Straight off the bat I will say that I absolutely adored the concept behind this product. Getting a tiny little chocolate each morning leading up to Christmas is all good with standard advent calendars if you are a kid (or big kid). But when you get older the chocolate just doesn’t give you the same buzz of excitement that it once did. Exit’s Advent Calendar is an incredibly interesting activity for yourself, or to do with the family. Note I was relatively new to the Exit games last year and took a gamble on the advent calendar as it combined two of my favourite things; Games and Christmas. I was not disappointed. It was an absolute joy to start a new puzzle everyday and, combined with the well written story, it became one of the highlights of my gaming year. I still consider it to be one of the best Exit games I have played and I rate it as a 9 out of 10. Although we are still a little way off Christmas yet, it is never too soon to plan. And after the pumpkins of Halloween have been turfed on to the compost heap, and the fireworks have finished, it’s a straight run to the most wonderful time of the year! If you haven’t played an Exit game before it is essentially an escape room game in a small box. Normally there are 10 missions to achieve and it involves ripping up cards, drawing on the box, and various other activities that mean once you have finished it is unusable again, however the cost of each game is very low and almost all of the materials used are recyclable.

Thankfully, for us at least, the box also comes with a book of hints (and solutions!). Cleverly, as with the Exit games, you can sneak a look at one or two clues to help you along without revealing the entire solution. And I am woman enough to admit that we did have to get Father Enigmas’s little helper to see us on our way to one or two (ok 5 but who’s counting?!). Final Thoughts And nobody can resist an advent calendar. Whether you grew up eating cheap choccies before school, or building a manger piece by piece, 1 December marks a routine change that is always a treat!As is evident, I love writing, and inherently with that, I love reading. This Exit Calendar had plenty of story for me to sink my teeth into. It is clear that a lot of effort was placed on this side of the game, as the story goes hand in hand with gameplay incredibly well. The writing also has the perfect tone that will allow younger players to understand what is happening, whilst also providing an interesting story for older readers to get into. The intro chapter is a little long compared to all the others for obvious reasons. The main chapters are all the perfect length to provide you with a setting and scenario for the puzzle to follow and is wrote in a way that would be easy to read out for the family if they are also involved. Is this an advent calendar you will only need for Christmas? No. Why not use it in a random March and surprise yourself for the first 3/4 of the month and test yourself to solve the riddles! Well, it is particularly AIMED for opening on the leadup to Christmas… but it’s okay, we’re not going to tell anyone if you don’t! Exit the Game: Advent Calendar is a brilliantly constructed project. It is fun to play through and provides you with varying types of puzzles that can be done as a family. This provided me with many smiles, many head scratching moments, and only one or two gripes. It is much bigger than I expected it to be! For example, and this won’t come as a surprise to Exit fans, knowing which window to open next can only be determined by correctly solving the puzzle from the day before! So, when they say “hunt”, they really mean it! When you solve a puzzle, you’ll reveal a code, and it is this code that gives directions to the next window’s location! Meta mind bendiness or what?! Selection Box EXIT: The Game is a popular series of escape room games that deliver a huge variety of puzzles, bringing the escape room experience to your home in a small box.

Personally, I went into this game with a bit of an ignorant expectation. I have not played any Exit games prior to this, (although this will now be changing very soon) and was expecting the effort to have only been placed on the puzzles and gameplay aspects. I was very pleasantly wrong. And we couldn’t resist trying to help save the real Christmas in Exit: The Game – The Hunt for the Golden Book! So we launched ourselves head first into the 24 part adventure and I can now absolutely NOT tell you how we got on! Haha Seasonal Spoilers One for the miniatures fans out there, or simply those who want to play a game at Christmas, as each day in this Mantic Games advent calendar brings you one step closer to having everything you need for a festive game of tavern mayhem. That includes six special limited edition hand cast resin models that are festive themed, which consist of four players, the barkeep and his bouncer, plus the terrain and game tokens. The downside is that you can’t do anything with the calendar innately until Christmas, but it does keep the joy alive for a ready-to-go Christmas Day game.

Straight off the bat I will say that I absolutely adored the concept behind this product. Getting a tiny little chocolate each morning leading up to Christmas is all good with standard advent calendars if you are a kid (or big kid). But when you get older the chocolate just doesn’t give you the same buzz of excitement that it once did. Exit's Advent Calendar is an incredibly interesting activity for yourself, or to do with the family. Note I was impressed by the variety of puzzle types and the fact that they managed to make the rooms, and even the box itself part of some of the puzzles. The fact that there is so much diversity of puzzles means that no matter your skill level, there will be some that you can do in a breeze, and some that will take some brain juice. This will make the experience different for most people and make it a great talking piece between people.