Room Escape Artist

24 days of whodunit?

Location: at home

Date Played: September 29, 2025

Team Size: 1+; we recommend 1-3

Duration: ~10 minutes daily

Price: about $30

REA Reaction

Escape-room style Advent calendars are my favorite way of counting down the days of the holiday season. This inaugural offering based on the Clue board game was a worthy addition to the genre for 2025.

Each day yielded a small new logic puzzle. Every one was of a different style, and was refreshing and engaging. They were non-trivial, but were neither tricky nor overly difficult, which made this Advent calendar generally accessible to newbies and kids. I found it was the perfect snack-sized puzzle for a daily ritual.

In contrast, the final puzzle stood apart, both in scope and style. Surprisingly, it did not utilize the mechanic from the Clue board game for determining the killer, but instead was a murder-mystery-style deduction puzzle that referenced information from the entire story. I personally prefer the daily logic puzzles and struggled with the deduction-based puzzle, especially since no hints were provided for it. However, it was a worthy finale to the puzzle adventure, with a correspondingly nifty reward.

Who is this for?

• Fans of the game of CLUE
• Murder-mystery game junkies
• Puzzle lovers
• Holiday/ Christmas Advent calendar fans
• Any experience level

Why play?

• A daily bite-sized puzzle that only takes a few minutes, but scratches the escape-room itch.

Story

Boddy Black invited six guests to his mansion for a special evening, but after he threatened them all with blackmail, one of them murdered him.

Setup

Each day, we read a new chapter from the storybook, then opened the door for that day, revealing puzzle cards and the occasional figurine or game clue card for use with the final puzzle. Solving the daily puzzle cards resulted in either a numeric code to be used with a decoder wheel, a color corresponding with one of the guests, or a snowflake design. Each of these could be used to determine the door that we would open the following day.

Gameplay

Hasbro’s Clue Advent Calendar: Secrets Under Snowfall was a standard puzzle Advent calendar with a moderate level of difficulty, considered as an average of the easier daily puzzles and the tough final mystery.

The daily puzzles were standard logic puzzles occasionally involving physical manipulation of the cards. The final puzzle was different: a murder-mystery-style deduction puzzle.

Analysis

➕ The hint system was nicely tiered and included with the storybook for convenient reference and solution confirmation.

❓ Puzzle cluing was more direct and more straightforward than other calendars on the market. As such, Clue Advent Calendar: Secrets Under Snowfall would be accessible to inexperienced and younger solvers, but may be less exciting to veteran solvers.

➖ No hints were provided for the final puzzle, which I found to be much more complex than the puzzles on the previous days.

➕ The calendar included fun collectible character figurines that can even be used with the Clue board game.

Tips For Players

• Space Requirements: Enough space to lay out the unfolded calendar would be ideal, though not strictly necessary.
• Required Gear: A pen is needed each day. Scissors are needed on some days.
• I found a ruler helpful when trying to fold cards.

Buy your copy of Hasbro’s Clue Advent Calendar: Secrets Under Snowfall below.

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