Murder Mystery

Ocean Liner Murder Mystery Kit

★ MURDER ON THE AURELIA — a 1937 transatlantic whodunit for 4-12 players ★

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

The Aurelia left Southampton on the Sunday, four days out of New York, with a gale forecast for the Wednesday and the swimming bath on E deck drained at ten every night against the weather. On the Tuesday night Edgar Pyne went to the purser's office, put a sealed envelope on the counter and asked that it be given to the New York police if he did not walk off this ship. Then he went to the surgery for something to sleep, as he had every night since Southampton, and went to bed.

🎭 THE TWIST THIS ONE IS BUILT ON

On the Thursday morning a bath steward found him at the deep end of the empty swimming bath, twelve feet down on the tile. And in the purser's safe there was a letter, in his own hand, with a name written in it. The whole of this evening turns on one thing: that letter is genuine, it is unaltered, and it is wrong. He never left his cabin after ten o'clock — so ask your guests how he came by the name. Somebody carried it to him.

🖼 FULLY ILLUSTRATED — NEW EDITION

• 12 painted character portraits, one on every character sheet

• A "Meet Your Characters" page so your guests can see the whole table at a glance

• A painted cover of the swimming bath as it was found

Nobody hands out a plain sheet of text any more. Your guests get a face to play.

👤 12 CHARACTERS, EACH WITH A REAL SECRET

The 6 at the centre carry the mystery — the ship's surgeon who lost somebody in a fire an inquest cleared in a single morning, the journalist who is not aboard on his newspaper's money, the widow who has been handing her husband's papers to a reporter a few sheets at a time, the buyer who found eleven thousand pounds of orders in a book that had never existed, the singer engaged for the crossing at a very generous fee, and the purser who takes the bank on a game that is in no book.

6 more of the passenger list 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, 23 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 night

• Meet Your Characters — the illustrated cast

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

• Clue Cards for all three rounds

• Accusation Sheets and printable invitations

• The Murderer’s Envelope — hand it to one guest, or leave it sealed and play along yourself

• The Solution — sealed at the back, read aloud at the end

🖨 HOW IT WORKS

1. Print. A4 and US Letter are both included — print at 100% on plain paper.

2. Hand out. One character sheet per guest. At 4 players you use the core 6; at 12 you hand out every sheet in the file.

3. Play. Three rounds, roughly 90-120 minutes. Clue cards go out at the top of each round.

4. Accuse. Everyone fills in an Accusation Sheet. Read the Solution page aloud — whoever names the murderer, the method AND the motive wins.

You can host AND play. No character sheet tells its owner they are the killer, so read your own and leave the last two pages — the Murderer’s Envelope and the Solution — in an envelope until the vote.

★ 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.

Teen & Adult · Instant digital download · Nothing is shipped · Print it again for the next party.