PogoTips.com - Jigsaw Detective

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Jigsaw Detective

Game awards

Disappearing Act September 2004	Lost Soul October 2004
That Lady is a Man November 2004	Who Canned Christmas December 2004
Death by Darjeeling January 2005	Bit and Run February 2005
A Day at the Races March 2005	The Mobster's Ball April 2005
The Lucky Cat May 2005	Gone to the Dogs June 2005
The Headless Holiday July 2005	The Missing Watchmaker August 2005
Monkey Business September 2005	The Case of the Missing Keys October 2005
The Disoriented Express November 2005	Easy as Cake December 2005
Tailing My Own Tail January 2006	The Art of Framing February 2006
Stakeout March 2006	Mouse in a Maze April 2006
Case of the Lost Gino May 2006	The Last Precious Thing June 2006
Rest and Relaxation July 2006	Mind She Came From August 2006
Living Light Bulb September 2006	The Doggie Spa October 2006
The Hero Within November 2006	Tex Carter Lives December 2006
Cat Burglar January 2007	Bifocal Foible February 2007
Trendy Boot Caper March 2007	Freud's Liver April 2007
Very Good Housekeeping May 2007	A Faire Caper June 2007
The Re-Gifter July 2007	The Vanishing Moth August 2007
The Sickly Orchid September 2007	The Persistent Snakes October 2007
The Summer Storms November 2007	The Dainty Elephant December 2007
The Missing Helmet January 2008	The Flighty Librarian February 2008
The Irish Musician March 2008	It's All Greek to Me April 2008
Norwegian Wall May 2008	The Missing Dentist June 2008
Golden Peaches July 2008	Thorny Relations August 2008
Coyote's Eyes September 2008	Office Romance October 2008
The Crafty Fiance November 2008	Family Business December 2008
Under Pressure January 2009	Prodigal Son February 2009
Golden Years March 2009	Something Rotten April 2009
Whither Art Thou? May 2009	The Imperfect Storm June 2009
The Scottish Case July 2009	The Colliding Cases August 2009
Rabbit Hunt September 2009	Old Debts October 2009
Ultimate Mystery November 2009

Challenge badges

None at this time

Premium badges

Just Relax
(animated)
Relax and Play book
Solve 10 puzzles

Caught a Clue
(animated)
Play to Win book
Solve one puzzle on Medium or Hard in 15 minutes or less

Mix & Match

Pogo Alley EXPIRED
(animated)
Mix & Match (thru 11/14/07)
Solve 5 puzzles in one hour

Piece-by-Piece EXPIRED
Mix & Match (thru 11/14/07)
Solve one puzzle on Hard difficulty in 20 minutes or less

Spike Noir EXPIRED
Mix & Match (thru 12/9/08)
Solve 20 puzzles

Pulp Detective EXPIRED
Mix & Match (thru 5/12/09)
Solve a puzzle on Medium difficulty in 20 minutes or less

Detective Agency
Mix & Match (thru 9/7/10)
Solve 15 puzzles

Badge tips

Be aware of the 15 minute time limit for Caught a Clue, the 20 minute time limit for Piece-by-Piece and Pulp Detective, and the one hour time limit for Pogo Alley!

Also be sure to select Medium or Hard difficulty for Caught a Clue, Hard for Piece-by-Piece, and Medium for Pulp Detective!

You don't have to do the "assigned" puzzle. If you prefer to choose which puzzle to solve, click the Change Puzzle matchbook and scroll through til you find the one you want to do. After a jackpot spin, select Back to Menu to choose again. Note you'll only be able to select puzzles you've previously completed at least once. You do have to do the five clue puzzles for each case.

If you play on Medium or Hard difficulty, you can switch to Easy for the clue puzzles without losing progress. After solving the clue puzzle, switch back to the difficulty level you prefer.

For faster badges, do the same puzzle (or the same few) over & over. The more familiar you become with it, the faster you'll be able to finish each time.

For fastest badges, put puzzles together on Medium. Then just after you drop in the final piece, quickly change the difficulty setting to Hard and you'll get credit for having done the whole puzzle on Hard, and you'll move up the progress bar faster. Note there's no guarantee this glitch will continue to work.

Game tips

ALWAYS read a game's How to Play, and also check for a Hints or Tips tab and/or Tutorial. They do help!

If you put the border together first, you can use the magnet tool to drag all the pieces in the top drawer to the bottom edge of the drawer. Then close the drawer almost all the way, so the pieces in it are just accessible. Then you can grab pieces from the top and work in the bottom without having to keep opening & closing the drawer.

Be careful if you put the entire interior section together in the drawer, as the completed block sometimes gets "lost" when you drag it down to the bottom/border area.

More about Jigsaw Detective

You don't have to read the stories if you don't want to - they have no bearing on the game at all.

New Jigsaw cases are released the first of each month.. actually, they're usually ready the evening of the last day of the month.

This was the only Pogo game with a Game Award every month until Word Search Daily was upgraded.

New puzzle pictures were only added to Jigsaw Detective once. I think everyone who completes each monthly challenge agrees that we need more new puzzles!

An extremely similar game, Jigsaw Treasure Hunter, was released in August 2008.

This game was released later than planned. Cases #1 and #2 are dated September and October 2004 respectively, but the game came out in November 2004 with Cases #1, #2 and #3 at once.

This game has a serious programming error that Pogo has acknowledged for ages, but doesn't seem inclined to fix. If you play on Hard level, you'll often never get the clue puzzle when your progress bar says you should. When you eventually give up and refresh the room or enter another, your progress is reset to several puzzles back. Unless you're just putting together puzzles for fun, it's best to avoid playing on Hard.

The puzzle photos are all locations around the San Francisco Bay Area.

The puzzle called Treasure Island isn't included in the "filmstrip" of available puzzles to select from - it just shows up now & then. (Actually it's a photo of Yerba Buena Island.. Treasure Island is just to the left and not visible in this shot.)

At one point this game had a glitch that involved using certain keystrokes with the magnet tool which allowed puzzles to be put together very quickly. This glitch was long ago fixed/removed.

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