Murder Mystery Game For Social Distancing

I believe wholeheartedly in the need for PLAY. Any age or station in life. It nourishes us, excites us, gives us joy, new experiences (this is one of the reasons why I love writing, directing and acting!). I love games, like Celebrity and Loaded Questions, to name a few. Games that make us interact, think, laugh, be silly or crazy or weird, and allow us chat between rounds or bring up funny stories. Murder Mystery parties have also been a staple since my parents introduced me to them when I was in college (yes, my parents! The same parents who introduced me to geocaching before hardly anyone even had a gps device!).

During this quarantine, it is on my list to create a kind of murder mystery party with friends on Zoom (seems totally possible if I email the info in advance, right?). But this past weekend, when I was feeling like I wanted to hit my head against the wall from lack of new experiences to participate in, I looked at my 99%-of-the-time-appropriate Facebook ads (yes, they have me targeted perfectly!), and saw an link for a virtual Murder Mystery experience that night from Fever (no commission here, but they have lots of cool activities). I opted for a Mars-based story vs. a Jack the Ripper one; I have two children who would be with me, so let’s not get too crazy! I bought the $12 ticket and our once empty Saturday night was now planned!

I created and printed an invitation to my family for the event (don’t invitations just make it more exciting?), and added “snacks provided” so that my kids would be guaranteed to attend—and we were set!

That night, at 5:55pm, I loaded up the laptop and at 6:02, we were away on Zoom with 49 other strangers from—I don’t know—maybe around the world? Country? No introductions, as we were just immediately off!

Five actors, playing space commanders (gig market for actors?) guided us through the mystery, as they informed us of a ship’s explosion en route to Mars. How could this have happened? Was this human error? Sabotage? That Anti-Travel-To-Mars group they kept mentioning?

We had no idea, and truthfully, by the end of the 2 hours, I…

…Still had no idea.

One lady in her 60s bowed out after the first 5 minutes, explaining, “I have no idea what’s going on. I thought this was going to be like Clue.”

I hear you, Helen! I I hear you!

But luckily, my small breakout group of 10 members seemed to have at least 3 people who knew what they were doing. And I stayed on until 7:30pm, when my 7-year-old wanted to leave, spooked after supplementary black & white video message of a crazed pilot in an escape pod with a creepy noise in the background (we played some good games of Hangman to get his mind distracted). While present though, I did my best to at least absorb the experience! After rounds of interviewing space commanders, and team discussions, all breakout groups (teams of 10) met on Zoom together again to give their theories of whodunnit.

My 7-year-old and I returned at 7:55 to hear the final conclusion of the story. Our team apparently came kind of close to solving the mystery. Yay, Group 4!

Okay, so…Was I laughing and sharing stories of the past and engaging in accents and acting myself? No. BUT, the actors did a great job, the entire night was organized well, and they made a 50-stranger participatory Zoom event work! And for a new-experience lockdown activity, it was totally worth it.

And if I do this again, I will know better, wear a costume and…maybe do an accent.