Launch Puzzles Reveal Week 2 — Armenia Pack
This week, we’re happy to announce the “Armenia Pack”, a pack of puzzles featuring some of the beautiful cultural heritage sites from around Armenia!
This puzzle pack was created with Photogrammetry scans by our own team-members David Finsterwalder, Azad Balabanian, and Valerio Rizzo back in 2017.
The Armenia Pack includes the following five puzzles:
- Garni Temple
- Khor Virap Monastery
- Fortress of Amberd
- Geghard Monastery
- Tatev Monastery (a remastered classic puzzle!)
Location Background
Armenia is located in an ancient part of the world, the Caucasus, nestled just north of the fertile crescent of Mesopotamia. Armenia and its surroundings have been settled-in for thousands of years and features a unique Armenian Apostolic architecture as well as inspirations from the cultures and empires surrounding it.
The Temple of Garni is a 2000 year old Greco-Roman temple most likely built by King Tiridates I of Armenia in the first century AD for the sun god Mihr. In 1679 AD, during a large earthquake, the Temple collapsed and remained so for a few centuries until it was reconstructed in the mid-20th century. The puzzle features the interior and the exterior of the temple as well as the surrounding landscape and ruins.
The Khor Virap (meaning, deep dungeon) Monastery is a Armenian Orthodox Monastery built around the story of St. Gregory the Illuminator, who in the 4th century AD was imprisoned in the dungeon for 14 years by King Tiridates III. As the story goes, for 14 years, St. Gregory survived his imprisonment in the dungeon and became the King’s religious mentor, proselytizing the King and spreading Christianity to Armenia, converting from Zoroastrianism. The puzzle features St. Gregory’s dungeon, the chapel built around the dungeon, as well as the monastery surrounding the chapel.
The Fortress of Amberd (meaning “fortress in the clouds”) is a 10th century fortress city built on the slopes of Mt. Aragats at 2,300m (7,500ft). The location has a history of being a fortified location for centuries, dating back to the Stone and Bronze Ages. The fortress featured in the puzzle was built by the Armenian Noble House of Pahlavuni in 1026, captured by the Seljiq Turks in the 1070s, recaptured by an Armenian-Georgian cooliation a century later, and finally destroyed by the Mongols in the year 1236. It remained as ruins for centuries until the 20th century, when excavations and reconstruction efforts began.
The Geghard Monastery (meaning, “monastery of the Spear”) is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, founded in the 4th century AD by St. Gregory the Illuminator originally as Ayrivank (meaning, the monastery of the cave). This unique monastery features multiple chapels carved within the caves of the mountain that it’s built upon, creating a maze of rooms and tunnels between various chapels built across centuries. The puzzle includes a segment of the exterior of the monastery, the many interior cave-carved chapels, as well as the Khachkar wall (stone-cross wall), a unique characteristic of Medieval Christian Armenian art.
Last but certainly not least, the Tatev Monastery, the site of the very first puzzle in the publicly released prototype of Puzzling Places! Built in the 9th century, the monastery became a university with a focus in science, religion, philosophy, and the development of illuminated manuscripts (detailed reproductions of the Bible with calligraphy and accompanying painted visuals). The puzzle features the exquisite exterior of the monastery, the interior of the church, as well as a number of little chambers.
Puzzle Creation Story
Back in 2017, our CTO David Finsterwalder accompanied Azad Balabanian (a friend of the company at the time) on a trip he had planned to Armenia in order to capture ancient Armenian heritage. Over the course of two and a half weeks, equipped with 2 DSLRs and 3 drones, David and Azad traveled throughout the country and captured 7 different sites with Photogrammetry.
Over the course of the following few months, the Photogrammetry data was painstakingly processed by Valerio Rizzo to create the 3D models that were used for the puzzles today.
However, for the next few years, the scans from Armenia remained in our hard-drives, never really seeing the light of day until of course, we started developing Puzzling Places. When the game was still in very early development, we were looking for fun but challenging Photogrammetry models to use to create puzzles with and so naturally, the Tatev Monastery became one of the very first puzzles for our game.
Next Week’s Puzzle Pack Reveal
Next week’s announcement will be a big one because it will most likely include reveal details about the game’s launch. We’re getting very close!
Which puzzle pack will we be revealing next week? Here’s a tip: it features a beautiful piece of the French Atlantic Coast!
About Puzzling Places
Puzzling Places is a relaxing and wholesome 3D jigsaw puzzle game where players put together hyper-realistic miniatures of beautiful places from around the globe.
With a meditative and calm atmosphere, the game focuses on achievable challenges and a tangible feeling of progression and completion. With every piece puzzled, each “place” slowly comes to life with an immersive and serene soundscape and visuals.
Puzzling Places is a modern take on an age-old pastime that’s fun for the whole family, thanks to its simple rules and easy controls.
Puzzling Places is currently under development and planned to be released for Oculus Quest & Quest 2 this autumn as well as on PlayStation VR this winter.
Follos us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook to stay up to date with the developments of the game. Join our Discord community to participate to give feedback to the developers!
