Murder Mystery Flexi Party Murder at the Manor 6-14 Player Dinner Party Game

This was SO much fun! We played with a group of 13 people aged from 14 to 79. Did a sit down meal and phased the game alternating through the courses. The kit gives you everything you need including character briefing sheets and costume ideas, and the backup audio material worked well for setting the scene and gradually revealing the guilty secrets. The host does need to be well prepared but this just involves careful reading of the instructions. Ten out of ten!

So much fun, but only if you really enter into the spirit of it and ad lib - otherwise short-lived.

Excellent game. Age range was 14 - 69. Very enjoyable, fun and laughter would buy again as there is a set to collect. Can be reused as the murderer can be changed each time.

Played by 6x 40 somethings and 7 kids 7-13 yrs for a New Years Eve dinner. Played it straight from the box - no preparation, invites etc. This let the kids choose everyone's characters live at the table, which was fun. Don't be phased by the 18+ designation. Pretty tame and oblique innuendo that mostly went over the kids heads, and what did not was pretty harmless. No worse than what they would probably have heard anyway. We themed the evening as 1966 Nassau jazz club to get a more fun dresscode and playlists, then wrote our own story link tying the jazz club to the nearby colonial governor's residence, The Manor. Worked fine. The murderer is chosen at random at the start of the game and can be any of the characters. Everyone put on funny accents. We didn't use the CD. Great fun and the murder unmasked themselves at 23.59. Perfect timing. We will reuse this game lots. [Here's the link to the jazz club if you want to recycle it - most facts from wikipedia - find the Eddie Harris track on spotify] It’s a hot and humid New Years Eve at the Calypso Horn jazz club in downtown Nassau, 1966. The anticipation of the Junkanoo celebrations, starting an hour after midnight, tides the crowd over the disappointment that the main act, the US sensation of 1966, Alabama’s finest son, Percy Sledge, will not be performing tonight. Along with a number of other American artists planning to see in the New Year in Nassau, Sledge’s flight was cancelled due to bad weather over the Florida keys. The support act, Gladys Bright and the Mango Pips, extend their repertoire one improvisation further. Eddie Harris, one of the US artists who made the trip before the storm broke, lifts the crowds with his own jazz sax version of Percy Sledge’s latest hit, which the local Bahamas DJ’s had been overplaying since its release in April that year. [play track]. Sir Roland Theodore Symonette approaches tentatively from the Baillou Hill Street side of the club. He has mixed feelings about crossing to this side of town, and to this particular venue, on this particular night. The British Governor was enjoying his looser ties with London over the last few years, but felt his free-wheeling days of autonomous governance might be numbered. The Progressive Liberal Party was building up quite a head of steam under Lydon Pindling, the leading contender to become Nassau’s first non-white Governor. Sir Roland didn’t want to give these amateurs any unneeded ammunition for their electoral campaign. He was less worried for himself, but more for his houseguests Lord Heathcliff and his shrieking fiancée Naomi. Frightfully arriviste, they had neither tone nor manners, and it was much to Sir Roland’s chagrin that he has agreed to accompany them to the Calypso Horn so early on New Year’s Eve, with so much that could go awry. Lord Heathcliff was clearly tiring of the jazz club already. Maybe the music was too avante-garde even for his tastes. He proposed to Sir Roland that some of the new friends they had made at the bar should return to the Governor’s residence, known locally as The Manor, to enjoy a traditional colonial dinner, cooked by the inimitable Blanche Batter, before returning to the Calypso Horn for the Junkanoo festivities in the earliest hours of 1967. Sir Roland’s relief was palpable. As the party sucked the last drips of rum from the ice of their cocktails, he almost came to appreciate Eddie Harris’ sax cover of the Percy Sledge hit of the year that he sheepishly had had to admit to never having heard until tonight. Everything now would be fine. What could possibly go wrong….

I was looking to host a murder mystery evening, but where to start? I am very pleased I started with this kit. The kit contains guest invites, a guide for the host, some whodunit cards - one selected by each guest, evidence in printed text & spoken on CD, along with 14 character sheets and finally, a question menu. The evening starts with each guest selecting a numbered whodunit card, there is then introduction audio from the CD. Each guest then introduces themselves, then there are three "Acts", were guests question each other. After that, each guest makes an allegation as to who they suspect to be the murderer, which is followed by each guest revealing their innocence or guilt. We had a half-way break for a buffet and the evening was such a success - everyone in fancy dress & staying in character whilst eating. We now run a murder mystery each week, with all the other kits produced by the same authors, who have been very supportive & responsive. There are several supporting websites by the authors, were electronic character profiles, scripts and invites can be found. The audio evidence can also be downloaded in MP3 format from the authors for playing from a phone via bluetooth to an Amazon Echo! We have had endless fun with these kits & play via Zoom remotely during the pandemic lockdown each week. The authors have produced remote whodunit tickets, which can be seen easily over video chat.

It’s a well-organised and well thought out scenario, but it’s NOT family-friendly if you have children playing, despite what countless reviews claim. There are comments about bedroom gymnastics, male escorts, strippers and more, and this made for uncomfortable reading with our nieces who are 11, 12 and 13. Fine if it’s a group of adult friends but otherwise I’d suggest giving this one a miss.

We had so much fun playing this murder mystery game. I loved that this one was able to accomodate a lot of players. We almost had the max players but someone couldn’t make it. This comes with everything you need the instructions, hand books for characters and even little invitations you can send out to your friends and family. I addressed each invitation that it was from Lord Heathcliff. Award cards are also included for categories like best detective and best costume. Rather than award who I thought was deserving I let guests vote on little pieces of paper in baskets in front of each award. We all dressed in costume for our characters and couldn’t stop laughing throughout the game. It was so much fun and I’d definitely reccommend it. The instructions are very clear and easy to understand. The disc you can play along really adds to the whole experience. We had dinner then played the game as the other option didn’t seem like it would best suite our group. This was my first murder mystery game but others in our group had been to several. They commented that this one was more fun than some of the others they have attended. We had a long dinner table for our dinner with some old candelabras going to down to add to the atmosphere. Pinterest has some really great decorating ideas for your party. You can find some great decorations on here as well. I gifted this game to my cousin who lives far away so that she can enjoy her own murder mystery. I told her to pass it on when she’s done to keep the game traveling. They will just need to make their own invites or awards at some point when they run out.

I recently hosted a murder mystery dinner party for the first time, using this kit, and I thought this kit was great! It did really well in explaining everything, setting the scene, and entertaining guests. I believe it was some of my guests' first time playing this type of game as well, so it helped that the game was really simple: you basically rotate between eating, listening to the audio, and then speaking up in the form of character introductions or questions. In terms of setting the scene, I really loved the audio portion. The audio included music and sound effects (for the portion where they're revealing the evidence), and the narrator spoke with an English accent, which helped set the scene. Not to mention, the audio files were on both a CD, which they provided, and online. I found this helpful because my computer doesn't have a CD drive (I was able to play it on my phone, using their online audio files). Last, the story itself was entertaining and it intermingled different characters' histories together, which made it really funny at some points. Overall, the kit was definitely a great buy. As the hostess, I think it helped me a lot in entertaining my guests and creating a fun atmosphere. In terms of timeline, a little more than a month before the party, I asked some of my guests which date for the party worked for them. Once I got everyone's input and determined the best date, which was about a month before the party, I sent out invites and their roles. This gave everyone ample time to prepare their costumes. For the character sheets, I sent out copies to my guests the morning of the party, so if they wanted, they'd have time to develop their characters' accents and/or idiosyncrasies. Some of them even memorized their lines, which made the conversation flow better. I'd definitely consider buying another kit from this company!

First - there are a lot of positives about playing the game and how cleverly the game designers made the game flexible. The directions say you can replay, but they recommend you wait a couple of months so you forget the details. That may be possible, but if you replay the game, probably use the characters you didn't use before. I loved that we could add or remove someone at the last minute. The character variety allowed people to pick a character they were comfortable with. The flow of the game was pretty easy. I also love that there are a lot of characters so maybe you can play the game multiple times, and you can definitely give the game to another group of friends and they can play. No part of this is consumable! We have a group of 10 adults that regularly get together for dinner and some sort of game. I bought this on a whim because someone said "Can we do a murder mystery one time and dress up?" We did have a great time PLAYING the game. We all sat in one room and read the Acts, questions, and answers so everyone heard everything at the same time. I can't imagine it would be great with mingling because it would take SO long for everyone to talk to everyone and ask the questions. Here's the beef: No one guessed the murderer! Even after we were done, the murderer was revealed, the murderer read his confession, we were all confused about how we were supposed to come up with the motive and murder scenario. Most of us were paying pretty good attention for inconsistencies in people's story, but the motive and scenario required too many leaps. It's possible that we just got unlucky with one poorly written character and that any of the others would have been more obvious. I will probably play again, just eliminate that character and recommend that if I loaned the game to someone, they take that person out too.

After researching various murder mystery games, I chose this one, and wasn't disappointed. I liked that it didn't need a set number of players. We ended up having 12 which was a good number. Too few & the game is over too quick. But too many, and it takes a long time. The story line was fun & the suspect characters costumes relatively easy to do (many of my guests simply ordered outfits like the maid, doctor, detective, & chauffeur costumes directly from Amazon's Halloween costume selection). SUGGESTION: I didn't follow the instructions exactly. The instructions say to pick a murderer and give the players their suspect question/answer sheets right before the game starts. However, I gave copies (not the originals) of the suspect question/answer sheets to my party guests early. I also had them draw to see who was the murderer early as well. The reason is because it was much more fun if the people have time to research their characters & practice their lines in advance (otherwise, without time to prepare, they are just reading pieces of paper during the party - not as much fun). My guests loved doing it this way as they were able to practice accents, memorize lines, and ad lib more. And - because the question/answer sheets told more of the story (and changed depending upon if you are the murderer) - they were able to enhance their costumes or their behavior accordingly. As for the game itself - you can use the CD narrator - the voice and music were great. However, if you do not have all 14 players - the narrator does mention their parts which can be confusing and there is no way to prevent this. OR - the game gives you the option of having a non-player guest read the game narrator's part. This would allow you to skip suspects not in your game if you don't use 14 players. People are already asking me what murder mystery game we are going to play next!!

I did a lot of research and review reading before purchasing Murder at the Manor. It was a perfect choice for our first attempt at hosting this type of event. Everyone had a great time and commented on how easy it was to understand plus not selecting the killer ahead of time made it very flexible. The unexpected twists as suspects were questioned made for a fun evening also. We can’t wait to do another one. We had 12 guests and just mingled to ask questions. From arrival to departure, it took us three hours but only a little over 2 hours of that for actual game time. I made hosting easy by having people bring heavy appetizers.