Circus Train of Crazy Tricks Puzzle Set Part 5 of 8: Circus Engine Review

Puzzle	Circus Engine
Artist	Candy Thun
Pieces	76
Type	Trick
Catalog Picture

Circus Engine is the fifth puzzle I would recommend purchasing if you are interested in acquiring the entire Circus Train of Crazy Tricks Puzzle Series of 8 puzzles as I am reviewing these puzzles in order of difficulty. Dancing Dolphins is the first to purchase as it is the easiest to solve so go back and read my blog posts in order starting with Part 1 of 8. The entire series is a great introduction to Stave Trick puzzles and I recommend everyone starting with this series first before trying any other Stave Trick puzzles as they can be quite frustrating if you dive in too quickly and order something like Palace of Pranks or Treasure Trove as your first Trick puzzle. This entire series is quite affordable and you can purchase all 8 puzzles for less than you can purchase Palace of Pranks! Talk about a great bang for your buck!

The nice thing about this series is you can order them one at a time at your leisure and they will all fit together quite nicely to form one very long (and beautiful) Circus Train. (If you are a seasoned Trick puzzler I would recommend ordering them all at once and asking Stave to ship them in one big box for an even greater challenge!) The puzzles in this series include:

Circus Engine

Elephant Show

Dancing Dolphins

Lion Show

Roo Romp

Seaquarium

Amazing Seal

Circus Train Caboose

This is one of my favorite types of Trick puzzles! I love the Tricky Tile puzzles! (Not an officially Stave name for them but how I choose to refer to them). If you like this puzzle I also recommend you purchase Night Before Christmas and Bonnie And Clyde for an even greater challenge.

I thought Candy Thun struck a home run with the artwork for this puzzle and I especially like the expressions on the faces of the four monkeys. The object is to create the Circus Engine and surround the balloons with the steam. When you first put this puzzle together you will have difficulty discerning what it steam, what is clouds and what is meant by balloons. I actually think this adds to the difficulty rating of this puzzle as those are all questions which will come up as you are putting it together and decisions will have to be made regarding each question in order to come up with the one and only solution.

Since this is a Trick puzzle pieces will fit in more than one place. The tile in the bottom of your box that accompanies Circus Engine reads "Encircling the balloons with all that steam will have you steaming." and will read at the bottom of the tile "This is a Stave Trick Puzzle. It has 2-Way Tricks: some pieces will fit into two places. Note: Solutions will have no empty interlocks and no wood side up." You will also see that this is a Three Lightning Bolt puzzle and I feel this is a classic 3-Bolt puzzle and the difficulty rating is right on!

There are quite a number of pieces that fit in more than one place in fact and what I like most about this puzzle is that there are pieces that can fit in more than one place that don’t necessarily automatically get switched just because they can…you have to decide if you even need to make the switch. If you think you can just take advantage of every single switch using the post-it note method you will find yourself looking at an incomplete puzzle! You’ll need to try many, many, many different combinations until you finally arrive at the final solution

As I have mentioned in my prior Review Blogs on this series of Stave puzzles I will not provide the time it took for me to complete this puzzle but I will say I would be surprised if anyone would need to work on this puzzle overnight but you just might as there are a few Tricks in this puzzle that really taxed my brain and had me shaking my fist at our Chief Tormentor the first time I put it together. A lot of times I like to work on a puzzle after dinner and have it completed before I go to bed; this puzzle certainly falls into that category. I will say that this puzzle will definitely take you longer than any of the prior puzzles in this series and I venture to say it will take you longer to complete than the prior 4 combined! I do recommend keeping it together and on display in your puzzle area once it is complete until you have completed the remaining 7 puzzles in the series as the entire train fits together and is a sight to behold when fully complete and assembled!