Escape Rooms in Inner West

Handmade sets, a film-quality expedition and virtual reality missions are on offer around the Inner West, each a different style of game. The Cipher Room designs and builds its own puzzles at 640 King Street, Newtown, Heart Of The Mountain runs a clock-free adventure from 14 Rich Street, Marrickville, and VR Quest hosts headset escape missions on Unwins Bridge Road, St Peters.

Choosing between them comes down to how your group likes to play: solving at a table, scrambling through a physical set, or wearing a headset.

Telling the three Inner West options apart:

• Classic rooms: The Cipher Room's Newtown games take two to eight players for 60 minutes after a ten-minute introduction.
• Physical adventure: Heart Of The Mountain has slides, stairs and heavy objects to move. Most groups finish in 60 to 80 minutes.
• Virtual missions: VR Quest's headset escapes take two to four players each, with a VR arcade and terminals in the same venue.
• Spend: expect from $65 per person at The Cipher Room and from $39 per person at VR Quest; Heart Of The Mountain quotes on request.
• Big groups: VR Quest takes birthday groups of up to 30, while The Cipher Room splits larger parties across simultaneous games.

Younger players are well matched to VR Quest's arcade parties or Espionage at The Cipher Room, a spy mystery free of scares. Heart Of The Mountain targets ages 16 and up, and under-16s must play alongside a paying adult.