Disclaimer – We were gifted this Bespoke Murder Mystery package in return for a review, but all thoughts included are our own. You can read more of our reviews and opinions here
Like a lot of the general public, during lockdown and Covid intense times, we were often looking for ways to stay connected with our friends and family. We did everything from quizzes to zoom virtual meet ups, and we also discovered how much we enjoy a murder mystery.
After a friend of ours arranged a murder mystery party on zoom late last year, we have been itching to arrange another one. So when Fiona from BespokeMurderMystery very kindly offered us a choice from one of her many games, we couldn’t wait to give it a go!
BespokeMurderMystery currently have 71 different games and Murder Mystery games you can pick from (yes, 71, you did read that right!!). There is such a wide variety to chose from, and not all of them include murder if that isn’t your cup of tea. From printable Easter egg hunts to a fairytale themed murder mystery (I was very tempted by this one), the choices really are endless! They can also be tailored to groups of various sizes, so they can work for smaller intimate groups or larger groups.
Although they were all initially designed for face to face play, they were tweaked so that they could be enjoyed online during the pandemic. Which is a brilliant idea, because I’m sure a lot of you are bored to tears of zoom quizzes!
We spent a good chunk of time trying to decide which one we wanted to play, as they all sounded brilliant. We eventually settled on The Great Has Been – a 1920’s themed murder mystery. Once this had been decided we received a Google drive folder that included everything we needed: instructions, character scripts, guest invites, evidence and the killers confession.
You can see how much time and effort has been put in to creating all the scripts and evidence, and there is also a host guide which was incredibly handy! For anyone that hasn’t hosted anything like this before, it can be very daunting, which is why BespokeMurderMystery created this amazingly useful guide and they are also on hand to answer any questions you may have if anything doesn’t make sense! (Poor Fiona received quite a few emails from me).
We sent over everyone’s invites and character scripts with plenty of time so that they could get as much understanding for their character as possible. We had a WhatsApp group set up, so that everyone could interact in character in separate ‘rooms’ if the conversation needed to be private. This was also really useful when we needed to send the evidence over, so that everyone could read along at the same time.
We experienced a few teething issues, but in all honesty this was down to us not fully understanding the instructions. An example of this was that we weren’t sure what order the characters were supposed to be read in, and because we had used some of the extra main characters and they were told to read after other characters we got in a slight muddle but we made it work, and honestly we all had a fantastic time. I spent the whole evening laughing, and I think the majority of our friends did too.
As with most things over Zoom, it can be difficult at times to have a grip on what’s happening when people are excited and enjoying themselves and end up missing out on key bits of information. But personally, I just found this more funny!
I can definitely see how well this would go in person with a group of friends, but I know for a fact that the whole group had a great time and it was full of laughs and smiles. I would absolutely recommend checking out BespokeMurderMystery and what they have on offer, because it’s something different and exciting to do with your friends and family. Even more so now that we can start to meet up again!
Lastly, a huge thank you to Fiona from BespokeMurderMystery for arranging this for us!