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

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!

My husband and I went to a mystery party a few years ago. I had a yearning to do something fun in mid-winter with friends, so I purchased this kit. We invited 4 couples and two ladies. With hubby and I, we had 12. While the game has 14 characters, we really didn't miss the two characters not covered. We served finger foods, buffet style. For the game, for the first act, we mingled, but quickly decided for the second and third acts to sit in the family room and bounce around from person to person for the scripted questions and answers.What's in the box?Party Invitations - Can also be used for table place cards, if you're going to do a dinner. On the back of the invitation, there is brief information on each of the characters. I did not assign characters to friends, but rather put "first come-first serve" on the front of the invitation. As people responded, I had them pick the character they wanted to be. If it was taken, I had them pick something else.Instruction Book - Gives you an overview of what and when.Story Book/CD - You have the option of reading the mystery introduction and the opening for each of the three acts, or listening to the CD. I chose to use the CD because they were dramatic, with stormy background sounds. Each intro was 2-3 minutes long. The group found the initial introduction difficult to understand - the male speaker had a heavy English accent. I ended up reading that one over again after the CD. But, the others were a female speaker with a lighter English accent and we all understood easily.Character Bios/Scripts - When each guest arrived, I provided them with their bio and script. Yes, the whole party was scripted. This was a plus - really!Last, for lack of another description, the guilty slip - This is where the "Flexi" comes in. As host, you'll have slips for each participant. I folded them up and had each guest secretly draw out of a bowl. One will be marked guilty. That person will use the script portion marked "if you're guilty." Others will read the script portion "if you're not guilty". No one - not even you - will know who the guilty person is until the end of the night. And you can use this kit over again (flexi) if you desire because it just depends upon who picks the guilty slip; it's not always the same person.I resisted reading the scripts. Then, I started to panic when my husband reminded me that a previous mystery party we went to was a total bore! NOT SO FOR THIS ONE! It's totally scripted and hilarious. You can't help but have fun.We did take a break between each act to refill our snacks/drinks, etc.I need to add - one of the reviewers said they used this for a kids party (9-14 year olds). We had just adults - and we found that appropriate. For example, one of the characters was a police officer. Through the acts, it came out she moonlighted as a stripper in her police uniform. I wouldn't want that at a kids party. (Maybe they didn't use the police character?) And, other characters were in adult type situations, too.I highly recommend this! Everyone went home laughing and each time we see someone, they comment how much fun they had. We are already planning our next party with another group of friends.

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.