I’ve created dozens of escape rooms and hundreds of puzzles over the years. I don’t have one favorite puzzle, but I do love puzzles that can be used with virtually any age group. I have used a cipher wheel in a few escape rooms over the years, and I love them! If you’re looking to make your own escape room, make sure to grab a copy of the Best Free Escape Room Cipher Wheel available!

The wheel is printable and can be altered to be used for any room, any theme and any age group. Make sure to print a copy of the wheel and use it for any escape room for endless fun and adventure.

A cipher wheel, also referred to as a decoder wheel includes two, or more circles. When turned, the sections of the wheel match up to reveal, or spell out a code. The great thing about these wheels is that you can decide the ciphers code and you can change it for each game.

The wheels are easy to understand so they can be used with the youngest of players, to older experienced players. The other bonus to this printable escape room cipher wheel is that it’s free so you can easily, and inexpensively add it to your DIY escape room game.

If you’re looking to try out other escape room games, make sure to check out a collection of 15 Best Free Escape Room for Kids or the classic, and most popular 40 DIY Escape Room Ideas.

If this is your first introduction to escape rooms, make sure to also learn How to Make an Escape Room and print the free template to plan and organize your own escape room game.

DIY Cipher Wheel

Your cipher wheel is really easy to prepare and create with the free printables. The free file includes three printable wheels. One of the wheels includes upper case letters on the large wheel and lower case letters on the smaller wheel. This wheel is great for spelling out longer clues. Because all of the letters of the alphabet are included on the wheel, you can spell out any sentence or clue for players.

The second wheel includes both letters and numbers. This can work well if you are looking for give players a code, such as for a lock box. Each letter can relate to a number. A combination of letters leads to a combination of numbers.

The final printable wheel is blank so the possibilities are endless! This wheel can be filled in to fit any theme or idea you have for your escape room. You can use shapes, pictures or words in each spot that players will then use to decode a clue.

Once you know which wheel you want to use, print it and cut out both of the circles. Line them up and press a butterfly clip, or brad through the center. There is a black dot in the letter E in Top Secret to mark the middle.

If you want to keep things really simple, you could create a room using only the cipher wheel. Each puzzle will lead players to use the wheel to reveal the next clue. Players will love having a physical puzzle that they can hold and manipulate.

Using Your Escape Room Cipher Wheel

Once your wheel is ready and lined up, choose the alignment. For example, tell players E=23. This means that players need to line up the letter E on the large wheel and the number 23 on the smaller wheel. Once they’re lined up, players can then use a code left in a clue to figure out the puzzle.

You could give the numbers, 20, 7, 7, 3. Once players match each of these up, you will be given the word BOOK. This can tell players to check the books in the room for the next clue.

With older or more experienced players, you can make the code longer and more challenging or keep it simple. However, you want to play your game. To make it even more challenging you could include various shifts and turns for each letter in order to solve the clue.

Kids and players of all ages will love twisting and turning the wheel and printing each letter that is revealed with each turn. It’s an easy way to give kids simple or detailed clues that they have to solve on their own.

Download the Free Escape Room Cipher Wheel

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To download the cipher wheel featured above, click the button below. Once you click, you will need to subscribe to Hands-On Teaching Ideas through Grow. After subscribing, the file with the wheels will download right away. When you subscribe through Grow you will also unlock all of the other freebies on this site.

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