel to the Y-axis. A “complete row” refers to all puzzle pieces that have the same Y-coordinate but consecutively different X-coordinates (e.g. Y1 combined with A1, A2, A3 . . . A40). Accordingly, a “complete column” refers to all puzzle pieces that have the same X-coordinate but consecutively different Y-coordinates (e.g. X1 combined with A1, B1, C1 . . . Y1).

In a first preferred embodiment, either the X-coordinates in the respective complete rows or the Y-coordinates in the respective complete columns are indicated in a font size such that the corresponding indication is present on the back of each puzzle piece about 10 to about 50 times, thereby filling the entire available area.

In a further preferred embodiment, the respective complementary coordinate is indicated in the respective complete rows or columns in such a way that the corresponding information is present on the back of each puzzle piece about 2 to about 8 times and in particular about 3 to about 5 times and only fills part of the available area.

Furthermore, it is preferred that the font size and/or font weight of the one coordinate and the font size and/or font weight of the other coordinate differ by a factor of 1.5 to 5. For example, the same or different fonts can be used in font sizes 10 and 16.

Furthermore, it is advantageous to combine two or all three of the above embodiments.

The proposed embodiment solves the problem in a simple but comprehensive way. Compared to the prior art, printing the coordinates on the back of the puzzle pieces is much easier than, for example, assigning QR codes, especially when the puzzles contain 1000 or more pieces. It is also possible to find the puzzle immediately without further technical aids. The fun of playing is not diminished either, since the puzzle pieces are usually pre-sorted with the motif side facing up and the player only has to turn over individual puzzle pieces when they really don't know what to do. In addition, the specification of a coordinate system makes it possible to position the pieces quickly and reliably. At the same time, the way in which the back is printed with letters and numbers is simpler and safer from a manufacturing point of view.

The embodiment according to the invention does not distract the player from normal play. When presorting, the player fleetingly perceives a pattern filling the back of the individual puzzle pieces. Only when he consciously turns over a puzzle piece from the motif side to the back side during the game can he immediately recognize the coordinate information when looking at this back side, Jigsaw puzzles consist of puzzle pieces that usually have similar to identical sizes but are irregularly shaped. They have at least one recess and/or at least one protuberance that fit together in such a way that the puzzle pieces can be put together to form a pattern or—usually—a motif according to a template. Puzzles contain different puzzle pieces, namely those with one or two flat edges that form the edge and those with one, two, three or four recesses and one, two, three or 4 protuberances, whereby the sum of recesses and protuberances for the puzzle pieces that do not belong to the edge is usually 4, so that an optimal connection between the puzzle pieces is ensured.

It is essential for the proposed solution that the puzzle has a coordinate system, since this is the only way to ensure that the puzzle pieces are assigned securely. Various embodiments are possible here. One possibility is that the puzzle has to be inserted into a predefined frame that is either supplied or offered separately. This is a popular variant because it is easy and safe to put a puzzle that has been started aside and continue playing it later without the puzzle pieces that have been put together so far breaking apart again. In this case, the coordinate system can simply be printed on the frame.

For puzzles that have a larger number of pieces, the variant with a fixed frame is rather rare. In this case, the solution may be to print the coordinates on separate strips of paper, cardboard, plastic, metal or other material, which the player can then place on the edge of the puzzle to create a coordinate system.

The present solution is suitable for all two-dimensional puzzles that are preferably rectangular in shape and thus allow coordinates to be specified. Two-dimensional puzzles are those in which the puzzle pieces only have to be arranged in two dimensions. This also includes puzzles in which the puzzle pieces themselves not only have a length and width-corresponding to the X- and Y-axes-but also have a significant height and may have a relief, so that the finished puzzle itself appears three-dimensional.

Typically, the puzzles have 100 to 5,000 pieces. In principle, however, the invention can also be applied to larger puzzles with up to 48,000 pieces. The applicability of variant 1 (frame) decreases with the number of puzzle pieces, while the applicability of variant 2 (strip) increases with the number of puzzle pieces. In principle, the solution could also be transferred to three-dimensional puzzles, although the specification in a corresponding coordinate system would of course be much more complicated.

It has proven to be particularly simple and therefore advantageous to specify the coordinates on the X-axis with numbers and on the Y-axis with letters or vice versa. Accordingly, the puzzle pieces each have their corresponding coordinate on the back in the form of a letter and a number.

FIGS. 1 and 2 show, like an X-ray, patterns of a 1000-piece puzzle with coordinates printed on the back of the puzzle pieces. Each row of puzzle pieces is printed over the entire available area in several sequences with the respective letter that positions these pieces along the X-axis. The same applies to the columns, where the numbers that position the puzzle pieces along the Y-coordinate are also present multiple times on each piece. The size and thickness of the letters for the X-coordinate and numbers for the Y-coordinate are different, so that it is easy to distinguish between letters and numbers. Of course, the opposite is also possible.