0 games found
No mysteries found
Try adjusting your filters - the killer might be hiding elsewhere.
Filter by players, theme, gender-flexible casting, budget and more - then get playing.
Try adjusting your filters - the killer might be hiding elsewhere.
One of the most fun ways to spend any evening is to host a murder mystery dinner party game. These games turn ordinary dinners into a fully immersive whodunit experience. Characters dress up and take on the roles of fun characters and spend the whole night trying to find the murderer.
A murder mystery dinner party game lets your friends try to solve a murder while dressed up as themed characters. They're typically for 8 and 20 guests, but you can find specialized kits that cater for smaller and bigger groups. Each guest will play as a character with a backstory, secrets and possibly deadly motivations for attending. Over the course of the evening, one or more murders will occur, and it is up to everyone at the table to figure out who the killer is.
Unlike escape rooms or solo case file games, dinner party mystery games are very social. You'll have some evidence to help you, but you'll have to talk to and question each other in order to discover motives and be certain who the killer is. Guests also spend a large portion of the night trying to uncover the secrets of every other guest.
Most games follow a similar structure. After purchasing and downloading your kit, the host assigns characters and sends out invitations. Each player receives a character sheet which tells them everything they need to know about their character, their relationships to other characters and their secrets. On the night itself, players stay in character throughout the night, talking and questioning each other to find secrets and find the killer.
The host will tap 1 to 3 people on the shoulder over the course of the night to tell them that they've been murdered. That guest will have to play out their death scene as best as they can. The host will then announce that they've found some evidence on the victim. This evidence will be clues to help characters figure out some secrets and identify the killer.
Some games let guests chat with each other improv style and ask whatever questions they'd like. Others follow a script and have set questions and answers. The majority of murder mystery party games are sold as digital downloads. You purchase the game, download a set of PDF files, print everything out and you are ready to go. This keeps costs low, and allows hosts to print out as many copies as they need and on whatever paper or cardstock they prefer.
With so many games on the market, it's difficult to know which ones to choose. This site splits games into various categories, so you can find the perfect game for your next dinner party.Here are the categories we focus on:
Player count. Most dinner party mystery games are designed for a specific number of guests. We filter games by the number of guests so that you can easily find one that'll fit your group numbers. Simply drag the slider to the estimated number of people you expect to show up, and you'll find games that will work for it.
Gender-flexible roles. Traditionally, mystery games assigned characters based on gender, which create awkward situations in non-binary groups. It also forces hosts to invite friends based on their gender instead of who you really want to be there. The best modern games use gender-neutral characters - names, costumes and pronouns are written so that anyone can play any character. You can invite whomover you want to and they'll fit perfectly into your game. We use this filter to narrow down games that take this important metric into account.
Romantic content between characters. Lots of games feature scenarios with love trysts, relationship between characters, flirting and affairs. It's a big plot points, especially in 1920s storylines. However, this can make parties uncomfortable for many players and is especially unwelcome in family gatherings and work events. For this reason, we allow users to filter games to find ones that work for every group of people. You can choose if you want romantic content in your game or not.
Theme and setting. These cover stories from 1920s Prohibition speakeasies to Victorian manor houses. The theme is one of the first things host look at when they're searching for a game. However, many games don't clearly mention what type of theme their games focus primarily on. We help users filter all murder mystery games by theme, so you can find exactly what you want.
Duration. Most dinner party mystery games run for approximately 2 to 3 hours of active play - that's just standard. But from a planning point of view, you need to be certain of how long each game will take, so we divide games by length to help you find one that fits your schedule.
Not all games will work for every event. Here is a quick guide to matching games to events:
Finding the right murder mystery dinner party game manually means visiting multiple product pages, searching through tons of descriptions for player count, theme, age-range, and they often don't make it clear that there's tons of romantic content - which you only find out about once you've bought and downloaded your kit.
With our Murder Mystery Finder, you can quickly filter down games to exactly what fits your needs and only start reading descriptions of games that will absolutely work for your night. It cuts hours, if not days, out of searching to find the best murder mystery dinner party games for you.