July 15, 2004
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July 2004, Issue #18
Table of Contents
1 News
2 Murder Mystery Tips - Casting
3 Review: Death in the Fast Lane
4 Book Review: The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
5 Your Questions
1 News
Death in the Fast Lane - new motor-racing murder mystery game from Freeform Games
Freeform Games has just released their latest game - Death in the Fast Lane, an interactive murder mystery party for 9 to 11 guests (plus host) set in the high-octane world of motor-racing. See below for more details.
2 Murder Mystery Tips - Casting
(Note - this tip is more applicable to interactive murder mystery games, such as those by Freeform Games LLP, Dinner and a Murder Mystery Games and Murder Mystery Games Ltd.)
There are two ways to cast a murder mystery party game. You can either cast in advance, or do it on the day. Both have their strengths and weaknesses.
The big advantage of casting in advance is that your guests can prepare for the role. They can find appropriate costumes and props and help contribute to the atmosphere of the game.
The main disadvantage is that if someone that you have given a critical character to (say, the murderer) cancels at the last minute, then you need to recast. And that may mean that someone has a quite inappropriate costume for his or her new part.
If you cast on the day, you should encourage your guests to dress in an appropriate style. This may mean that you lose a little atmosphere, but does mean you’re not relying on a particular guest.
A third option is to combine both. Tell some people in advance which characters they will be playing, and leave some to the last minute to cover all eventualities.
Then there’s casting itself – how do you actually decide who gets which character? There’s no hard and fast rule for this as nobody knows your friends the way you do. I have both cast characters on an entirely random basis and according to who was turning up. Both seem to work.
(You could of course ask your guests what sort of character they would like – but then you run the risk of someone being disappointed when you can’t, for whatever reason, cast them in their preferred role.)
Once you've cast your game, you could send out the entire character background in advance. I am not a huge fan of this. If you do that, you may find that your guests (particularly close friends and partners) actually start playing before the evening! They may well accidentally give away secrets – and unintentionally spoil the evening. You also have an even bigger problem if someone drops out – you can’t give their character to someone else (because they know things about their first character) so you would need to try and find an extra person from somewhere.
However, it's certainly true that your party will start faster if you send out the information in advance, particularly as some games require quite a bit of information to be absorbed at first. It depends on the game - certainly at Freeform Games many customers comment that if they were running the game again, they would send the information out in advance.
3 Murder Mystery Game Review - Death in the Fast Lane
Before I start describing Death in the Fast Lane, I'd probably better own up to two things. First, I'm a partner in Freeform Games LLP, the publishers. Second - I wrote Death in the Fast Lane, so you might want to take everything I say with a pinch of salt!
That aside, let's carry on.
Death in the Fast Lane is an interactive murder mystery party for 9 to 11 guests, plus the host. Set in the high-octane world of Formula 17 motor-racing, Death in the Fast Lane takes place during the final three races of the current grand prix season.
However, championship leader Jo Shooie has been murdered!
In Death in the Fast Lane, guests take on the roles of drivers and owners of three competing teams - Team Chelsea, Team MacDonald and Team Picard. In addition, Michaela Sprint and Mel Watson represent the Race Committee, the organisation overseeing Formula 17.
The host plays the part of the Race Marshal, and like other Freeform Games murder mystery parties, the host organises the game for everyone else. (They don't play it in the same way - and they already know who the murderer is. Hosting a game is quite different from playing in one, and I find it very satisfying.)
Death in the Fast Lane includes full instructions for playing the game - including the final three races of the season, which are played out with a simple card game. (I strongly recommend trying out the card game in advance, as advised.)
As the game progresses, the last three races are played out - and each of them can be won by any of the drivers. There's no predetermined winner - and any of the leading drivers can win the overall championship.
As well as solving the murder and winning the championship, each character has other goals which include negotiating for new contracts, finding out each others' dirty secrets and ensuring that Formula 17 remains respectable.
At the end of the party the murderer is revealed by amateur sleuth Mel Watson.
So is it any good? Obviously I am biased, but I would say that the races (and therefore the driver's championship) take up a significant part of the party. So if your friends are particularly keen on solving murders, you might want to give Death in the Fast Lane a miss.
On the other hand, if you have some friends who are fans of motorsport and you think they might enjoy a murder mystery party where the emphasis is on having fun rather than solving the murder, then you might want to take a look at Death in the Fast Lane.
Death in the Fast Lane is available from Freeform Games and cost £20.
4 Book Review - The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
This is my first book review for Guilty Parties (and great-murder-mystery-games.com as well, for that matter). The only reason for this is that I just don't read too many murder mystery novels - and even fewer that I particularly enjoy.
However, I've just finished The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time by Mark Haddon which although it's a rather unusual murder mystery (you could even argue that it's not a murder mystery story in the traditional sense), I really enjoyed it and I thought you might too.
Anyway, the narrator of The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is Christopher Boone, a 15 year old with behavioural problems (he's autistic). One day, he finds a neighbour's dog, Wellington, dead - murdered. And so he decides to be a detective and solve Wellington's murder.
In the process of solving the murder, Christopher finds that his world is turned upside down and he makes his own journey of discovery.
What makes The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time particularly unusual is the voice of its narrator, Christopher. In narrating the story, we learn all about Chistopher's world. Why he reacts the way he does. Everything Christopher does is logical, everthing makes sense to him.
The book is written with one chapter following the story of Christopher's investigation, alternatingwith chapters that illuminate his world. So, for example, we kearn about Christopher's passion for matheatics, his hatred of the colours yellow and brown, his love of Sherlock Holmes and the Apollo missions.
Of course, as well as learning about Christopher we also learn about the special difficulties that autism brings. It's our own journey of discovery.
So The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time is only partly a murder mystery story, but also Christopher's journey and also our journey in learning about autism.
I thoroughly enjoyed it.
Click here to read aboutThe Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time on Amazon.com.
5 Your Questions
Some of your recent questions.
We represent a youth ministry and would like to put on a "get acquainted mystery night" for all members (100+). Are there any murder mystery games that accommodate that many, and are the topics suitable for a youth ministry?
There aren't many games that cater for over 100 people, but there are a few and I've detailed all the large murder mystery games here: Fund Raiser Ideas.
The page is titled "fund raiser ideas" as I've written it from the point of view of raising money for charity, but it has links to details of the larger games so you can browse my site (and publishers' sites) to decide which one suits you best.
(To be honest, I'm not 100% sure what a "youth ministry" is, so you're the best person to tell if a game is suitable or not.)
I'm planning a murder mystery party and since I'm pretty good at writing I thought I could save myself $30 and write it myself. The problem I've run into is creating clues - What should they look like and What should they say? Can you help? Thanks.
Congratulations on deciding to write your own murder mystery party - if it's a good one perhaps you will be able to sell it over the internet.
I am more familiar with writing "interactive" style murder mystery games - like Death on the Gambia and All at Sea. There, the clues are worked into the background. I'm less familiar with writing a game like a "how to host" mystery - that's something I've not done.
However, I have found that it's sometimes easiest to write out the denoument (the summary, where the clever inspector explains whodunnit) and then work out the clues to lead the inspector to the solution.
You might also want to check here for more info, they have a discussion board for writing murder mystery games:
That's it for this time. Have a great party - and tell me all about it!
See you in September!
--steve
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