Exit: The Game Advent Calendar – The Magic of Christmas
- Designers: Emely, 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/4wLZ2tT
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 a few years ago, and there have been a steady supply of them since. In fact, I think that some years have had multiple calendars released!
The story behind this treat: “Peace, the scent of pine, not a soul in sight – a long hike through the unspoilt forest is just what you need. You’re happy to have escaped the hustle and bustle of the pre-Christmas season and are resting in a picturesque clearing when you hear a loud bang and everything goes black. When you wake up, the forest around you is enchanted, and you are surrounded by snow! Red baubles hang in the trees; lights twinkle in the undergrowth. Then, shock hits you: Your hands! They’re completely covered with green fur…”
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 door you will find a new and exciting riddle, the solution to which will bring you closer and closer to finishing the tale!
The puzzles are fairly quick, taking us as little as 20 seconds thus far to upwards of 15 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. In previous years, 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. For this particular calendar, our group simply did it in a single afternoon as I was trying to finish the calendar in order to write this review! Overall the puzzles are on the easier side, but this is in line with the 2 out of 5 difficult rating found on the front box cover. There was one puzzle which we found extremely difficult and three or four that were moderately difficult.
We actually needed hints on both of the first two days. One was due to maybe us thinking it was too easy. The second one though, I have some issues with. Oftentimes with the Exit puzzles, they have to make numbers and letters form out of shapes that maybe aren’t well suited for that. It would definitely be a stretch to get the right answer in my opinion. That being said, the clue book is full of helpful hints and we were steered back onto the right path each time.
But on the whole, the puzzles are well constructed, and honestly I’m fairly amazed at how many different types of puzzles they are able to construct given the space limitations of the little boxes on the advent calendar. Big hint that I should have remembered from last year, be sure you look inside each box when you open it! You don’t get a lot of stuff for each puzzle, so sometimes the art behind the door or the page of flavor text is really important. Once we had re-acquainted ourselves with how these tiny puzzles are constructed, we did fairly well with the rest of the box.
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.
I would highly recommend this for puzzlers or families who like to work together. It has been a great experience so far, and one that I think would be an enjoyable daily experience during the holidays. Alternatively, it’s also a great experience for a single afternoon – we definitely enjoyed doing it all in one sitting.
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
- The Missing Hollywood Star – https://amzn.to/4gMwkoc
- The Magic of Christmas – https://amzn.to/4wLZ2tT
Until your next appointment,
The Gaming Doctor
