Gen Con 2025: My First Speed Puzzling Adventure with "Disney Lorcana"

While at Gen Con this year, I got a chance to try something I’ve never done before: speed puzzling. Yes, much to my jealous wife’s chagrin, I was able to participate in a casual but competitive speed puzzling event hosted by Ravensburger. Specifically, this event was meant to celebrate the impending launch of six new Disney Lorcana puzzles.

To get started, we were divided into teams representing the Lorcana ink colors. I was on Team Amethyst alongside Patrick and Monica of the Lorcana Duo. Since most of us invited to this event were new to the world of speed puzzling, each team was given a ringer of sorts. That’s right, joining each team was someone who participated in the national speed puzzling championships. Our captain was Nick (AKA @Jigsology).

Looking at the art for the six Lorcana puzzles announced, we had a few favorites we thought would be slightly easier to tackle. Alas, the puzzle we’d be tackling was the one we figured would be the most difficult: Amber. Regardless, when we got the word “Go!," we jumped in with confidence.

As our team captain instructed us, the first thing we did upon opening the bag was make sure that every single piece was facing upwards. At the same time, as you can probably guess, we also set aside the edge pieces as we found them. With these steps completed, each of us chose a “project" to take on, such as a character or specific element of the puzzle we thought we’d be good at compiling.

What caught my eye first was Mulan and her distinct dress. So, I set off finding all of the pieces I could. Of course, with this being a team effort, we quickly learned that communication is key. Thus, we were regularly sharing pieces we found and handing them off to whomever was working on that project. Sometimes we’d even find elements we could set aside for future projects, which was helpful.

In the end, the 90 minutes we were allotted for this challenge flew by! This is to say that, unfortunately, we didn’t get a chance to actually finish the puzzle. But, on the bright side, no other team did either. And while I was proud of our showing, it was team Sapphire that took the gold.

Even though I was disappointed that we fell short, I have to say that my first speed puzzling experience was a blast! Clearly Ravensburger is aware of how entertaining (and potentially addicting) this activity can be as they’re set to bring speed puzzling fun to Destination D23 later this month.

By the way, once I returned home, my wife was all too excited to show me how it's done by completing the puzzle that Ravensburger gifted me. While it took her a bit longer than 90 minutes, she did it solo — and still did it fairly quickly. Clearly I need her on my team next time.

Even if you can’t make it to a speed puzzle event, you can check out the new Disney Lorcana puzzles for yourself. The Steel and Amethyst puzzles will arrive at Disney Store and Disney Parks on August 29th while the other four will hit store shelves nationwide on September 1st.