In a Jigsaw Puzzle the player rebuilds a picture by placing its pieces on the board. You upload the picture (square, landscape or portrait all work), choose how many pieces it will have and the game cuts it into a grid. In every game the pieces appear shuffled in a tray and have to be dragged into place.

You can leave it as a plain puzzle or turn it into a quiz: with Piece quiz you assign a question to the pieces you choose, and each question pops up the moment its piece is placed on the board. With Final question, once the puzzle is complete a question about the picture appears and is answered letter by letter in boxes over it, in the style of the Riddle.

Piece questions work like the ones in a Quiz: single answer, multiple answers or written answer, with text, image and audio.

How it is played

Tray and board: the pieces wait in a horizontal tray above the board. It scrolls with a finger, by dragging with the mouse or with the Show previous pieces and Show more pieces arrows.
Placing a piece: drag it to the board and it snaps in when dropped near its cell. Dropping it on the wrong cell counts as a mistake (and costs a life if you have enabled them); dropping it outside the board sends it back to the tray with no penalty.
Guide image: by default a faded copy of the picture shows on the board for orientation. If you turn it off, only the grid lines remain.
Counter: the top shows how many pieces are in place (Pieces: 3 / 16).
With the keyboard: Enter picks up the piece, the arrow keys move it around the board and Enter drops it.
Ending: when the last piece snaps in, the puzzle completes with a short animation and, if you have set one up, the final question appears.

Examples of use

Early years and primary: assembling a picture is intuitive for children who do not yet read fluently; the questions can carry audio.
Natural sciences and geography: a map, an anatomy diagram or the water cycle, with a question on each part of the drawing.
Art history: a painting or a monument, with questions about the artist, the period and the details, and a final question to name the work.
Languages: a scene (the kitchen, the street, the farm) with the vocabulary of each element asked as its piece snaps in.
Corporate training: a process diagram, a safety plan or a product, piece by piece.

How to create a Jigsaw Puzzle with Ray

Click Create game.
Tell Ray you want a Jigsaw Puzzle and what it is about. The picture comes first: attach it in the chat, ask Ray to find one ("a puzzle of the solar system") or pick one from My Library.
Ray sets the picture and adjusts the number of pieces. By default the puzzle has no questions: Ray offers to add them and writes them when you ask ("put a question on every piece", "add five questions about the planets").
Ask for changes in the chat ("use fewer pieces", "add a final question", "change the picture") or fine-tune it by hand. When you are happy with it, publish it or ask Ray to publish it.

What you can ask Ray for in a Jigsaw Puzzle

Picture: to use the one you attach, to find one in the Educaplay image bank or to swap it for another.
Questions: how many you want and about what; if there are more questions than pieces, Ray raises the number of pieces and tells you. Each question is assigned to a piece.
Final question: a question about the picture with its answer ("add a final question: which planet is it?").
Puzzle options: the number of pieces, the guide image, and turning the piece quiz and the final question on or off.
Language and difficulty: the language of the content and the level of the questions (easy, medium, hard or a specific grade).
Images and audio in the questions: as in a Quiz, Ray can illustrate the questions and read the texts aloud. On the Basic and Advanced plans the generated voice is capped at 1,000 characters in total per account; on the Academic and Commercial plans it is unlimited.

Files as a source

Attach the picture you want to turn into a puzzle (PNG, JPEG, WEBP or GIF) and, if you want questions, the material to draw them from: a PDF (up to 50 pages), a Word, a PowerPoint, an Excel or a text. You can attach up to 3 files per message on the Basic plan and up to 10 on a paid plan, 10 MB each at most. You can also start from one of your games: ask in the chat ("make a Jigsaw Puzzle from my Quiz 'The solar system'") or use Create different game in the game menu, in My games; Ray reuses the questions and asks you for the picture or finds one.

How to create a Jigsaw Puzzle without Ray

Click Create game and choose Jigsaw Puzzle in the list of game types to open the blank editor.
Under Puzzle picture click Add image and upload it (up to 4096 × 4096 pixels and 2 MB) or pick it from My Library. Below it you will see the current grid, for example "16 pieces (4 × 4)"; the number of pieces is changed in Options.
If you want questions, turn on Piece quiz. Click a piece of the picture to add a question to it, or add the question and choose its piece in the selector ("Row 2, column 3"). Each question takes up to 250 characters and 1 to 6 answers of up to 200 characters; mark the correct one (or several) or make it a written answer.
If you want a Final question, turn it on and write the question (up to 250 characters) and its answer (up to 50). With Letter hints the player will be able to ask for letters of the answer in exchange for points.

You can add up to 48 questions, at most one per piece: if every piece already has one, raise the number of pieces in Options. To change the picture, remove it and upload another: the questions are kept and each one moves to the piece closest to the one it had. The areas of the picture the game trims to fit the grid are shaded in the editor.

Game options

Number of pieces: Few (9-12 pieces), Normal (15-21), Many (24-32) or Lots (35-48). The exact grid depends on the picture's aspect ratio. Normal by default.
Show guide image: shows a faded copy of the picture on the board to guide the player. On by default; turn it off to raise the difficulty.
Correct answer required to place a piece: only with Piece quiz. If the player gets a piece's question wrong, the piece goes back to the tray and the question must be answered again; the puzzle is not complete until every question is answered correctly. Off by default: the piece stays in place even on a wrong answer, and the question simply scores nothing.
Shuffle answers: answers change position in every game. On by default.
Case and accent sensitive: written answers (and the final question) must also match uppercase letters and accents. Off by default.
Lives: sets a maximum number of mistakes (5 by default once enabled). Dropping a piece on the wrong cell and getting a question wrong both count as mistakes. Off, attempts are unlimited.
Time limit: maximum time to complete the whole game (300 seconds by default once enabled; between 10 and 999). Off by default.

With an Advanced plan you can remove the ads, add a background image, change the visibility (Public or Hidden), set up player identification (Optional or Required), hide elements of the interface (Ranking, Restart, Social networks or Correct answers) and add a custom final message.

With an Academic plan you can restrict the visibility to your guests or to the integrations you create (Google Classroom, Moodle, Canvas…), and leave the game with no player identification.

With a Commercial plan you can also customise the game with your logo and corporate footer, choose the colours and hide the Educaplay brand.

Information and publishing

The game details are no longer on a separate tab: they live in the Edit header, above the content. There you see the game type icon and, below it, the Title and the Description, which you edit by typing straight into them (Ray generates them automatically; if you created the game without Ray, you write them yourself). Under the description is the classification row, with a drop-down for each detail: Language (the language of the game interface: you can present it to your players in any of the 27 available, regardless of the language of the content), Education level and, once you choose one, Subject; Knowledge area; Recommended age (only if you set no education level); and the Labels field, so your game is easier to find from the search engine. The header can be collapsed with the button in its corner: collapsed, it shows the title, the description on one line and a summary of the classification with a More link to expand it again. If you work with Ray, the game card in the chat has those same drop-downs, and you can also ask Ray for the changes ("set it to primary level", "change the title").

In the right-hand side menu you have Options (game options, privacy and design), Preview to check everything is as you like, Help with this guide and Publishing, where you see what is still missing before publishing (you can also tweak the title and description there) and press Publish game. For a Jigsaw Puzzle, Publishing warns you if the picture is missing, if a question is incomplete or has no piece, or if the final question has no answer.

Frequently asked questions

How is it scored?

A game is worth 100 points, split equally between the blocks the game has: the pieces, the piece questions (if any) and the final question (if any). Within each block every piece or question is worth the same: full value if solved at the first try, half with one mistake, a quarter with two and nothing from the third on. In the final question, each letter hint costs points.

What happens if I drop a piece in the wrong place?

It counts as a mistake for that piece: its value drops and, if you have enabled Lives, one is lost. If the piece is dropped outside the board it goes back to the tray with no consequences.

What happens if I get a piece's question wrong?

It depends on the Correct answer required to place a piece option. Off, the piece stays in place and the question scores nothing. On, the piece goes back to the start of the tray and has to be placed and answered again.

How does the game end?

When all the pieces are placed and the last question (or the final question, if there is one) is answered, when the lives run out if you have enabled them, or when the time limit runs out.

How many pieces should I use?

Between 9 and 12 pieces for the youngest players, 15 to 21 for most cases, and over 24 for detailed puzzles or for adults. If you plan to add many questions, remember that each one needs its own piece.

Which pictures work best?

A sharp picture with elements spread across the whole surface and no large flat areas, so each piece stands out. The game trims it to the grid; in the editor you will see the trimmed areas shaded.

Can I change the picture after writing the questions?

Yes. Remove the picture and upload another: the questions are kept and each one moves to the piece closest to the one it had. In the chat, just ask Ray to change it.

Can I print it?

Yes. The paper version includes the board with the cutting lines (and the guide image, if it is on), a page with the pieces to cut out, the questions numbered with their piece number and the final question with one box per letter. You will find it under Download on the game page.

What do I see in Reports?

Besides the usual data, the Jigsaw Puzzle report shows the placement mistakes by piece over the picture itself, coloured by the percentage of games with a mistake on each piece, and the pieces and questions with the most mistakes. Without a quiz, the main figure is the number of completed puzzles. More details in Reports.

Can it be played on a phone?

Yes. On a phone or tablet you press and hold the piece, drag it to its cell and release; the tray scrolls with a finger. The board adapts to the screen size.

Can I change the language of the game interface?

Yes. In the Edit header you can choose from the 27 available languages: Afrikaans, Aragonese, Asturian, Basque, Catalan, Chinese, Czech, Dutch, English, Estonian, French, Galician, German, Greek, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Ukrainian. The interface language is independent of the language of the game content.

Which features require a paid plan?

With the Advanced plan you remove the ads, add a background image, manage visibility and player identification, hide interface elements and add a final message. With the Academic plan you can also restrict access to your guests or your integrations (Google Classroom, Moodle, Canvas…). With the Commercial plan you customise the game with your logo and corporate colours and hide the Educaplay brand.