Challenging jigsaw puzzles to keep you entertained for hours

You'll be set for days.
You'll be set for days. (Mor THIAM via Unsplash/)

Jigsaw puzzles have become increasingly popular as meditative, mindful activities—much like filling in coloring books or baking bread. If your current collection feels too easy, and you’re up for a challenge—or if you’re looking for a puzzle you can leave out on your coffee table to enjoy over time—look no further than these picks.

A vivid teal and fuchsia choice.
A vivid teal and fuchsia choice. (Amazon/)

This challenging gradient puzzle goes from a saturated teal to a bright fuchsia, with pops of white on the edges. The high quality pieces make this a great one to assemble more than once, if you can bear taking it apart once it’s done. It’s also worth checking out BetterCo.‘s entire line—they’re all fairly difficult with a range of gradients in different colors, along with a few planet themed puzzles.

For a full color spectrum.
For a full color spectrum. (Amazon/)

This round puzzle ratchets up the difficulty with a gradient that features the entire rainbow. Perfect for fans of color theory, this puzzle overlaps different colors—like a complicated Venn diagram—to create a full spectrum. It’s a great choice for groups, since the puzzle has no “right side up” or particular orientation needed to assemble it.

Pieces are dotted like in a comic book.
Pieces are dotted like in a comic book. (Amazon/)

Clemens Habicht is one of the first brands to have manufactured the gradient puzzle, and this version of it is one of the most difficult. Pieces are dotted in comic book style—the pieces cohere into a single color from a distance, but have a “vibrating” look up close.

This one’s entirely a single color.
This one’s entirely a single color. (Amazon/)

Ravensburger’s Krypt puzzle is known for being notoriously difficult, thanks to pieces being entirely in one color. To assemble it, you have to rely on the unique shape of the pieces which form nested circles and rectangles—starting with a circle in the center. Like all Ravensburger puzzles, Krypt is high quality, with durable pieces that gently click together so that you know when you’ve put something in correctly (a necessity when the puzzle has no image).