Odd Pieces: Beyond the Kelp Review

boardgamequest.com:

One of my favorite pastimes growing up was working on a jigsaw puzzle with family, and even now it’s a popular activity to bring with us on vacations as a way to casually spend some time chatting around the table. This company takes that experience and adds a fun twist by incorporating story and mystery into the mix once the puzzle is finished.

Odd Pieces is a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle experience for any number of players that takes a few hours to complete. The best experience is with 4 players for a more comfortable time around a standard dining table.

With Odd Pieces, the image on the box is not exactly what you build. Inside the box, you’ll find a list of clues that help you piece the puzzle together, so it keeps your brain engaged! At the end of the experience is a secret envelope to reveal the ultimate twist behind the story. Every box has 1000 puzzle pieces, mini comic book, a hidden clue checklist, and a secret envelope tailored to the box theme.

I had the pleasure of playing Beyond the Kelp, splashing into a world under the sea where creatures flow through their lives day in and day out. This theme stood out to me most as I love underwater scenes and wanted to get a good look at the artist’s take on the biome. The art thankfully did not disappoint and it honestly created an even greater challenge from the jigsaw perspective.

Some patterns in jigsaw puzzles can be easy to discern but Beyond the Kelp has so many repeat patterns scattered throughout the image that you can get pieces mixed up, spending extra time being convinced that they belong in one place but only later realizing it was under your nose somewhere else the entire time. The default size for Odd Pieces is 1000-pieces so you need to be prepared to give up one of your tables at home for this task unless your plan is to attack this with multiple people in one sitting.

Odd Pieces goes out of its way to include artist profiles, which share details about how they personally relate to the story in the