Meet Your Maker: Kieran, Mystery Unfolds // Interview

Kieran from Mystery Unfolds

This week Kieran Flaherty takes us behind the scenes of his puzzle card business, Mystery Unfolds. He touches on the design process for his cards, how the company came about and the formation of the Puzzle Makers Guild of Australia. I have played some of Kieran’s puzzle cards and was charmed by the art style, humour and cleverly crafted puzzles. Read on to find out more!

(Meet Your Maker is an interview series featuring creators of puzzle and mystery games and experiences from across the globe. We aim to shine a spotlight on both established creators and those who are just setting out on their journey. Stay tuned for more interviews coming soon.)


G’day Kieran! Can you start by telling me a little about yourself and your team?

Presently the team is me – the design, illustration, promotion, marketing, customer support, fulfilment, and finances – all the things. I’ve always loved puzzles. With a psych degree under my belt and a career in graphic/web design and product management, I knew enough about the creating, testing, and promotion of fun puzzle experiences to get me started with Mystery Unfolds.

What is Mystery Unfolds?

Mystery Unfolds is my business that produces “puzzle cards”. It’s an escape room experience in a birthday card where the recipient doesn’t get their gift until they’ve solved the mystery within. They receive a little narrative introduction to the scene inside and must then solve a series of sequential puzzles before they arrive at a final answer. These are generally based on logic, lateral thinking, language, and pattern recognition. They write the answer on the back of the card and show it to you to claim their gift.

What are your first memories of puzzle games and when did you start to experiment with creating your own?

I used to love playing the Monkey Island games on PC growing up and enjoyed the occasional jigsaw or crossword puzzle. I didn’t discover tabletop puzzle games or escape rooms until after I had already been experimenting with my own designs for several years.

My first experience with this type of game was one I designed myself in 2010 on behalf of a local government-run event for young people. It was called the Secret Event. To attend, young local people had to use a series of postcards created by me and distributed around the area to solve cryptic clues and discern the event’s date, time, and location.

Kieran from Mystery Unfolds

Where did the idea for Mystery Unfolds come from and what was the process like of taking it from an idea to reality?

In 2013, I had been invited to a mate’s birthday party but the gift I had ordered him online hadn’t arrived. Rather than go to the party empty-handed, I created a very basic, last-minute crossword-style puzzle that he needed to solve before I would give him his gift. He solved it over the next three days (mainly due to my typos and crappy design) and by the time he did, his gift had arrived. He had a great time solving it and the gifting was a lot more fun for me. I played around with the idea for another few years before I played my first escape room in 2017. After that, I realised the designs had to be more visual and more narrative-driven and things started to take shape. By 2020, I had finalised two designs and opened my online store.

Setting up an e-commerce store with only two products was still quite a process. A lot of decisions needed to be made around the size and thickness of the cards, the envelopes they would fit in and understanding how that would affect the costs and postage. I started everything small, printing at home, and focusing at each stage on the MVP (Minimum Viable Product).  From many years of experience in tech, I wanted to keep all my processes, costs, and promotions small and agile while I was still learning whether there was a demand for my product. It wasn’t until a couple of years ago that I started wholesale, but my cards are now in 54 stores around Australia, and one in both the US and New Zealand.

Was it always the plan to go the greeting cards route or did you explore other options?

It was always greeting cards. I’ve always thought greeting cards were a bit boring and wasteful – you give them a quick skim and then they’re straight in the bin. Puzzles have a similar single-use value, so I loved the idea of combining the two of them and getting the most out of that single, quick experience. I have also had a lot of success marketing them as gifts. All my customers love the idea that they can hold a birthday present hostage until after the recipient has solved the puzzle. This has the added benefit that if they haven’t thought of a gift yet, it buys them more time to think of one.

I have a few ideas for tabletop, augmented reality, and video game puzzle experiences, and once the range of cards is a bit more extensive, that’s something Mystery Unfolds will branch into.

I had a blast playing The Pirate Code and Squid Game; both beautifully designed. Can you talk me through what goes into creating one of these cards?

Thank you, those are two easier cards that I had a lot of fun making. Generally, my starting point is coming up with an interesting mechanic – a new and clever way to hide some information within an image or text, and from there, I find a theme that suits that mechanic well.

With that as a starting point, I do a big brainstorm of ideas around that theme, come up with a story, and start playing around with supporting mechanics (each card contains multiple sequential puzzles) and layout. Once a design is done, I gift it to a friend/family member for a birthday, get feedback and revise the puzzle. Then I iterate on that testing and feedback process by mailing a copy of the prototype out to 100 people (staggered over time in case I make any big changes). I repeat that until I’m happy, finalise the artwork, and get them printed. I put together promotional material, make the card available on my website, and send it out to my stockists.

How challenging is it to innovate when constrained to a relatively small amount of space on a card?

There are constraints, but I think creativity flourishes within constraints. I’m really trying to come up with as many clever ways to use this space as I can. Not just with the paper medium which can be drawn on, folded, bent or rolled, coloured in, crumbled, seen through, and set on fire – but also with narrative, theme, and the interesting way those can all be combined. There are a range of interesting inks I still have to explore as well as different types and shapes of inserts for when I run out of space. Lots of ideas still in the bank. 😉

Which card are you most proud of and why?

“Blood Sacrifice of a Salesman” is my favourite. It’s a more difficult card, but it flows well and each puzzle in the sequence builds on the learnings from the previous one. Plus, I used to work in an IT team, so there are a few little IT gags thrown in there.

With endless theme possibilities, how do you decide where to go next?

It is often based on demand. I’ve had a lot of requests for Mother’s Day and Father’s Day cards, so those will be two of the next three cards I release. Sometimes though, a design will be working so well and getting such good feedback that it seems to flow seamlessly into production. My next card – Escape the Swedish Furniture Store – is a good example of this.

Are you currently working on any new cards or puzzle projects?

I’m always working on several things. Next to print:

  • “Day of the Mummies” – Mother’s Day card
  • “Escape the Swedish Furniture Store”- A delightful romp through a retail space

Next to prototype (names TBC):

  • “Taken Father” – a Father’s Day card with a secret society and dad jokes
  • “Mariner’s Revenge” – a narrative prequel to “Squid’s Game” and sequel to “The Pirate Code”

I’m always looking for testers, both in Australia and internationally if anyone wants a free puzzle experience to test. 😉

Puzzle games have generally exploded across the globe, would you say this is true in Australia?

I think we’re still a little ways from an explosion down here. Escape rooms are definitely established, with over 100 Australian-owned businesses (at the time of writing) and several international brands having set up shop.

I don’t have figures on demand for puzzle games in Australia, but in terms of what’s being sold locally, the “Exit the Game” and “Unlock!” games are the most popular and appear in more than half of the dedicated board game stores now. Some escape rooms and more curated independent book and game stores stock my cards and a handful of puzzle games from international creators.

I’m really keen to elevate the Australian puzzle scene and am in the process of establishing the Puzzle Makers Guild of Australia. The goal is to further the Australian Puzzle Industry through the collaboration of makers, advocates, and enthusiasts, and to support puzzle makers by raising their profile, improving their quality of service, and securing their business sustainability.

Do you get much opportunity to play puzzle games yourself?

I don’t really get to play games a lot, no. However, to spread awareness of quality puzzle games in Australia, I make a point to stock Guest Puzzler’s products in my online store. This also gives me a good excuse to play them first. PostCurious’ Light in the Mist and Spencer is Puzzling’s Lost in the Shuffle are the last two that I’ve had the great pleasure of playing and reselling. Would 100% recommend both. 😁

Aside from selling your range of puzzle cards, you also offer some bespoke services. Are you able to touch on those?

For individuals, I have a card called “Tied up in Knots”, which is an adaptation of a traditional knot puzzle into a personalised wedding card. I hand-write the names of the couple into the card – which is cute for puzzling couples. I’ve also done some customised wedding invitations, which were a lot of fun. I am yet to confirm whether the couple refused entry to the ceremony to anyone who didn’t solve the card.

I have also done work for a few escape rooms – helping them design puzzles and props for their rooms and setting up outdoor escape hunts.

Any final words?

Until now, I’ve been doing 99% of my sales and promotion locally, but this year I’ll be expanding into the US, the UK and EU. If anyone knows an escape room or game store that you think would be keen to stock my puzzle cards, I’d love to hear from you.

Alternatively, I need to get my individual sales way up so I can be considered by an international fulfilment centre, so I’ll be trying to incentivise international sales over the next few months.

Special offer: Kieran is kindly offering a special discount code for anyone who would like to try out his puzzle cards. Use the code “ESCAPEPUZZLER” at the checkout for 20% off!

This code expires on 30th June 2025.


Thank you!

Kieran’s commitment to both growing his own business and also working to raise the profile of puzzle makers in Australia is really admirable. I hope you enjoyed the interview – if you did, please check out the Mystery Unfolds website and see if anything takes your fancy!


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