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There are not many board games that could effectively lend themselves to Christmas versions, or advent calendars. Imagine playing Settlers of Catan, in short intervals, over 25 days, with a red, sack adorned robber. Exit, however, is perfect for the format. One of my gripes about the classic Exit games is that they are too compartmental; with many of the riddles within each scenario/box being reasonably self-contained. In the advent calendar version of this very popular franchise, this is a strength. Three of the top five rated Exit games on BoardGameGeek are the advent calendar versions, and I’d agree. In this case, the bigger, and more festive, the better.
If you have played an Exit advent calendar before, you know the format. When you open the box you will find; a story book, a help book (with hints and solutions if needed), a decoder and 24 unopened doors. Each day you will tear out your “day” from the story book, and with the contents of your advent calendars door (and the box, in Exit games you can never overlook the box) you can solve the day's puzzle. Once you have a 3 digit code, get this into your decoder and use it to navigate your way to the next door. Of course the doors aren’t numbered - where would be the fun in that?
Speaking of the fun, prepare to shrug off the serious impending doom themes of your classic escape rooms or games, as you are in for a festive, fun, ghost busting, time travelling, jingle bell humming, romp through a Hollywood studio. The story for The Missing Hollywood Star is fantastic and funny, with callouts to many festive films and scenes. You will go to great lengths to find the missing star - from the archives to the costume department, not to mention many memorable film sets. Not every exit storyline has hit the mark for me, I play a lot of story based campaign games and the bar is a high one. Happily, this story is delightful.
Alongside the seasonal story you will be solving a lot of puzzles. Amongst the many usual suspects when it comes to riddles, (folding, decoding, overlaying cards, matching symbols, and drawings that turn out to be letters or numbers), there are some really quirky ones in this calendar. My personal favourite - the one with the rubber band. I can’t give too much information here for fear of spoilers, but know that most puzzles are very different from the day before, with lots of “oh that’s clever” lightbulb moments. You’ll need your scissors, pen, and a torch at least once over the 24 days.
Where, technically, you could play Exit with many people, there is a lot of inspecting small spaces and cards, so I wouldn’t recommend playing with too large a group. We played this year's calendar as a duo, and found it to be a good fit. With two, it took just about 15 minutes per day and this included set-up, reading the story and finding the next day's door. Allow a little extra time on the first day. The Missing Hollywood Star is definitely easier than other “Beginner” exit games, especially if you are familiar with the franchise. It’s very non-gamer and family friendly so you could definitely play with teens. We needed extra help from the hints with one, and a full solution on one other occasion, but that didn’t spoil the experience. Most of the time you get a lot of information on the riddle cards to lead you towards the solution, and only on a couple of occasions did it not feel very logical. If you are a seasoned Exit gamer, the fun is in the wide variety of puzzles, if a little less challenging. That said, if you are colourblind, you will struggle with this particular story. My playing partner spent a lot of time peering into the box asking about particular shades of pink.
To summarise, what a blast! The Missing Hollywood Star has been my favourite Exit experience to date. Having the story over a 24 day period of short reads works so much better than bottling an entire scenario book into a few, sometimes frustrating hours. There is no rush in this format with a bigger box and more chapters, and the game feels like a very good balance between reading and puzzling. If you are looking for something quirky this advent, you may just be in the right place, if not, maybe recheck the last set of numbers in your decoder.