Escape room evolution

A new Winnipeg business is giving the traditional escape room formula a unique spin.

Replay Adventures is advertised as offering “Canada’s first replayable escape rooms.” The Bruce Park neighbourhood business opened at 1846 Portage Ave. earlier this month with a pirate-themed room. The owners plan to eventually add two more rooms.

As with other escape rooms, players are confined to a themed room and have to use what’s there to solve puzzles and find their way out within a set time limit.

What sets Replay Adventures apart, according to the owners, is the rooms are designed to give participants choices that will shape their experience. Players don’t see everything in one visit and can embark on a different route the next time they play.

“We were wanting to just give players more agency in the experience,” said co-owner J.L. Gervais. “I thought it was an interesting way to evolve the game play of escape rooms.”

When players enter the room, they’re greeted by the voice of a man identifying himself as Captain Richards. Richards situates players on Tortuga, the West Indian island that, in the 17th century, was a haven of Caribbean piracy.

Soon, players have puzzles to solve and a choice to make: will they go through the first door or the second? The game, which lasts 60 minutes, unfolds from there.

“I’ve always been partial to piracy. It’s just a fun, adventurous world to get lost in,” Gervais said. “Everyone wants to be a pirate, right?”

The 32-year-old is joined in the venture by Justin Dyck, Evan Wilson and Joshua Wilson (no relation). Gervais, Dyck and Joshua Wilson previously worked together at the Real Escape, one of Winnipeg’s first escape room operators, where they helped design the rooms.

The partners started hatching a plan for their own business a few years ago while playing board games together. About seven months ago, they moved into a strip mall space that formerly housed a tattoo parlour.

In addition to previous escape room experience, the partners have backgrounds in film and theatre, auto repair, software engineering and electrical engineering. They drew on all of their skills as they worked on the first room, designing and building almost everything themselves.

The partners declined to disclose how much money they spent creating the first room.

“The cost was a lot, but I think in the end (it was) worth it because (we’re offering) an experience no one’s had,” said Joshua Wilson, 40.

For the lobby, the partners chose furniture, wall-hangings and knick-knacks that would give it the feel of a private club for world travellers and explorers from decades past.

“This is where they’d come and tell their tales of the adventures they’ve had throughout the years,” Wilson said.

While it took more than a half-year to design and build the first room, the owners hope the next will be ready in four or five months, Wilson said. It will likely have a horror theme.

It’s been little more than a decade since the first escape room operator set up shop in Winnipeg; there are currently around 10 in the city. Wilson said he and his business partners don’t feel they’re directly competing with other operators.

“If (people) love escape rooms, they’re going to try every escape room in the city,” he said.

“The more, the merrier.”

Laura Hawkins is the founder of Enigma Escapes, which has three locations in Winnipeg, and Gamemasters Escape Solutions, which designs, builds and installs games for escape rooms around the world.

To her knowledge, there are no other escape rooms with the “choose your own adventure” style that Replay Adventures offers.

“People who love escape rooms are innovative people and they’re imaginative people, so it doesn’t surprise me that someone’s coming up with that idea,” she said, adding she welcomes Replay Adventures to the scene, provided they’re giving customers a quality experience. “I’m always in favour of good escape rooms.”

Gervais and Wilson are pleased with the feedback they’ve received from customers since Replay Adventures opened on July 14. More than one group has finished the room and then replayed it that same day.

“People love the atmosphere in the room. Our goal is, for even one second, for you to forget that you’re in a strip mall in Winnipeg,” Wilson said.

The room accommodates four to eight players who each pay a $30 admission fee.

aaron.epp@freepress.mb.ca