Shy Guy's Perplex Express

"Who's at the wheel?! How long is this train?! Are you ahead...or behind?! Welcome aboard the Perplex Express! Where are we going? Insane! And at the speed of crazy!"

- MC Ballyhoo



Shy Guy's Perplex Express is one of the boards from Mario Party 8. Set on a moving train, the board consists of the inside and the top of the train's cars (there is also a secret area called the Payday Waystation). The locomotive is driven by a Shy Guy engineer and the train cars themselves are inhabited by Goombas, Koopas, and more Shy Guys (like cooks and the ones who run the Candy Shops). The objective on this board is to get to the front of the train, where the Shy Guy engineer will give Stars away for 20 coins. It's another one-way board, but in a loop, like a race track. So, as such, speed is just as important as getting coins.

Players who land on a DK Space will cause the train to be switched with Donkey Kong's Barrel Train. Like King Boo's Haunted Hideaway, the player who makes it to DK first gets a free Star (in Duel Battles, DK doubles the player's coin total). The player who gets the Star is not always the player that landed on the space. Shy Guy's train comes back after DK's done. When players land on a Bowser Space, Bowser will come on his train, the Bad-Breath Express. Again, it works like DK, but with players losing a Star. However, when a player comes without a star, Bowser will give the player 10 coins. It is because he always likes to "help" fools in need.

If a player lands on the ? Space in front of Holly Koopa, she will offer to buy one of their Candies for several coins. The ? Space in front of the Shy Guy chef's heat vent will cause the player to be sucked up to the roof of the train (and vice versa for the ? Space in front of the vent on the roof). Another ? Space on the roof will make the Shy Guy conductor come and ask for the player's assistance. He'll inform the player that Holly Koopa's candy was stolen, and say that either Bandit or Mowz did it. The player must then choose a car where they think the perpetrator is. If they're right, Shy Guy will reward them with 20 coins (10 in Duel Mode). Other ? Spaces will cause Magikoopa (not Kamek because he sounds different) to appear and use his magic to move the front car to the back of the train, and move the other cars upward to the front. Another ? space on top of the train causes the characters on top to be hit back to the start by a bar, causing them to lose 5 coins each. The Lucky Space causes the train to stop and let the player off at Payday Waystation that has a lot of coins and a free Star.

In Duel mode, the winning conditions were to get 50 coins and give them to Holly Koopa (not the conductor up in front) to get her Star. Players who got to the conductor would get 10 coins from him, if they didn't already have 50 coins.

Payday Waystation
Payday Waystation is a short station encountered while riding Shy Guy's Perplex Express. It appears as a subsection of the board, and can only be reached if the player lands on the board's Lucky Space. Upon doing so, the train will quickly stop at Payday Waystation, and the lucky player will exit the train.

The station is only five Blue Spaces long, and each Blue Space has three coins on it for a total of fifteen. At the end of the station is a Shy Guy conductor, who will reward the player with a free Star for meeting him. Immediately afterward, a handcar operated by a few Shy Guys will arrive at the station. The player will jump on and be brought back to the train's caboose.

Trivia

 * The word Perplex means to be baffling or puzzling. The board is named so because the train cars switch upon landing on a ? Space, and also because the train has no set direction, yet passes by the same location (can be seen when being dropped off and later picked up at Payday Waystation) despite appearing to be going in a straight line.