Brrrrr, it’s cold in here…there must be a murder in the atmosphere!

Last year Hasbro released their first Cluedo mystery advent calendar (finally!), and as we’re escape game aficionados of course we snapped up a copy for ourselves. Read on to see if you need to try it for yourself.

Note: this is a spoiler-light review. We talk about the initial story and general elements, but we won’t spoil any of the specific plot details or puzzle solutions.

Key stats

1 to 6 players | 10 mins per day (based on our experience) | 10+ years
Publisher: Hasbro Games
Artist: Henning Ludvigsen

Categories: Christmas, Advent calendar, Puzzles, Murdery mystery
Key mechanics: Deduction, Cooperative, Narrative

The story

It’s the dead of Winter, and 6 guests – the infamous Peacock, Scarlet, Green, Mustard, White and Plum – gather at Boddy Black’s mansion for what they think is going to be a warm Winter party. Instead they receive a cold welcome from Black as he blackmails the guests, threatening to expose all their misdeeds. Later that evening, Black turns up dead! (A shock to no true Cluedo stans).

Do you have the smarts to solve the WHO, the WHAT and the WHERE in this classic-with-a-twist whodunnit?

How it works

The Cluedo Advent calendar comes with a story book, a cipher (known in our house as the spinny-symbol-thingy) and a small envelope for storing clues. It’s also a good idea to have a pen/pencil and scissors to hand – some of the puzzle will need to be cut or destroyed to solve.

Each day starts by reading that day’s entry in the story book – which continues from where you left off on the last day – and opening up today’s calendar door. Inside you’ll find cards for today’s puzzle, and solving it tells you what door to open the next day. Sometimes you’ll also get clue cards – keep these safe in your clue envelope as you need these to solve the murder at the end. And some days you’ll reveal special wintry versions of each character token – keep these safe too, as they may be needed for puzzles.

There are 3 different types of puzzle solution:

• colours lead to character doors
• numbers, which are put into the cipher, lead to room doors.
• symbols that lead to to snowflake doors (the is part of the snowflake – of course no 2 snowflakes are alike)

On day 23 it’s time to review the evidence you’ve collected along the way – from the clue cards and the story – and note down your final accusation, because behind the door on day 24 the solution will be revealed (along with a special bonus gift).

If you do get stuck on a puzzle the back of each story sheet has the hints. You can fold up and reveal one at a time – the first is always the type of solution it is (colour/number/snowflake). The next clues give some more detail, then the fourth clue reveals the puzzle solution.

Our thoughts

Firstly, the overall production of this advent calendar is excellent. I like that they used the same artist who worked on the Cluedo Escape (Clue Escape) series too, it adds a nice cohesiveness across the products. The graphic design inside the calendar is brilliant too: on one side you have the classic mansion rooms (like a Cluedo board), and on the other you have various character photos and papers like receipts. The story book was well-written, humorous and did a good job of engaging you with the characters and story.

I do want to note that the story’s theme is WINTER, not CHRISTMAS. So you can enjoy this if you’re not a fan of more twee Christmassy cheese. Personally I still felt festive solving it – partly because of the winter setting and partly because Cluedo was an after-Christmas-dinner game when I was growing up. What’s not festive about murderous dinner parties?

There’s a nice variety of puzzles and it’s usually fairly clear what you need to get on with to solve them. Complexity wise, we didn’t find any of them particularly tricky so they are definitely at a family level (including kids, as long as they’re okay with that whole murder business). If  you’ve played any of the Cluedo Escape series, the level and type of puzzles in this Cluedo Advent Calendar are at a similar level.

I particularly like that you have the 3 different types of puzzle answers (the colour/number/snowflake). Whilst it doesn’t take long to realise what type of answer you’re solving, having these different options means that puzzle solutions aren’t restricted to numbers alone, which gives more flexibility (and variety) to the puzzle designs. It keeps the puzzles interesting.

Often with a Whodunnit mystery, you’ll have some small preamble to introduce characters before someone promptly ends up dead – then the retrospective fact finding, alibi presenting and finger pointing begins. Of course a big part of this Advent calendar’s (and Cluedo’s) premise is Boddy Black’s murder, but interestingly this doesn’t happen until quite late on in the calendar. Instead, Secrets Under Snowfall takes you along with the characters for the evening, from their arrival, to Black’s dramatic threat, to their Scooby Do adventures around the mansion.

I think my only real criticism in the design is that day 24 can feel a little anticlimactic. You have no puzzle to solve, you’ve already locked in your whodunnit answers, so all you have to do is to check that you got it right. You do get things in the final door, like the finale/solution, but still. I would have preferred there to be a puzzle on day 23 as normal and then spend day 24 solving the murder before opening the door. That way you feel like you’re doing something every day.

We didn’t need to use the hints so I can’t comment on how useful they actually are. The solution is also printed at the top of the next day’s story entry for you to check you got it right before you open the door. I do think I would have preferred the hints in a separate booklet from the main story. I also think the solution on the next day’s page should be covered so you can scratch it off when you’re ready to check – fun and avoids any accidental peeking.

People who are familiar with the Cluedo Escape (Clue Escape) series may notice that Secrets under Snowfall has a similar story premise to The Treachery at Tudor Mansion, but we can confirm that the plot and puzzles are not the same.

Should I get the Cluedo Advent Calendar or the Exit Advent Calendar?

Cluedo’s Secrets Under Snowfall has taken a similar approach to the well-loved Exit Advent Calendar series. Both start each day with narrative progressing an overarching story and both are one-time playthroughs with some destructive puzzles – although Cluedo has no way near the same level of 

I think there are two key differences. First, complexity. We found the Cluedo puzzles more straightforward and easier to solve, although that did not make them any less fun. Exit is known to be quite tricksy and lateral, often needing you to look beyond the puzzle cards or think outside the box. There is an occasional examples of this in the Cluedo advent calendar, but not to the same difficulty (and Cluedo makes it clear in the instructions that you don’t need the calendar box itself, the story or the clue cards to solve puzzles).

Second, the story. In the Cluedo Advent calendar there is an overarching mystery – Boddy’s murder – to solve alongside the daily puzzles. The stories in the Exit advent calendars do have an element of mystery in their stories, but it’s only in the narrative. You can speculate where the story is heading as you progress, but you aren’t required to solve anything. Overall I personally preferred the writing in the Cluedo calendar.

Which advent cally you should get will depend on the type of challenge you want and who you’re doing the advent calendar with. It’s quite possible, like us, that you would enjoy both!

If you want to know more about the different Exit Advent Calendars you can read our guide here.

Verdict

We loved working through the Cluedo: Secrets Under Snowfall last year! The puzzles are fun and while they weren’t overly challenging for us, we still enjoyed them. And I think this is because the puzzles are alongside excellent production and story. I’ll be honest and say after years of only solving the Exit advent calendars, it was nice to have something a little different (but we still plan to do the Exit this year!). 

We hope Hasbro releases more Cluedo advent calendars in future – it would be great if they made it an annual series like Exit does (although not so great for my purse!).