Guide
How to Play a Jigsaw Puzzle
A jigsaw puzzle is a picture cut into interlocking pieces. Sort them, build the border, fit neighbours together into connected groups, and rebuild the whole image.
Play a jigsaw puzzleThe objective
Rebuild the picture from its pieces
A jigsaw puzzle is one picture cut into many interlocking pieces. The pieces start scattered face-up on a table. You win when every piece has been joined so the whole image is whole again.
Between the scatter and the finish, the work is looking and fitting: reading colour, pattern, and the shape of each piece's tabs and blanks, and bringing the right pieces together. There is no timer forcing your hand — the clock only measures how long the solve took.
The game is free, runs in the browser, and needs no account. Open the table when you want to play; use this guide for the controls, the piece counts, and the habits that solve a puzzle faster.
The setup
A picture, a piece count, a scattered table
On the start screen you choose a picture — one of the built-in artworks or a photo from your device — and a piece count from 12 to 100. The image is cut into a grid that is fitted to its shape so the pieces stay close to square, then spread across a table larger than the screen.
A dashed frame in the middle marks where the finished picture goes. The pieces are scattered around it, and you can pan and zoom the table freely at any time without disturbing anything.
Controls
Drag, pan, zoom
Every method moves the same pieces. Pick whichever fits the device in your hand.
Everywhere
Drag to move
Press on a piece and drag it anywhere on the table. Drag a connected group by any of its pieces. Drag empty table to pan the view. On a phone it is all one-finger touch.
On-screen buttons
Zoom and preview
Plus and minus (or the scroll wheel) zoom the table. Preview shows the finished picture in a panel; the ghost toggle lays a faint version of the picture under the board as a placement guide.
Desktop
Keyboard
P toggles the preview, G toggles the ghost image, S scatters the loose pieces, plus and minus zoom, 0 resets the view, N starts a new puzzle, and M mutes the sound. Every on-screen control has a visible focus ring.
The loop
Four steps you repeat all game
Choosing a picture, spreading the pieces, fitting neighbours, and merging groups is the whole game.
- 1
Pick a picture and a piece count
Choose one of the built-in artworks or upload a photo from your device, then set how many pieces you want — 12 for a quick warm-up, 100 for a proper sitting. The picture is cut into interlocking pieces and scattered face-up across the table.
- 2
Move pieces around the table
Drag any piece with the mouse or a finger. Drag the empty table to pan, and use the zoom buttons or the scroll wheel to move in close or see the whole board. Nothing is on a timer until you make your first move.
- 3
Fit neighbours together
Bring two pieces that belong side by side close to each other in the right orientation. When they line up, they snap together with a click and from then on move as one connected group. Groups join other groups the same way.
- 4
Rebuild the whole picture
Assemble the border, grow clusters inward, and keep merging groups until every piece is joined into a single picture. The clock stops the moment the last piece connects, and your time is saved as the best for that puzzle and piece count.
Rules
How pieces, groups, and aids work
The objective
Reassemble the scattered pieces into the complete picture. The puzzle is solved the instant the final piece joins the last group so that every piece belongs to one connected whole.
How pieces connect
Two pieces connect only if they are true neighbours in the original picture and you bring them close together roughly in line. A correct match snaps with a click; a wrong pairing simply will not stick.
Connected groups
Once pieces snap together they form a group that moves as a unit. Dragging any piece of a group drags all of it, and a group can snap onto another group, so progress compounds as the picture grows.
Orientation
Pieces never rotate in this version — every piece is already the right way up. Solving is about position, colour, and the shape of the tabs and blanks, not about turning pieces.
Aids and view
The preview panel, the faint ghost under the board, pan, and zoom are always available and never counted against you. Scatter re-spreads the loose pieces without touching anything already joined.
Piece counts
12 to 100 pieces
The only setting is how finely the picture is cut. Pick it on the start screen; best times are kept separately for each count.
- 01 · A few minutes
Small — 12 to 24 pieces
Large pieces and a picture that comes together fast. Good for a short break, for playing with a young child, or for learning how the snapping and grouping feel before committing to a bigger board.
- 02 · Ten to twenty minutes
Medium — 48 pieces
The balance point. Enough pieces that sorting by colour and building the border matters, few enough that you can hold the whole picture in your head. The default for most players.
- 03 · Half an hour or more
Large — 96 to 100 pieces
Small pieces, long stretches of similar colour, and real satisfaction when a region finally closes up. Use the preview and ghost when you need them, and expect to come back to it more than once.
Common mistakes
What slows a solve down
Starting in the middle
Diving straight into the centre with no frame to build against means every piece is floating. Close the border first so the interior has edges to grow from.
Not sorting first
Hunting through every loose piece for each connection is slow. A minute spent grouping pieces by colour or feature pays for itself many times over.
Forcing a near-match
If two pieces look close but will not snap, they are not neighbours. Trust the snap — pushing pieces around hoping one sticks just scatters your progress.
Zooming all the way in
Working at maximum zoom hides the pieces sitting just off-screen that you need. Pull back regularly to see the whole table and re-sort.
- Build the border first — edge pieces have at least one flat side and frame the whole picture.
- Sort loose pieces into rough piles by colour or by an obvious feature before you try to connect anything.
- Attack small, distinctive regions — a bright sign, a face, a patch of flowers — where only a few pieces could possibly fit.
- Leave big areas of near-identical colour, like sky or water, until you can place them by shape and position.
- Use the preview to settle a specific question, then close it; solving mostly from memory is faster than constant checking.
- Turn on the ghost image when a region has no colour clues — it shows roughly where a piece belongs.
- Pick a piece count that fits the time you actually have; a finished 24-piece puzzle beats an abandoned 100.
Where you can play
Same game on phone and desktop
playjigsawpuzzle.app runs in any modern browser with no app to install. Progress stays on the device you played on, and photos you use never leave it.
Desktop browsers
Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari all run the puzzle with no plugin. Drag pieces with the mouse, scroll to zoom, drag the background to pan, and use the keyboard shortcuts for preview, ghost, scatter, and mute.
Phones and tablets
The table is touch-first. Drag pieces and pan with one finger, zoom with the on-screen buttons, and open the preview from the toolbar. The board and its controls stay on one screen in portrait, and starting over is instant.
Your photos stay on your device
When you build a puzzle from your own picture, the file is read and cut into pieces entirely in your browser. It is never uploaded, stored on a server, or sent anywhere.
Progress on this device
Best time per puzzle and piece count, puzzles completed, and total pieces placed live in local browser storage. They stay until you reset them or clear site data, and they do not sync between devices.
Still stuck on something? Read the jigsaw puzzle FAQ or jump in and play.
Play a jigsaw puzzle free