An Evening of Murder Game: A Feast to Die For Party Game

I ordered and used this game for my own birthday party. The set up and characters for this game are modern and consist of costume suggestions that are realistic but fun. There are 8 characters provided with this game so I improvised and created more. My guests and I laughed and laughed all night long and had a great time. There is a lot of preparation involved if you want to host an amazing Murder Mystery Dinner. This game comes with a CD explaining the instructions and the "sounds of the murder," clue cards for each character, invitations for each of the characters, and the authors solution which is sealed. The only problem, and it was minor, with the game was that the clue cards did not state who should begin speaking in each round. It appeared that everyone was waiting to be prompted by another character to speak. The cards will read like, "Reveal this information after Eleanor's Challenge." It was like that on all of the cards so everybody was waiting to be challenged by someone else before they would speak. I had to improvise to help get the game going, but all in all it was the most fun I have had in years! Excellent game!

This was a total blast! It was our first one, we will definitely be doing more. Needed one for 8 people with our dinner circle, this one has 8 full characters with roles. Tips on props: we put a body outline in the kitchen with masking tape, and added dried ketchup to look like blood had been vomited out of the mouth. took an empty medine bottle and taped a new label on "sodium cyanide" then sealed in a baggie marked "exhibit A" and left near the body. Also put a wine glass in a sealed baggie for exhibit B. These aren't going to be used to figure out the murder, but are great props to get your guests in the mood. We gave people their profiles early and let them work on their character with accents, words they might use, mannerisms, etc. Important: the script cards for each scene for each character have a defense that you say when someone accuses you, and an accusation (challenge) you can lob out to throw the blame onto someone else. it only says, "say this after Eleanor's challenge", but someone has to lob out an accusation first to get the ball rolling each scene. Instruct your guests to feel free to be the first to throw an accusation, or to throw one out at any time, as it doesn't say in the script who should do so. Also, don't go through the profiles yourself, because one will say who the murderer is on the first page, and you don't want to spoil the fun for yourself.

I recently used this game, and it was a huge success. I really liked all the characters. They were all unique enough that you could really create and character that would be fun and interesting, but they were also realistic enough to be believable, unlike the characters in some of the other mystery party games. The fact that the characters were more realistic also made it easier for everyone to be comfortable in their parts.The game went well, although it was just barely two hours long, and that was with taking short breaks between scenes and with people embellishing a bit on their information. But the story is well written and all the parts are interesting. Everyone there agreed that 8 people was a perfect number, and we liked that the murderer DOES know that they're the murderer.All in all a great time, that's pretty simple for a first-timer. If you're hosting this party, my one suggestion is to make sure you have wine charms on the wine glasses- it's not specifically mentioned in the instructions and it becomes kinda important to the plot. Also, we took a break inbetween scenes during which everyone read their information for the next scene. That way they weren't just reading the info and they could feel more comfortable in their characters.I'm definitely planning on buying the other game by this company.

I host about 3 to 4 murder mystery parties a year. I've been collecting old boxed games like this simply to gather information on characters and plot ideas. I rewrite a lot of these games as needed. Sometimes I borrow characters to use in other games or clues that stand out here and there that I can use with other parties. In the end, if the game isn't so bad, I'll simply fine tune it to my needs and play it pretty much as is. These Max Haines games are some of the worst in the bunch. I don't understand all the positive reviews here. I mean, for novices the game isn't too bad. As others have said, it's very scripted. In other boxed games, your character gets a few bits of information to reveal and conceal. In these games, there are four rounds and you get 1 fact to reveal about another character and 1 answer to someone's question. There is no set order to revealing facts, but this shouldn't be a problem. And finally, if you're looking for a really good mystery, these games don't deliver. I didn't feel there were enough clues to pinpoint the culprit. This seems to be a major problem with most boxed games. The theme and characters were pretty good and I guess if you have the right group of people, you can stretch the game, ad lib and do some role-playing, but if your players aren't the type, this game could be really simple and perhaps even boring. Many titles are hit and miss and this one is one I'd skip. I prefer the "How to Host a Murder" games and the "Paul Lamont" boxed sets from the UK. These are about the best of the boxed games.

We have played murder mystery games for New Year's Eve for over 20 years. It's a great, fun tradition! This game was the first we had tried from this company. Each guest is a character and has information to divulge and information to accuse others of the murder. It's an evening of great interaction and mystery.This game has a more "scripted" feel to it, in that the accusations and reply comments match up, character-to-character. So, it's got more of a feel of reading through a play than of random comments being tossed back and forth all night. For first-timers, this is an easy approach. Every guest we had that night was new to playing murder mystery games and they all loved the evening!This particular game left a few loose ends that were never explained. Oh well, I guess that's true to life!