Exit: The Game Advent Calendar – The Hunt for the Golden Book
Designers: Inka and Markus Brand
Publisher: Kosmos
Players: 1+
Time: 5-10 min/day x 24 days
Played with review copy provided by Thames and Kosmos
Amazon Affiliate link – https://amzn.to/3Qi7rDi
Advent calendars are a well-entrenched tradition in Germany. Each October when I head to Essen for SPIEL, the stores are already jammed packed with Advent calendars of all types. The first printed Advent calendar originated in Germany in the early 20th century with Gerhard Lang. When Gerhard was a little boy his mother made him a calendar with 24 small candies attached to cardboard, one for each day before Christmas. Lang grew up to operate the Reichhold & Lang printing company where he printed the first Advent cardboard calendar with 24 little pictures. A few years later, the company printed the first calendar with the little doors that everyone loves to open. The first chocolate Advent calendar appeared in 1958, but it was in 1971 that Cadbury joined the race and launched its own version in the UK. Cadbury produced Advent calendars intermittently from 1972 to 1986, but it wasn’t until 1993 that they finally became a mainstay.
Admittedly, I’m most familiar with the chocolate types as a child, but as I have grown up, I have also found calendars that provide a craft beer per day or perhaps a dram of whiskey? In any event, you can make an advent calendar out of just about anything, so long as it can hide behind a paper door… So, the geniuses at Kosmos figured out that maybe they could hide a puzzle a day in a calendar? This calendar came out in German last year, but it wasn’t translated in time to make it in English (or at least I couldn’t find it last December). Blissfully, it has been translated and is already available on the market. In fact, they also managed to translate and produce the second and third Exit advent calendars – so people in the EN market have three to choose from!
The story behind this challenge: “Oh no! Something terrible has happened: Santa Claus’ golden book has disappeared! It contained a complete list of all the Christmas wishes. If the book isn’t found by Christmas Eve, there will be nothing but sad faces around the tree on Christmas morning. It is up to you to save Christmas — and time is of the essence! The thief’s trail leads you to a remote mountain village. You quickly notice that something strange is afoot here … but what? And where has the golden book gone? You must find it, but let me tell you: Behind the doors of this village there are many surprises waiting for you!”
Each EXIT Advent Calendar is an EXIT game and a 24-day-long adventure in one. Each door in the calendar reveals a unique room containing an exciting new riddle. Solve one day’s riddle to determine which door to open the next day. These games are completely card-based and unplugged. They include a decoder board, story (riddle) book, and riddle cards. There is also a helpful hint booklet that will help you along if you happen to get stuck.
This advent calendar is both an EXIT game and adventure story: in order to free yourself from this predicament, you must open a door of the calendar each day. Behind each, you will find a new exciting puzzle, the solution of which will help you to move onto the next room. Only if you follow the clues and solve all 24 puzzles will you find the thief and the book … and save Christmas.
The puzzles are fairly quick, taking us as little as 20 seconds thus far to upwards of 7 minutes. Like many of the other puzzles in the EXIT series, sometimes you simply see the answer quickly while others require a fair amount of brain power. We currently have three people living here at my place, and we’ve made it a nice little tradition to open the door after our nightly meal, and we see if we can solve it together. Overall the puzzles are on the easier side, but this is in line with the Beginner difficulty rating found on the front box cover.
Like the regular EXIT games, the decoder strips help you determine if you have the right answer, and when you get the right answer, the symbols on the decoder will direct you to the next door to open. Though we haven’t finished the entire calendar yet – it has definitely been enjoyable, and we’re saving another EXIT Advent calendar to do for real starting on December 1 this year.
I would highly recommend this for puzzlers or families who like to work together. This one was a bit on the easy side so it would be a good starting point. It has been a great experience – though we did it all in one sitting for review purposes, but one that I think would be an enjoyable daily experience during the holidays.
Affiliate links for the advent calendars:
- The Golden Book – https://amzn.to/3Qi7rDi
- The Ice Cave – https://amzn.to/3Qcyj7w
- The Silent Storm – https://amzn.to/3rHr1zl
Until your next appointment,
The Gaming Doctor
FYI those shortened links are blocked by my company proxy.
Weird – those are just shortened links provided by Amazon. If you want to get the calendars, you can always just search by name. sorry!
Got one of these for my sister last year (I believe it was the Ice Cave? Don’t remember) and she said her family thoroughly enjoyed it. They are also fans of the Exit series.
My wife and I are looking forward to find one of these for ourselves this year. We have done 5 or 6 total Exit boxes (plus the same number from different brands) although so far our favorite has been the kind with the jigsaw puzzles.
Did the ice cave last year. Enjoyed it as my son was able to creatively solve a couple where we went, NICE!