Puzzle Description:

A Map of the United States of America, omitting Alaska, Hawaii, and a few tiny states.

#1: Mark Conger (aruba) on May 22, 2004

Great Salt Lake? It's pretty big. Nice job!

Very nice.

That's a very good job.

That's a very impressive depiction. Great puzzle.

I remember having a lot of fun drawing this one. I wanted as many of the states to have their recognizable shapes as possible, even if I had to distort them to do it, so, for example, New Mexico has to have it's bump, even though it really ought to be invisible at this scale. But the distortions had to be done so that the states would still fit together without gaps, and so the overall outline of the map would still match people's idea of what the United States looks like. It took a lot of fiddling to get it to work out, and more to make it solve. Some states lost out. Ohio doesn't look a bit like Ohio, and Arkansas is even worse. New Hampshire and Vermont got conglomerated, as did Connecticut and Rhode Island. New Jersey and Maryland are just a pixel each. But what the heck, the overall efrect is OK.

very good job!!

I was 25% finished with the puzzle, ready to drop it because it looked like nonsense, before I realized what I was looking at. Then I said, WOW! and happily finished it.

You did an amazing job!

Absolutely recognizable! Wonderful job. Was about 2 columns across when I figured out what I thought I was looking at. Excellent job!

I did this on a recommendation by Sarah Andrews and I'm so glad I did!
Nice job Jan! Well thought out and fun as well.
Thank you. ^>^

This puzzle is so excellent. It's in my Top Ten absolute favorites!

This could have been a lot easier than it ended up being. Good job!

New England is really a mess, not your best ...

Wow - what a great puzzle. Thank you for the time and effort it must have taken.

god bless the U.S.A.

I started this puzzle had about four of the blobs and I was thinking to myself "What a mess!" But one the "blobs" was the very recognizable Idaho shape and guessing from its position in the grid I knew it had to be the US. From then on the puzzle was very enjoyable. Nice puzzle!

holy cow! great job! I'm impressed that you managed to get suck amazing detail out of such a small puzzle!

sometimes typo's are so fuuny

Yeah-- that one made me laugh too!

Lol...I had to look for the typo a long time since it was suth a hard one to find!

BTW...I totally and wholeheartedly agree with all the praise for this puzzle and the puzzlemaker. Kudos!

Ah, what fun this one was - when the blobs suddenly became recognizable! That obviously took a lot of planning and work. Jan, I'm glad I found this on the Best list. It is one of my favorites.

great job! Jan- you mentioned that Maryland and New Jersey bEcame one pixel each. as i look at it I see New Jersey and Deleware as one pixel each and Maryland missing altogether. Or is it that Maryland has been 'absorbed' by Virginia? anyway...i figure Maryland went the way of New Hampshire and Rhode Island and melted together with their neighbors.

Don't get me wrong...I LOVE THIS PUZZLE! the image is amazing for the size! i only knit-pick because i live in New England and travel to Baltimore Maryland frequently.

GREAT JOB

Totally, totally kewl

I think you made Delaware too big.

When I first opened this puzzle I did one of my heavy sighs because, judging from the nature of the clues, I couldn't believe that Jan would've done a pattern puzzle. The further I got in solving it the more amazed I became. Very nice job!

Jan, this is probably one of my favorite puzzles. I love it!

Incredible! I am amazed that you could do this.

You did an amazing job. I live in the Southeast, and it's really recognizable!

excellent rendition for such a small space. absolutely fun to solve. one of the best. (i'm glad i live in colorado)

finally got around to this one, Jan
cool

Very nice. I live in the white space that represents the Puget Sound.

Brilliant!

It's fun to see the earlier puzzles that Kristen is doing. I've forgotten some of them -- not this one though because it's so good.

I absolutely love this puzzle. I often don't try to figure out what I'm solving but this time it hit me early on. I can't believe anyone would nitpick about any part of it. (Someone may nitpick about the spelling of nitpick but spell checker likes it--right or wrong.) I'd love to see someone do better in the same size puzzle. :) I couldn't even come close. I'm amazed.

It's definitely amazing for the size. I got about 2 states in from the west coast and suddenly realized what it was.

This is a great puzzle, Jan! Thanks!

Found this in the randomizer. When it came up, I was afraid it was going to be one of those nightmare mishmashes of color that looked like a rainbow barfed on the screen. Then I saw who made the puzzle and knew it was worth doing. Jan has an established reputation as a great puzzle maker in my opinion, so I had to try it. The end result is really cool. Very well made, of course, and I enjoyed the tour of the US map that he made for us to enjoy years after its release.

New England - should have been able to fix that with one more vertical row.

Normally love your puzzles, but have to give this one lowest marks for the mess that is the Northeast. Maybe slightly larger scale and this would have been on elf my favorites.

Oh well.

I think you are a bit outvoted here Steve. Out of all of the comments made only two of you don't like it.

Awesome

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