Murder Mystery

Art Gallery Murder Mystery Party Game

★ MURDER AT THE ASH WHARF — a gallery opening whodunit for 4-12 players ★

Get it on Etsy → Instant digital download · print at home

Orla Brennan spent nine years photographing the same ferry terminal in Kent — the same ramp, the same café, the same families meeting and leaving. Tonight the whole sequence went up in a converted warehouse in Hackney: forty-one prints, most of them two metres wide, most of them shown at that size for the first time. The private view opened at seven. At a quarter past eight she was found in the storeroom behind the far wall, under a rack of frames that came down on her.

Not one person in that building had a reason to want her dead. That is not a figure of speech — the police have looked, and there is nothing. At twenty to eight, one of them got one.

🖼 FULLY ILLUSTRATED — NEW EDITION

• 12 painted portraits, one on every character sheet

• A "Meet Your Characters" page so the whole table can see who was in the room

• 6 photographed documents in the host's dossier — a print order, a day return, a bank statement, a sealed card and more, each one proving something about somebody at that opening

Read the dossier closely and you can solve it before the reveal.

🍷 EVERY GUEST CARRIES THREE THINGS

• A SECRET worth lying to a room full of strangers to keep

• SOMEONE THEY PROTECT — they will cover for them even when it looks bad

• LEVERAGE — something they know about another guest, to use the moment they are cornered

Round 1 is not small talk. Everyone gives an alibi and then uses their leverage on somebody, so the room is at each other's throats before the first clue is dealt.

👤 12 GUESTS, EACH WITH A REAL MOTIVE

The 6 at the centre carry the mystery — the patron who has kept this gallery alive, the old man who came up from Kent because he is in eleven of the photographs, the printer who spent three weeks making them, the gallerist who has never been able to say no to anybody, the artist's sister, and the critic who filed her review rather earlier than she should have.

6 more guests each get a full sheet of their own: a motive, an alibi, something they saw, and a reason to be nervous. Nobody at your table just watches.

📄 WHAT YOU GET — instant download, 24 pages

• Host Guide — how to run all three rounds

• At a Glance — the whole game on one page, safe to read even if you are playing

• The Tangle — who is covering for whom (host only)

• The Story — read aloud to open the evening

• Meet Your Characters — the illustrated cast

• The Evidence — the 6-document dossier

• 12 Character Sheets — secret, alibi, what you know, and what to say in Round 3

• Clue Cards for Round 2 and Round 3

• Accusation Sheet — one per guest

• Printable Invitation

• ★ Full Solution — every clue explained, sealed at the very back

🎲 HOW IT WORKS

1. Buy → download instantly (nothing is shipped)

2. Print at home — A4 and US Letter are both included, nothing to cut out except the clue cards

3. Hand out the sheets, read The Story aloud, play three rounds, then vote

👥 4 TO 12 PLAYERS

6 is the full mystery. At 4 or 5 the Host Guide tells you exactly who to drop and which clue card to move. Up to 12, the extra guests each hold a sheet of their own — they question, they get questioned, they vote, and they can win.

⏱ 90-120 minutes · Teen & Adult · The host can play too — nobody’s sheet names the killer, so keep the last two pages sealed until the vote.

🖨 A modern murder mystery for people who are tired of country houses. No script to learn, no costume to buy, no accent to attempt. Print at home on plain paper. No app, no batteries, no pieces to lose.

★ GREAT FOR ★

Dinner parties, game nights, girls’ nights in, birthday celebrations, Halloween gatherings, and evenings when a group of friends wants something to do together — small groups and large.