Talk:Murder mystery game

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First Paragraph Definition

The author states in the first line "Murder mystery games are generally party games wherein one of the partygoers is secretly and unknowingly playing a murderer" - This is not actually true. Each company that creates murder mystery games choose which they prefer. In Dinner and a Murder Mystery Party Games, the murderer always knows they are the killer beforehand. I just removed the knowingly statement to reflect accuracy. murdergal (talk) 21:01, 5 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

I also removed the paragraph that talked about murder mystery plays using games. These are not to be confused with each other. Murder mystery games are for hosts to host their own murder mystery parties. A murder mystery play or theater will use a completely scripted play, which is written like a screenplay and in no way resembles a murder mystery games. MurderGal (talk) 00:30, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

External links section

I've just restored this section to the DMOZ only link. It was getting way out of hand full of commercial suppliers and review sites. External links ought to be pointing to high quality information about the subject of murder mystery games, not how-tos and online stores. -- Siobhan Hansa 16:02, 25 April 2007 (UTC)[reply]

I edited this link to point to DMOZ category links to murder mystery game websites. Almost all of which provide games AND information on hosting and participating in murder mystery parties. These links were all verified and added by DMOZ. The previous link had only 3 links, none of which actually provided any high quality information. Somewhere along the line, DMOZ moved all links from the previous link to the new one I posted. MurderGal (talk) 00:52, 7 November 2017 (UTC)[reply]

Tone of article

New editions are welcome but the tone of the article is not encyclopedic: third person, excessive use of caps, etc. Tag added. AirOdyssey (Talk) 03:14, 5 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This article is written like an Associated Content article. It's terrible. Tony P (talk) 02:11, 28 July 2009 (UTC)[reply]

This article should be split

As the article itself points out, murder mystery games and live murder mystery shows are two completely different things . . . so why does this article even discuss live murder mystery shows? They aren't games, but a kind of dinner theater. I see no reason for these two types of entertainment to share an article. 159.53.78.142 (talk) 14:18, 8 April 2010 (UTC)[reply]

Citations

Looking for ways to address the citations flag, it became clear that little is written about the topic outside of commercial sites. I am mentioning this as a heads up to anyone else who starts looking for outside references or sources -- it will take a lot of digging.

LauraBradleyMoss (talk) 22:50, 29 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]

ENTIRE REWRITE - COI - I'm a murder mystery game writer at Red Herring Games

Hi Wiki editors. This article is so badly out of date - It needed a total overhaul.

There are limited references currently - I'm trying to avoid any COI so trying to find references that are NOT to my own books.

I'm proposing a total overhaul and would love feedback please on my sandbox so I can improve this page and ensure it's accurate for Wiki and also up to date and "without fluff". Clearly there are some ideas within this that could do with some other pages linked from it, as I can't find references to case file games on wiki at all, and they've been around since 2016... but I'm hoping it's better starting point.

User:Dariusthemede/Murder mystery game Dariusthemede (talk) 12:30, 19 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your input. Your sandbox version puts the five subsets of murder mystery games right at the top. I prefer how the current article does it, explaining more about what murder mystery games are generally before getting to there being five different types. Bondegezou (talk) 11:28, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for the suggestion. I'll see if it's posisble. The issue is that each subset plays very differently. So tehre isn't one generic way to play them - they each play differently. I'll take another pass at it and see if there's a generic structure that I can suggest at the top before splitting them without making the situation more confusing. Dariusthemede (talk) 13:10, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

This may be an example of you being very close to the topic see these subsets as very different, whereas to the naïve reader, they're all vaguely the same. I'd suggest presuming the reader knows nothing, doing the generic stuff first, before then going into the detail. Bondegezou (talk) 13:57, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thank you! I've shuffled some stuff around and will keep working on it over the next week. 81.86.193.4 (talk) 14:14, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Case File / Evidence games became popular in the late 2010s. John Carroll was the first to apply for a patent for scenarios of this nature in 2018 for his Unsolved Case Files series, however Hunt A Killer launched it's subscription service in 2016 , predating this application and proving that the idea behind case file gaming was around before 2018.

This conclusion is an inappropriate level of WP:SYNTHESIS, saying something that the sources do not. The Hunter Killer source is also just a company directory confirming that a company of this name was founded in 2016, it doesn't mention a subscription service.

Is the 1937 game Jury Box not an earlier example of this genre? Belbury (talk) 12:38, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Good shout! I think Jury box is an earlier version... I've not played it, but it must be similiar... though not the same as these other ones. Dariusthemede (talk) 13:11, 20 January 2025 (UTC)[reply]