How To Create Your Own Murder Mystery Party

I am writing this from the perspective of someone who hasn't yet thrown a murder mystery party. I may have more feedback later, but my point of view comes from trying to create it, not how successful it was.I bought How to Create Your Own Murder Mystery Party and The Official Suspects & Sleuths Murder Mystery Design Guide to try to help create my first party. They compliment each other well. If you have never done this before, I recommend getting them both as they will fill in the blanks each book leaves.This book (How to Create Your Own Murder Mystery Party) looks like a self-published book. The cover is unexciting. There is no back matter.What it does well is give lots of examples. There are five sample games in the book. They are all very different. They have different levels of difficulty. There are lots of ideas on how to incorporate clues and wrong turns and also how to disqualify people so that your guests have a reasonable chance of guessing the real culprit. What is best about it is that it doesn't rely on elaborate scripts. Each person plays himself. There is no required role playing and no scripts. This really works well for me.I am glad I got the other book though because although this one is full of ideas, I didn't feel I had enough information on the step by step implementation to run with it.Update: The mystery was a hit. This book provided me with ideas that helped to make it more interesting and fun. I am glad that I used the two books together. It is geared more to the independent thinker and has lots of creativity. I recommend it.

I used the book to create a mystery, and it worked well. But these mystery games do need to go on awhile, and we didn't have quite as long as needed, particularly because our murderer was quite good as purloining evidence and it takes time to put it back out so some people never saw some of the evidence. But this was not the fault of the book.Nevertheless, people laughed and had a good time. Your players will have various levels of deductive skill, so it is good to have evidence that can be understood by all. Also, it is critical to test and retest the game you are creating--so easy to miss creating a clue or have a gap that can throw the players off or make solving it impossible.There were some critical reviews of this book that I believe are a bit harsh. The book provided what I needed. There were a couple of typos, but the writing was clear and easy to understand. There are sample mysteries which can be used as well as ideas for different kinds of clues and how to diagram the mystery to set it up.

If you are of the creative bent, then this is the book for you. Although there is little in the way of a step by step guide, especially if you are trying to keep a general theme including food, music, attire, etc it provides a great jumping point to creating your own. After reading this book I was bursting with ideas for how to build a party that didn't involve writing scripts that everyone has to read. This book gave me everything I needed to put together what I hope will be an amazing party.

This book is self published and the author is a guy that decided to start hosting his own annual murder mystery party. He creates a new one every year, and this book goes into detail about the first five. He has some very interesting ideas, and if you are the creative type you can be inspired on how to create your own. He also tells you the different elements you need and fun ways to get your guests involved. Unlike the generic murder mystery party kits, his ideas do not involve scripts.

Between this and the other book I purchased (Suspects & Sleuth's Murder Mystery Design Guide: A Guide to Creating, Writing, and Hosting your own Murder Mystery Dinner Party Games), I got all the ideas I needed to host a fantastic murder mystery party. Well worth it when you think about all the money you can spend on party decor, plates, etc. that just get thrown away. This can be used again and again as a resource for many future parties. If I ever have the energy to do it again. It was very elaborate and the most time-intensive party I've ever held. But I think the most memorable as well.

This was a great help! My daughter just turned 15, and she wanted to have a murder birthday party. Even though this book was geared to the adult, she was able to read it and create her own version of a party for teens. I don't think she could have been as successful without this guide.

Read all of the tips and ended up modifying one of the stories included. It was a great party idea. Will use the book again.

Was interesting and worth the read, could have been better and not so short with large font, but overall was worth it and had some good ideas.