The Bizarre Bookshop II (Ravensburger, 1000 pieces): anyone else solve the sorting dilemma this way?
I finally finished The Bizarre Bookshop II (1000 pieces, Ravensburger) over a long weekend, and it turned out to be more of a brain reset than I expected. I'm a college student and usually reach for quick phone games between classes, but this time I wanted something that felt like progress without notifications or ads dragging me away.
My normal approach is to sort by color, but this puzzle refused to cooperate. The picture is busy: lots of tiny items, similar browns, and the same dark outlines everywhere. I kept grabbing the same five wrong pieces and getting stuck.
What actually worked was making a few weird categories: anything with readable text, anything that looked like a book spine edge (those thin parallel lines), and a pile for bright, odd little trinkets. Once I had that foothold I built the shelving sections as chunks and connected them afterward, which felt satisfying.
Curious what other people do for puzzles where the colors are all muddied and outlines repeat. Do you sort by shape or texture, or just accept the chaos and brute force it?