Ljubljana, Sep 2022
Enigmarium is by some way Slovenia’s largest escape room company, with close to half the country’s venues operating under the group’s umbrella. Circus is the newest game at the Ljubljana branch, and the website description promises much: the video suggests it might have a creepy edge, and the text says it “includes elements of live action role-playing”, and after playing it, “you’ll probably never be the same”.
Our host explained the rules and told us that the game was based on a real incident a hundred years earlier, when a travelling circus lost their elephant. Our job was to travel back in time and find the missing creature.
From the first impressions it was clear that Circus is a relatively old school design. Our room was cheerfully decorated with a variety of circus themed props, along with plenty of padlocks to open; there was also quite a bit of visible wiring and “do not touch” tape. In contrast to the tone of the promo video, it was also well lit and entirely free of actors, with nothing scary at any point.
Fresh from playing a couple of very sophisticated rooms in Vienna, Circus felt like stepping back to an earlier era of escaping. But I have nothing against puzzles based on locks and codes, and there was plenty to enjoy besides. I saw little sign of the live action role play that the game description promised, but there were several entertaining interactions with the game’s puzzles and tasks.
At most points there was more than one puzzle available to work on, keeping us both busy, and we still finished with only around five minutes left. Larger teams should tend to be somewhat faster than smaller ones; and since the games are sold on a fixed price basis, that’s also a more economical way to play.
While definitely over-hyped in its marketing material, Circus was an enjoyable hour of solving with a couple of memorable tricks, as well as solidly designed puzzles. 
