I apologise for the slight delay in this month's Guilty Parties. I planned to send it out before the weekend, but Real Life intruded (as it does) and then I had to plant a hedge over the weekend and, well, here we are. Anyway, Christmas is fast approaching and I do hope that you can find something useful this month. Either way, do have a Happy Christmas!

By the way, if you've enjoyed this newsletter or you've found www.great-murder-mystery-games.com useful and you have your own website, please support my site and put a link on your site... Thanks!

Christmas murder mystery games

It's now less than one month to Christmas... (Yikes! must get on with the Christmas shopping!)

If you haven't already thought about it, now's the time to be preparing your Christmas murder mystery game.

Of course, you don't have to host a Christmas-themed party - but if you do click here for my Christmas party ideas.

Help - I can't open the pdf file...

I recently received a request for help in opening the free introductory pdf files. While it's never easy to determine exactly what's gone wrong, here are the things you can check first:

#1 Please make sure that you have have Acrobat Reader installed on your computer. It's free to install - and as all the games are distributed in pdf format, you'll need it. Click here to dowload Acrobat Reader.

#2 There's a problem with the servers that the files are stored on. These problems are usually temporary - the publishers don't like these any more than you do! Unfortunately we all have to live with the occasional glitch on the Internet. To check that this is the problem, try downloading pdf files from the different publishers (they're all on different servers). If, for example, you can download The Auction but not All at Sea, it means that the problem is probably at Freeform Games' end. But don't worry - server errors don't usually last long and if you come back a day later they're usually fixed.)

#3 There's a problem with your internet service provider. Again, these do happen - although not very often. And again, it's just a matter of waiting.

#4 There's an error on my site. This is something I can deal with! If you could let me know which files you're having the problem with, I'll sort out the error.

#5 Your internet service provider won't let you download pdfs. (This is typically for those of you that surf the Internet from work - some sites are banned or you may be prohibited from downloading files.) I can't do much about that, but get in touch and I can email you the pdfs.

#6 There's some other error - which I'm afraid I really can't do much about!

If you're still having problems, please contact me with as much detail as possible and I'll see what I can do. Click here to contact me.

Casino Fatale - a new murder mystery game from Freeform Games

On the banks of the River Seine in Paris, the Hotel D'Etoile has a fabulous casino - known as the Casino Fatale. Rumour has it that the casino is connected with "Mr X", the mysterious underworld boss. Who is Mr X? Find out at Casino Fatale...

I've been a bit slow in publishing this - but finally I've got the details on my site. Anyway, Casino Fatale is an interactive murder mystery party for 15-20 guests (plus one host) published by Freeform Games. Set in a sinister Parisian casino, Casino Fatale has a glamorous underworld spy theme (it's a bit James Bond-y in places) and includes secret government plans, jewel theives and a charity auction.

Click here to learn more about Casino Fatale.

Theatrical costume hire

Just recently my wife and I went to see Kneehigh Theatre's wonderful production of Tristan and Yseult at the West Yorkshire Playhouse in Leeds.

Anyway, while we were looking at the details of upcoming productions, my wife spotted a flyer for the theatre's costume hire service.

Now, I don't hire costumes very often, but last time I did (from a professional costume company) it cost me something like £30 for a weekend. The West Yorkshire Playhouse's rates seem very reasonable as they start from £15 per week (cheaper for a part-costume).

So before you hire a costume from your local hire shop, check out your local theatre and see if they have a costume hire department. You may be able to save yourself a bob or two.

Oops! Or how I accidently revealed whodunnit!

Hi - I recently made an appalling error. On my old murder mystery games site (you can click here to visit it, but do come back as I don't update it much) I have a bunch of testimonials from people who have enjoyed playing the murder mystery games.

Unfortunately, one of those testimonials inadvertently gave away the sex of the murderer for one of the mystery games - so that automatically ruled out 50% of the suspects and made it much easier.

I was taken to task on this (and quite rightly so) and I have now amended the offending testimonial and of course I vow never to do it again.

However, I've realised that there's another issue here - as more and more people are putting up websites or starting their own blogs, there's a greater and greater chance that anyone simply searching on Google or Yahoo will inadvertently stumble across a site where the murderer is revealed.

And as I'm sure you wouldn't want your fun to be spoiled by knowing who the murderer is in advance, I'm equally sure you wouldn't want to spoil anyone else's fun.

Incidentally, if you have uploaded photos or written about your murder mystery party somewhere, it would be fantastic if you could send me a link or point me to it! You can click here to contact me and tell me all about it.

That's about it this time - have a great murder mystery party!

Steve

Comments? Ideas? Feedback?

I'd love to hear from you. Just reply to this zine and tell me what you think!

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