This advent calendar looked like a lot of fun – an escape room themed activity where you do a clue a day leading up to Christmas! This Exit game is about finding Santa and saving Christmas by solving riddles.
Escape advent calendar details
The set includes the box with windows for each day of the escape challenge, a story book, a help/instructions book and a decoder table. Inside each daily box you will also find items to help solve the riddles.
My escape advent review
So, the set is based on your workbench in Santa’s workshop at the South Pole (it is apparently a little known fact that Santa’s workshop used to be at the South Pole, closer to Australia!)
Start with the help/instructions book as it is clearly explains what to do and where to start.
I like that the story is told each day to set the scene and keep it Christmas themed rather than just some random puzzles and riddles. Clearly divided by date, the story book is easy to use although the font and content are not easy for young children – the 10 and up age recommendation is fair enough.
While they suggest you rip out the relevant pages each day, I am leaving the story book intact and just reading the relevant pages each day.
Escape advent day one = 1 December
Today, as well as dealing with the instructions and decoder table preparation, I read the introduction and the first chapter of our story so it probably requires a bit more time than the following days. The story is sufficiently detailed and interesting to gain attention – but be sure you pay attention, it is not just background!
I love the level of detail within the first flap – the sides of the box have related images. Inside, I found 6 cards, being one elf ID and 5 pictures of a lolly jar.
I could say I tried the help book just to see how it works for the sake of this review, but I actually needed to use it! There are three clues, giving additional hints, and you can try one hint at a time to see if that gets you closer to the solution. I am hoping that I now have a better idea of how things work so will need the hep book less on future days! I won’t give away the code and any hints, but will say that you need to take various things into account from the story and any imagery and notes around the story.
It did take me a few codes to get the correct code. I like that the symbols corresponding to the code can be checked to ensure you have to right answer before opening the next day’s flap.
Only flap one is numbered – the order for opening the other flaps is determined by the puzzles you solve. They suggest numbering the flaps as you go but I’m going to try doing this without marking the numbers so I don’t give too many spoilers and so the calendar can potentially be used again (even if not by me!) I’ll let you know how that goes!
Would I recommend Exit the Game escape advent calendar? So far, yes I would as it is challenging, fun and more entertaining than simple chocolate advent calendars! The fact that multiple people can enjoy it together is a great bonus, too.
