Game Review: EXIT: Advent Calendar--The Golden Book

EXIT The Game: Advent Calendar--The Golden Book designed by Inka and Markus Brand, published by Kosmos

In the EXIT The Game series, players work their way through a series of puzzles related to a narrative in the individual game. Basically, each is an escape room in a box. This latest innovation has the players opening doors on a custom Advent Calendar, each door revealing a puzzle that has be solved in order to find the next door to open.

In this story, Santa's Golden Book has been stolen. The book contains everyone's addresses and what they want for Christmas, so it is a very important tool for his job. Players follow clues left behind by the thief. The puzzles are themed after many different Christmas things, from that Mariah Carey song to Die Hard to the Magi's Journey to Bob Cratchit's office. Like other EXIT games, sometimes components or images from one puzzle are used for a later puzzle, so never throw anything away! In fact, one of the first puzzles has some components that the players sneak behind another door for a later challenge. The theme is fun and follows both the Christmas setting and the EXIT traditions.

The puzzles use the usual assortment of pieces--cards, pictures, and "odd" objects (one of which is a jingle bell!). The game includes 24 puzzles, so players can start on December 1 and end on Christmas Eve. The puzzles are short enough (five to fifteen minutes) that any missed days can be easily made up. The decoder for the game has sliding numbers that show how to find the next door.

Front of the decoder with "555" as the solution

Back of the decoder

The players follow the arrows from that day's door (Up Left, Down Left, Down in the above picture) to another door and see if the three symbols on that door match (Crescent, Crescent, Star in the above picture). It works well and has a nice, clever feel to it. I would include a picture, but you write numbers on the doors so any photo would have massive spoilers on it. At least the random placement of numbers makes sense on this Advent calendar!

The puzzles are not too difficult. We needed hints a few times and accidentally discovered a component for a later puzzle once. We enjoyed the variety of challenges and the creative ways they used the box and the components. The game is very Christmasy. We will definitely get the next Exit the Game Advent Calendar next year!

Highly recommended!