3D Magna Jigsaw Puzzle

The 3D Magna Puzzle™ is a jigsaw puzzle made up of uniformly square pieces that are magnetized and come in a metal tin that doubles as a playing surface on which to assemble the puzzle. Though it is a flat puzzle, the 3D Magna Puzzle™ uses lenticular imagery to give the image the illusion of depth as well as movement. The puzzle is lightweight and since it's self-contained, magnetic and compact, the 3D Magna Puzzle™ can be assembled anywhere, making it a good way to pass the time while travelling.

The 3D Magna Puzzle™ is a jigsaw puzzle with 64 magnetic pieces that are all the same size and uniformly square. They come in a metal box which doubles as a playing surface on which to assemble them. The 3D Mini Magna Puzzle™ (sampled in this review) has 16 pieces.

The 3D Magna Puzzle™ uses lenticular printing to create a hologram-type image. The effect tricks the brain into thinking it can see past an object with one eye but not with the other, so that some parts of the resulting image seem to appear in front of others. Initially, I found looking at the puzzle made me dizzy. Other players concurred. However, once we became accustomed to it, dizziness was no longer a problem during solving sessions.

The puzzle looks deceptively easy to solve, especially at first glance. However, the 3D Mini Magna Puzzle™ is actually very challenging for a 16-piece puzzle. Since the pieces are square, they fit together but don't interlock and may need to be rotated for proper assembly. Also, the metal assembly tray shows a scrambled image, so it can't be used as a guide to piece together the puzzle. Further adding to the challenge is the fact that the lenticular printing makes the image appear differently depending on the rotation of the individual pieces. The added bonus in these puzzles is that they can be solved multiple times by the same player without losing their play value. It can be just a challenging to solve it for the fifth time as the first.

The 16-piece 3D Mini Magna Puzzle™ is lightweight, measuring only 7"x7". The 64-piece 3D Magna Puzzle™ measures 10"x10". Since it's self-contained, lightweight, magnetic and compact, it can be assembled anywhere, making it a fun way to pass the time during a long trip or a good distraction during annoying commercials that interrupt our TV programs. This puzzle has great play value at a reasonable price.