“Don’t ask where the rest of this book is!” It’s a shrill cry that comes from an undefined spot among shelves. “All books continue in the beyond…”

“All the books continue in the beyond”, a quote that perfectly describes the innovative approach to Italo Calvino’s novel If on a winter’s night a Traveller proposed by We are Muesli in their escape room at Festivaletteratura 2023. The immersive game explores the book from the last page: the reader concludes his reading and falls asleep. The escape room takes it from there: participants find themselves in a 10-levels immersive game, based on the stories our reader has just read. Ludmilla, the name of the female protagonist, the girl the main character is in love with, is also the name of the escape room.

The entire game experience finds place in the beautiful, ancient location of the Palazzo degli Studi, today home to a local high school, lasts one hours, and can be played by 2 to 6 players. Players must solve a variety of riddles, both analogue and digital, in order to progress in the game. The only enemy to defeat? Time. Indeed, the end of the game changes based on the gamers’ ability to solve all the riddles within 60 minutes. But no worries: even those who fail to explore all 10 levels and conclude the game will get something out of it, discovering an alternative ending to the story.

We are Muesli created the escape room in collaboration with Festivaletteratura, over the last three years, and this first edition, during the 2023 festival, celebrates 100 years since Calvino’s birth. We Are Muesli is an independent design studio based in Milan, which produces narrative games to stimulate appreciation of cultural heritage through gaming. With Ludmilla, they succeed in narrating not only the love story between the reader and Calvino's Ludmilla, but also between the reader and literature.