To confirm, I have made every effort to keep this review spoiler free.
The circus has been a cornerstone of human entertainment for hundreds of years, and you’ve lucked out and managed to secure tickets to the hottest one in town! But it isn’t entertainment that has brought you to the big top in EXIT: The Circus Mystery, but a case you have been hired to solve, and a dastardly tricky one at that. Following the classic EXIT model, The Circus Mystery has up to four players don their detective caps as they try to solve a string of burglaries all over the world, all of which have taken place at the same time as this circus.
As EXIT games go, The Circus Mystery is beautifully themed throughout. From the physical components to the challenges themselves, everything is full-fat circus themed, with all the colour and child-like excitement you would expect from any circus worth its salt. I am also impressed by the way in which this theming seems natural, with both theme and game content fully fleshed out. This delivers a punchy, fun game which lives up to its big (top) expectations.
The Circus Mystery is rated as a 3/5 difficulty, and this runs relatively true for most of the challenges presented. However, there were some slight teething issues with some of the challenges. The first of these stems from the at times back-and-forth nature of the tasks, requiring you to hop between different tasks and trains of thought as you seek to complete the overall mission. Whilst irritating at times, this does add an additional layer of thinking required to push the story on. The second of these is related to the components. With their single-play set up, EXIT games never require particularly robust or long-life components. Whilst this has never been an issue before in their other sets, there were two occasions in The Circus Mystery where certain clues were much harder to solve due to the components not being quite robust enough to do the job. This said, the overwhelming majority of tasks were delightfully challenging and satisfying to complete.
Overall, The Circus Mystery is a as enjoyable as it is thematic, with well fleshed out story and lots of fun challenges to get your teeth into. Despite the odd hiccup here and there with a handful of the tasks, the overwhelming sense from The Circus Mystery is one of fun, and it absolutely earns its bright and fun circus theming.
