Murder mystery for teens

[Mrswhiteinthekitchen]

Dd, 15 is thinking of having a murder mystery party next month for 6-8 female friends. Has anyone used a boxed game or downloadable game from the Internet that worked well?
Any tips for organising a successful murder mystery night?
Thank you!

I think it can work really well, though only have experience of attending not organising. No experience of downloadable ones, just the boxed version. One huge tip though, whatever you do make sure your DD is not the victim. This happened to the birthday girl at the party I went to as a teenager and she burst into tears half way through the evening because she'd had about 5 mins involvement and the whole thing had to be cancelled. Probably blindingly obvious on reflection but it happened nonetheless...

The plus points: we all really enjoyed finding out about our roles in advance and getting into character/dressing the part, can be a lot of fun.

Thank you Bitzer. it sounds fun. At the moment I am more enthusiastic than dd, so it may be I have a murder mystery night instead of her! Any more experiences anyone?

Someone round here has a business doing CSI parties - plastic skeleton laid out with crime scene tape in situ, various 'clues' around the body, backstory and evidence provided; the organiser also supplies fingerprint kits, those white all-in-one crime-scene suits etc - you could probably find that kind of thing on ebay or elsewhere on the internet. DD has been to one and really enjoyed it.

A fab idea for a business - not heard of that round here.

DD is having one for her 13th - I bought the The Red Rose Mystery from Toymonkey.com for £11.99 - looks really good. All her friends are up for the dressing up, even if they are male characters! I can't wait.

Dd2 has done a couple of them for her birthdays. We bought the box sets (some of them are 18+ so just check the packaging - the 15+ ones were fine for 13 year olds and older with just a few slightly risque names etc). We did a 'dinner party' of three courses vaguely in keeping with the theme of the box and did rounds in between courses. It worked really well and a couple of her friends went on to have them for their own parties later.

Re what Bitzer said - in the box ones the victim is already dead, so none of the players are the victim.

Oh and one year the game was a bit ruined by one stupid girl who was incapable of stopping talking for long enough to listen to anybody reading - and then she kept on asking what was going on! Grrrr. So only invite girls who know how to listen!

Some great tips here, thanks all.

Whereabouts do you live, Exexpat? That sounds brilliant! Off to google a CSI party ......

Also, never done/been to one of these parties. Do you need a set number of guests? What happens if one of them doesn't turn up?