Frequently asked questions about murder mystery parties

The simplest way to choose a game is to read my Choosing a Murder Mystery Party Game page and work through the steps.

It helps you select a game by filtering on number of guests, theme parties and more. It's the best place to start!

While some murder mystery games are scripted, the ones on this site are not. Instead, everyone is given their character details and it's up to them how they investigate the murder and try to achieve their goals.

(And by scripted, I mean that the players have a script that they read aloud from.)

It depends on the game. The licence for some games let you run them just the once. Others let you run them as many times as you like.

However, you can't really run them with the same group again, as once you've played a game then everyone will know the game secrets.

Sort of. I don't offer refunds directly, but that's because you didn't purchase the game from me.

I don't actually sell the games - instead, I earn a small amount of commission (which doesn't affect the price you pay) from the publishers if you purchase a murder mystery game after following the link from my site.

So the actual transaction takes place on the publisher's website. And they are the ones who can provide a refund.

Each publisher has their own refund policy, so if you want a refund you should contact that publisher directly using the contact details in the game materials.

In terms of playing time, most of the games take about 2.5 to 3 hours to play. The whole event tends to take a bit longer as time is needed for introductions (and to meet and greet) and to wind-down (and share war stories) afterwards.

Speeding up the game is possible, but it's hard to shave much more than about 30 minutes off the playing time and another 30 minutes off everything else.

(One game, The Show Must Go On!, has been designed to be played in 60 minutes.)

While I have tips and suggestions for hosting really big murder mystery parties here, I'm afraid I don't know of any published games for over 200 people.

I'm afraid not. Writing a game takes a lot of time and effort, and I don't have the time to write games for individual customers.

For most of the games on my site, the murderer is chosen by the host. They cast the game and know everyones' secrets.

(The host doesn't play a character in the same way that everyone else does. Instead, they organise and facilitate the game for everyone else. I describe what the host does here.)

Where the host is also a player, such as Reunion with Death and Death in Venice, the host still casts the game but because they don't know who the murderer is, the murderer is chosen randomly.

I've written a longer article about problems with payment or downloading and other glitches.

You can read that here, but in general you need to contact the company you purchased the game from, as they will have the transaction details and can help you.

(You may have clicked through from my site, but the actual sale took place on their site and they have the details.)

Yes! I've written an entire article on that which you can find here: Fundraiser ideas.

I do, and it's extremely satisfying to write your own, but first I should say that it's far, far easier just to buy a game than to write one yourself.

Writing a murder mystery game can take many, many hours - and even then you may find that you've missed something. The games for sale have been tested before going on sale.

But if you fancy having a go at writing a murder mystery game, I've written a book that might help that you can find here: Write your own murder mystery party.