Gaia 3D Jigsaw Puzzle Screensaver for Windows

It seems like many years since massive CRTs dominated the desktop display market, not to mention the desktop: anything over 17 inches was a sure hernia, and 21 inches was the practical limit. But what many people remember is screensavers, which were as important as Flash is today, and critical for preventing burn-in. Not only are screensavers still with us in the LCD era, they're better than ever, even if they're no longer needed much for their original mission. That's OK, because they have a new one, and that's to place something visually interesting on all those widescreen LCDs that are everywhere, now that they're light, cheap, and huge. Which brings us to Gaia 3D Jigsaw Puzzle Screensaver.

Gaia 3D Jigsaw Puzzle Screensaver assembles an attractive picture jigsaw puzzle against a background of slowly shifting colors. The pieces fall into place one by one as the puzzle rotates. Imagine watching your lunch go round and round on the microwave platter as you peer through the glass: That's puzzle field's viewing angle, and pretty close to its rotational speed, too. It takes its time, but it doesn't seem sluggish, just smooth and steady. The effect is actually relaxing; another attribute of a good screensaver. Gaia 3D Jigsaw Puzzle doesn't offer many options beyond a check box to close the screensaver when the mouse is moved, but we could add our own images to become puzzles by browsing to and selecting a target folder. The default puzzle image is an astronomical panorama.

Other than the ability to check for updates and download other screensavers from the developer's Web site, that's all there is to Gaia 3D Jigsaw Puzzle. But its mission is to fill your dead screen time with colorful, attractive motion that doesn't call attention to itself when you don't want it to, yet is interesting enough to enjoy for a few minutes when you need it to be, such as when you're sitting in an office waiting for someone to finish a phone call and you don't want to look at your own phone. For times like that, we'd be grateful for Gaia 3D Jigsaw Puzzle Screensaver.