Murder mystery party?

Question

Ok well I want to have a murder mystry party for halloween. I need someone to answer these questions:
1. how many people max?
2. is it fun?
3. How long do they go for?
4. Is there a kit that i can buy that gives intructions?
and
5. Tell me what NOT to do

Answer 1

You could go for as many as you wanted, but to keep it simple and easy to manage limit your self to 1 murderer, 1 chief inspector/of police, 2/3 logical suspects, 1 red herring (someone who is so obviously the murderer but isn't), and of course the murderer him/her self. Do now you have five people who are involved in the plot and the plan. So you would need at least ten people who are not involved with the story.
It can be fun as long as you keep the plot moving. This is a game that was very popular back in the late twenties and thirties and has been revived in the last few years and is still popular.
As for length, that is up to you the "director", keep it going as long as you want, but when you see the interest of your audience you must bring it to a close. But I would advise you to limit it to not more that one hour and not less than one half an hour.
There is not a kit that I know of, but check google.
Let's see what not to do?
First I would say other than don't make it uninteresting>
Don't make it too complicated or you could lose you audience. Don't have too much physical interaction where people might hurt each other or break furniture etc. Keep the action close to home even if you want the characters to move from room to room or even outside the home.
I could give you ideas for plots etc. as I have written several plays and rado shows over the years, but it would take up too much space here on Q&A
You can contact me at:
[e-mail]
Good luck with your project and have fun with it.

Answer 2

Check with "Max Haines Crime Flashback" there has to be a site - he has wrote for the Toronto Sun for years - and he just retired - maybe thru the Toronto Sun... also Max Haines also ran "Crime Week-ends", I always wanted to go on one.. each person has a part to play and no one knows the "killer" until the end... I'm quite sure there are kits for these, at any of the BIG Bookstores!! Have fun.. oh! they last for (as long as you want) .. they are great fun..and the one thing you never do... is LOOK AT THE END!!! let us know how it all turns out! and if you can, try and find a "Murder" appropriate for Halloween! Sounds spooky!!!

Answer 3

I tried that once and while my parents were gone and we ended up just playing hide and seek in the house with all the lights off. You want a lot of people because, not only will it be funner, but it will be harder to determine who the murderer is. What I did was send out invitations to all my friends and we had a fancy dinner party, then I took them into the living room and passed out pieces of paper to each of them that they were supposed to keep to themselves. One of the papers said murderer and two of them said victims and the rest were witnesses. Then we turned off the power in the house (literally so that nobody could turn on the lights, then we split up and wandered around and waited to see who would get murdered, but then like I said before, we ended up just playing hide and seek throughout the house in the dark. Be careful though because several of my mom's nice wine glasses (that we used at dinner) got broken :os. Afterward we all sat in the basement and watched "Clue." It was a very fun evening.

Answer 4

There is a really good summary of Murder Mystery Dinner Party Games at http://www.mydarksecret.com/WhatIs.html

They even have some free online mysteries you can play before having to shell out any cash.