Ultimate Puzzles Dogs 2 :

In Brief:
Ultimate Puzzles Dogs 2 is a jigsaw puzzle with each image laid out onto a 4 x 4 grid, with 16 square shaped puzzle pieces with no lugs that lock in place once placed correctly. There are seven images of cute looking dogs to solve that individually can easily be completed in less than two minutes.


You can see a video of game play HERE.

Introduction:
Ultimate Puzzles Dogs 2 is a continuation of the puzzle collections about different dogs.
Reference accessedHERE 6th September 2021.

The Game:
Ultimate Puzzles Dogs 2 is another one of those jigsaw puzzles from UniDen with square shaped puzzle pieces that have 'no' lugs. Unlike some of the earlier puzzles that only had four images to solve this version includes seven images. The theme for today's game is dogs.

We've had several of these types of puzzle games previously from the developer UniDen including Dogs, Cats, Cars 1, 2 & 3 as well as various counties including America, France, China & Japan plus a various countries puzzle. We've also been given puzzles about Nature, Nature 2, Animals 1, 2, 3 & 4 and Marine Life 1 & 2 . Uniden have also given us a few other non jigsaw puzzle games such as Knight's Tetris, Rockcar, Super Checkers, Rubix's Adventure and Legend of the Fallen Castle 1 & 2.

Each of the puzzles is made up of 16 square pieces. which are placed on a 4 x 4 grid i.e. 16 pieces. Most of the pieces are not oriented correctly, so you have to change their orientation by clicking on the piece with the left mouse button. Each click turns the piece clockwise 90 degrees; you can't turn them anti clockwise. To place a piece on the board use the left mouse button, grab then move to the grid section you think it belongs on. If it is correct it will lock in place; if it's the wrong place or you've not got the correct orientation it will move to a random place on the periphery of the jigsaws grid. The addition of rotating the pieces and also placing them in different places each time you attempt to complete the puzzle adds to the difficulty slightly. Also, some pieces will overlap at the start of each attempt and in some cases totally obscure one or more pieces. You can restart any of the puzzles at any time by clicking on the back arrow.

All the puzzles are relatively simple. An adult could easily complete the whole game in around 15 to 20 minutes at the very least. Personally, I think the developer's asking price over on Itch.io, of $5 per puzzle game is over-priced considering there are only seven puzzle images to solve and each puzzle is only a small 4 x 4 grid with 16 simple pieces. If all of the series were to be combined, it would seem a fairer price. That said, there are 'free' jigsaw programs available online that in my opinion are far better than today's jigsaw puzzle; (okay it's free today).

The giveaway team gave away a jigsaw puzzle called Infinite Jigsaw Puzzle on Feb 13th 2008 which allowed your own images to be added to the game; plus, it had several jigsaw shapes from complex lugged shapes to various geometric shapes (though no squares) and you could adjust the difficulty from around 25 pieces to over a thousand. You could also create categories to place your image as well. I've still got that puzzle and sometimes dip into it, with several hundred images added over the years since I've had it. I'd buy it from the original developer if I could find them (Media Research Group); basically as a thank you for such a great jigsaw game that I received for free and have had many hours of enjoyment from it over the intervening thirteen years.

Notes on Security
I scanned a zipped copy of the installed game and it found zero hits from 58 antimalware engines. The downloaded executable 'may' include some low level adware that only opens your browser to Falcoware's home page after the game has installed and places four shortcuts onto your desktop (which can be safely deleted once the game has installed). Once installed there are no other issues. The installation does not inject any malware into your system. When your browser is opened to Falcoware's home page when the game has been installed, it earns Falcoware games some money, part of which is given to the developer of the game for allowing the game to be given away free. You can see the results of the scan via the following link:

https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/6b32695ced8cb369bca9b816df61096cce02638fa3ebeaa596d83a3c5c866581/detection