Murder Mystery Game - Can you Solve it?
Not only am I an avid puzzler, I’m also a huge board gamer. So, when I was asked if I wanted to try out University Games Murder Mystery Party game, Death by Chef’s Knife, I jumped on the idea. But before I started, I immediately called for reinforcement and invited three of my closest board game buddies over to play.
Let me preface by saying that after playing this, you can all rest assure that I am not a detective or planning on entering a career in the detective field. Needless to say, this puzzle was a challenge to solve, but that made it all the more intriguing. Throughout this blog, I will do my best to share enough details and photos with you without adding any spoilers. After all, no one wants to solve a puzzle that they already have the answer to. That just wouldn’t be any fun.
The components in this game were very realistic. My group and I really felt like we were actually detectives working on a real case because of the components. University Games put such thought into these components - especially their attention to details. Even the outside of the box is a stand-up file folder. It has a Velcro closure which is a practical touch that I appreciate. After all, you don’t want to lose any evidence.
Death by Chef’s Knife by University Games
All the evidence in the box was placed inside a case folder with a letter from the Detective Sergeant of the NYPD paper clipped on top.
Inside was a load of evidence and pertinent documents including photos, floorplans, and documents related to various potential suspects.
Our initial game plan was to each take on two suspects. After we each read through our suspects and their related information, most of us were certain that one of “our suspects” was the murderer. This complicated things. When you have four "thinky" people in one room, it wasn’t enough to just read two suspects each. We began trading suspects and reading information on other people. Eventually, we all read the documents on every single suspect. At this point, we still had some different opinions as to who the culprit was.
We sorted through birth certificates, a napkin from the victim’s restaurant, a hand-written calendar, and notations on items like business cards and menus.
We looked a photos of evidence and magazine articles among many other documents.
Our table in the midst of our detective work, which I’d like to refer to this as organized chaos, was scattered with traded evidence and police reports.
Eventually, when we thought that we narrowed down the suspects, we utilized the first link that was shared in the letter from the detective. This took us to the website which let us unveil clues and hints about whichever suspect we wanted to. I like how we didn’t have to reveal clues about everything all at once. We decided to do this one at a time and after clicking on a clue, we reviewed our evidence and documents again. Mostly, we used the clues to confirm out suspicions of who was innocent.
This process helped us to give a second look at something that we might have dismissed as unimportant. FYI-NOTHING IS UNIMPORTANT in this game.
University Games did an excellent job in giving enough information to confuse us all (haha), which was a good thing, because if it was too simple, it would be boring and not a challenge. Eventually, (2 hours later) and after looking over all the documents, disputing each other a little bit, and confirming all provided clues were considered, we were finally confident enough to follow the provided link to the final solution at the crime lab. We entered who we felt was the most likely to have committed the murder and lucky for us, we were right! I say “we” in this part, but I can’t take the credit. I don’t think if I was left to play this solo, I would’ve gotten the culprit correct. I told you that you should be happy that I’m not a real-life detective.
This game is cooperative and but can be played solo, too. I’m glad that I have some great board game friends who were eager to play this with me. I couldn’t have solved it without their help. Do you have what it takes to solve the case? If so, check out University Games full line of puzzles and Murder Mystery party games at Puzzle Warehouse.
Jaime @introvertedpuzzler