Photo above is property of Thames & Kosmos
Company: Thames & Kosmos
Game: Exit The Game: Advent Calendar - The Mystery of the Ice Cave
Country: USA 🇺🇸
Language: English
Type of Game: Tabletop Games 📬
Genre: Mystery, Holiday
Date Played: September 30, 2022
Difficulty (based on 2 players): 5/10
Size of Team: 1-4 Players (Ages 10+)
Time: Approximately 5-15 Mins/ per day
Price: $49.95
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You are out for a lovely ski trip prior to Christmas, enjoying a little solitude and the beautiful outdoors. However, things take a dramatic turn for the worse when you get caught up in an avalanche! As you race down the slope, trying to stay ahead of the rapidly approaching onslaught of snow, you spy a small fissure in some rocks and manage to throw yourself inside - just before the entrance is completely engulfed. As you dazedly take a look around, you realize there is something unusual about this cave…can you solve it’s mysteries and find a way back out of the ice cave?
This game comes with a story book that adds a page or so to the ongoing narrative each day, leading you through your cave adventure and the mysteries you encounter along the way.
🆃🅷🅴 ❞🅻🅾🅾🅺🆂❞
The concept and execution of The Mystery of the Ice Cave is whimsical and fun, with some highly detailed and lovely artwork that you uncover along the way. This is a paper-based game, from the box itself, to the cards and (for the most part) the objects. It is intended as a one-time use game, and the components are of good quality given that, though not of the durability you might have for some other types of games. They are generally in line with what you might see in many other Exit games, only perhaps a bit smaller!
Photos above are property of Thames & Kosmos
🆃🅷🅴 🅶🅰🅼🅴 🅿🅻🅰🆈
There is a little compartment for each day. The first one is marked, so you know where to begin. You start with the story book to read the narrative for that day; it sometimes has some puzzle elements as well. After reading the day’s tale, you open the compartment. Inside there is artwork on all the walls, and often you will also find cards and special objects. From these materials, you need to deduce the corresponding 3-digit code to plug into your Decoding Table. That, in turn, gives you three directions to lead you to the next day’s compartment, along with 3 symbols to verify that you’ve gotten the right code and found the correct spot for tomorrow. You can then write the next day’s date in the white circle, so that you can easily find it again when it’s time to open it.
As with most Exit games, this advent calendar is intended to be for one-time use, and some elements do get modified or destroyed. With some effort, however, it is possible to largely preserve it to be replayable and pass it along. Or you could even supplement it by hiding little treats or notes in each compartment as an added bonus for each day!
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We are generally fans of the Exit series, but we find the puzzles can be more solid in some games than others. Of course, there are a whole lot of puzzles packed into this advent calendar! Overall, we were really impressed by the variety that they managed to pack in, how well they utilized the space that they had, and how smoothly the gameplay went. These are not intended to be the most challenging of puzzles, as they are to be completed in relatively short chunks each day. We found they usually took us about 5 minutes each, but a few were tougher for us and took closer to 15. We did typically find them to be satisfying solves! If you do need a nudge, they include a “help book” that you can reference with several sequential hints and the solution available.
Photos above are property of ESCAPETHEROOMers
🅲🅻🅾🆂🅸🅽🅶 🆃🅷🅾🆄🅶🅷🆃🆂
While "The Mystery of the Ice Cave" is marketed as the typical 24-day advent calendar to countdown to Christmas, we had such a blast playing it as the countdown to our wedding! (Much more our style than the typical flip-the-numbers countdown to nuptials.) The puzzles are short enough that we could find time to fit them in, even on super hectic days. While you’ll benefit from a flashlight and (depending on your eyesight) perhaps a magnifying glass, the puzzling was satisfying and impressively compact! For us, the story element struck the right balance of creating a developing narrative over the course of the game without requiring extensive reading. The theming is lighthearted and, while very wintery, not super heavy on the specifically-Christmas aspect, so it really can make a fabulous lead up to any special occasion if you’re a little open-minded. Highly recommended, and now we can’t wait to try their other advent calendar, The Hunt for the Golden Book!
Check out our interview with the creators to understand more on the development side of the game:
Video above is property of ESCAPETHEROOMers
(If you do decide to try this game, give us a shoutout or tag us on social media so we know you heard it from "ESCAPETHEROOMers"!)
Disclosure: We thank Thames & Kosmos for providing us with samples of the game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever.
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