Chinese New Year's puzzle Competition

Well, here we go - another competition from Howrse. To celebrate the Chinese New Year (it's the year of the Horse), Owlient have given us a suitably themed game to keep us amused until mid-February.

Following on from many recent competitions, this puzzle requires you to collect pieces for a number of Chinese-themed jigsaws. There are 12 puzzles in total with the number of pieces needed, increasing as you go along. Each jigsaw you finish gives you various gifts. If you complete all of the jigsaws you get to win a fabulous Qilin which is a new Divine Unicorn.

• Puzzle 1 (Goat) needs 2 pieces
• Puzzle 2 (Monkey) needs 4 pieces
• Puzzle 3 (Rooster) needs 4 pieces
• Puzzle 4 (Dog) needs 9 pieces
• Puzzle 5 (Pig) needs 9 pieces
• Puzzle 6 (Rat) needs 12 pieces
• Puzzle 7 (Ox) needs 12 pieces
• Puzzle 8 (Tiger) needs 15 pieces
• Puzzle 9 (Rabbit) needs 15 pieces
• Puzzle 10 (Dragon) needs 24 pieces
• Puzzle 11 (Snake) needs 24 pieces
• Puzzle 12 (Horse) needs 35 pieces
• TOTAL NEEDED IS 165 PIECES

A welcome change from recent contests is that this competition doesn't require us all to wake up in the middle of the night to complete tasks! Everything you need to do to win jigsaw pieces occurs just once a day (mainly). Once you've completed them, you can sit back and relax until the following day.

Collecting jigsaw pieces means you need to do the following:

• Log on to Howrse (1 piece a day - usually)
• Groom a horse (1 piece a day)
• Win a competition (1 piece a day)
• Remove a horn form a Unicorn (1 piece a day)
• Clicking on a puzzle UFO (1 piece a day - as far as we know!)
• Watching a video (1 piece a day - as far as we know!)
• Open a HOP (Unlimited pieces per day)

Now we have done little bit of maths for you. How possible is it to actually win a Qilin? Well, if you really, really want one and have a fair bit of money to spend, then you could buy heaps of HOP's but that would cost you a lot of cash.

So, if you don't buy HOPS and you don't have Unicorns horns to remove (or don't want to) , can you  still actually win that elusive Qilin?

In short - no. Assuming Howrse don't change things during the course of the puzzle competition and based on what we know,  we think you will only be able as far as the Dragon Puzzle (puzzle 10).

If you DO remove a Unicorn horn each day, then you will get as far as the Snake Puzzle (puzzle 11).

So, if you do all the daily tasks (grooming, watching a video etc) AND remove a Uni horn each day, then you will still need over 30 HOP's to win that Qilin. Boo!

Of course, it's likely that Howrse will offer bonus jigsaw pieces in HOP's later in the competition so this will make things a little bit easier. However, whichever way you look at it, winning a Divine Unicorn is not going to be easy ... or cheap.

But it's not all doom and gloom. There are plenty of BM items to win along the way as well as ageing points and equus. And, you can even win Horseshoe Studs which are usually only available with a VIP account. Now that is pretty cool.

So, even if a Qilin is out of your reach, you can still relax and enjoy picking up plenty of goodies to keep you happily Howrse-ing!

Patsy