Near the corner of Union Street and 7th Avenue in Park Slope, there’s a run-of-the-mill glass door sandwiched between a doctor’s office and a bicycle shop. From the sidewalk, passersby can see a plain white lobby and a flight of stairs down to the basement.
At the foot of those steps, though, is an escape from everyday life. MysstTic Rooms, a theatrical escape room, has transformed the basement into a moody, immersive portal to three slightly spooky new worlds.
Escape rooms have become ubiquitous in New York City and across the globe. Each one is different, but they mostly follow the same formula: search through a locked room to find clues, a key, and the exit.
Mysstic Rooms co-founders Moritz Marti and Gara Roda — who are also husband-and-wife — love escape rooms, and have visited dozens together, Roda told Brooklyn Paper. Exploring top-rated escape rooms in each new city they visited, whether in Marti’s native Switzerland or Roda’s native Spain, became a joint hobby.
But Roda, who has an extensive theater background as a performer, director, and choreographer, often felt something was missing. Most escape rooms had plenty of great puzzles, but lacked a good story to tie them all together.
“I guess, we thought we could do better,” she said. “That motivated us to open an escape room. Also, we both wanted to move to the U.S., and it was a great excuse to open a new business here.”
The basement at 794 Union St. was a perfect “blank canvas” — one they could transform into a speakeasy-esque hideaway with space for multiple themed escape rooms.
Typically, escape room creators will come up with all their puzzles, then weave a storyline around them, Roda said. MyssTic Rooms took the opposite approach. They wrote out each story and its twists and turns, then decided which puzzles would suit those narratives.
Then, they scoured local thrift stores to find their props and decorations, searching for items that could conceal hints and props — boxes, light fixtures, furniture, and, of course, lock boxes of various sizes and shapes.
MyssTic Rooms opened in 2019 with two rooms, “Montauk” and “Ghost Light.”
“Montauk” is a sci-fi-esque exploration of the Montauk Air Force Station, a real-life Long Island military base long rumored to have been used for ghastly government experiments before it was decommissioned in the 80s; and “Ghost Light” was inspired by the story of Olive Thomas — a former showgirl who is said to haunt Broadway’s New Amsterdam Theatre.
The rooms have one thing in common: escape isn’t really the goal. In “Montauk,” visitors are exploring an abandoned bunker tied to a series of mysterious incidents, and are tasked with bringing back hard evidence of their findings; in “Ghost Light,” they’re trying to keep the spirits happy without getting trapped in a ghostly world.
In January, a third room opened at MyssTic: “The Bird,” set in an old-timey abandoned apothecary once run by the magical de Lille family.
The story of The Bird begins before the door opens, with help from Game Master Parker Wallis.
“This little innocuous corner store is the foundation of our humble village, tending to our ailments with our balms and poultices alike,” she explained, standing outside the apothecary door. “But, as you can see, the door is locked, the windows are barred, and there’s no de Lille in sight.”
The apothecary was named after the de Lille family’s beloved blue bird, kept alive for decades by a specially-concocted “elixir of rebirth.” But after the youngest member of the de Lille family failed to make the elixir, the bird died, and the family abandoned their shop. But, Wallis said, visitors have the chance to finish the potion, revive the bird, and bring the apothecary back to life.
Once visitors are inside, they have an hour to solve the mystery, their time marked by candles burning on the shelves. Every so often, hints appear inside a picture frame. If a group gets really stuck, they can ask Wallis — watching from another room — for some extra assistance.
The stories of the three rooms are not connected, and Roda said new visitors can choose whichever one stands out to them most — and, if they choose to come back, enjoy a totally new experience.
“I think the three stories are great in their own way,” she said. “I have my favorite, but then I have friends who disagree, and they have other favorites.”
MyssTic Rooms, located at 794 Union St. between 6th and 7th avenues in Park Slope, is open seven days a week and offers reservations for groups of two through eight members. Prices begin at $62.50.
