Exit: The Game released a graphic novel at Spiel ‘21, but only in German for now
A crease, fold and cut above the standard graphic novel.
The folks behind the prolific Exit: the Game series released an interesting twist on the existing line of puzzle books at Essen Spiel ‘21. Exit: the Book - The Woman in the Fog is a graphic novel that requires readers to physically destroy it in order to solve the riddles and traps contained therein.
Exit’s publisher, Kosmos, has already been developing the escape room-turned-board games into a line of authored books for several years, beginning with the Cellar of Secrets in 2017. Each contained complete storylines written by different authors, which were then populated with puzzles by Inka and Marcus Brand, the designer spouses who initially created Exit. Notably, the solutions often necessitated the folding, crumpling or cutting of pages in the book to glean the necessary information - likely striking horror in a contingent of their readers.
The Woman in the Fog, despite the jump from a classic format to graphic novel, will function much the same. A press release states that “hints can be hidden anywhere in the graphic novel, [and] creative solutions are required. Cut, draw, fold - everything is allowed.” It also says that the addition of illustrations throughout have opened a number of new avenues for the Brands’, er… brand of head scratcher not seen before in the Exit: the Book series.
Its story, penned by author Jens Baumeister, follows three characters - Eli, Tima and Yannik - as they explore an abandoned Victorian villa housed at the edges of a lake. The body of water is, of course, haunted by a woman’s spirit seen to be treading the surface late on foggy nights. The trio manage to crack a lock on the front door that stumped other thrillseekers and looters, only to find themselves trapped once inside the sprawling old house. Presumably, a series of increasingly difficult brain teasers lie between them and escape.
A German Amazon listing for the graphic novel, entitled Die Frau im Nebel, matches the publisher’s website, meaning those who don’t spricht Deutsch are currently out of luck. This language restriction matches the rest of the novelisation, as it seems none of those have been made available in any other language. Dicebreaker has reached out to Kosmos for more information on translation plans.
Baumeister previously worked with the Brands on other Exit books, such as The Fall of Ryan Creed and children’s novel The Pirates’ Secret. Beyond game books he has published a number of children’s novels and worked on the audio book series, Nils Saviour of the Galaxy. Kosmos is also responsible for the Dicebreaker favourite set collection game The Crew: The Quest for Planet Nine, along with seminal board game Catan in several European markets.
The Exit franchise announced earlier this year that it would be creating its first licensed game using J.R.R. Tolkein’s Lord of the Rings. Schatten über Mittelerde, or Shadow over Middle-earth, was scheduled for an Autumn 2021 release but has presumably been caught up in the seemingly endless cycle of delays across the tabletop sector.