For five years the team behind Newtown escape room company The Cipher Room has been “locking” willing participants in its three themed King Street rooms (the locking of the doors is, for safety reasons, only symbolic), presenting trapped gamers with a series of cryptic clues to aid their escape. The recently opened Mr Pepper’s Toy Shop is Cipher’s first game in its roomy new St Peters warehouse, which co-owner and game designer Marise Watson says will eventually hold five new games.

“It’s more than twice the size of our [Newtown] location,” explains the former writer, who now serves as co-game designer with her business partner and husband David Vella. “The most exciting thing is the high ceilings; it really opens up the space and creates some fun opportunities.”

Their latest adventure is set in the modern day, and participants are cast as ghost-hunting real estate agents setting foot in the titular toy store, which has been abandoned for more than 70 years. Like its sister experiences in Newtown, it promises a slow reveal of progressive unlockable spaces filled with era-appropriate props, an ambient soundtrack (that might itself contain a clue or two), and ingeniously original puzzles integrated seamlessly into the theme.

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The Cipher Room (which was voted 15th in a 2018 list of the world’s best escape room companies by the Top Escape Rooms Project), has a reputation among escape aficionados for hosting some of Sydney’s most enjoyable, challenging and immersive rooms. Its existing games, including the black-and-white noir mystery of the Marlowe Hotel, the WWII-era spy experience Espionage, and the Wolf Creek-esque rural horror of The Cabin all regularly top lists of Australia’s best.

With the promise of many creepy dolls and vintage (possibly haunted) furniture, Watson says they’ve taken great care to ensure Mr Pepper’s Toy Shop is a suitably chilling addition to Cipher’s suite of games.

“I always go to the theme first, then we create puzzles that fit inside that theme,” Watson says of the process of building a new room, which in this case took more than eight months. “I have visited a lot of vintage shops over the years, buying old props for our other games. I always noticed how creepy a lot of the old toys were, so I started collecting them with a view to using them as props in a game one day.

“We’ve definitely upped the creepy factor in this game, so we’re recommending it for people over 16,” she adds, suggesting there may be some surprises in store for even the most experienced escape-room enthusiasts (“I can’t say too much, because I don’t want to spoil it …”).

As for what the remaining four games that are set to fill The Cipher Room’s new St Peters space will be? So far, we remain clueless.

cipherroom.com.au

Haven’t experienced an escape room? Read Broadsheet’s guide to choosing (and winning) your first room.