Bad Santa: Christmas Murder Mystery Party Game

Hosted our 5th annual Murder Mystery for 50-60 guests and it was a hit as always! THANK YOU for making the set up and planning so easy to implement.

It was fun. Didn't love the 2nd challenge - people found it too difficult and it lost momentum.

We played this with my Escape Room staff. I was surprised everyone didn’t catch the killer because it seemed a hair obvious, but 2 out of 12 did so it was hard enough. It was fun, everyone had a good time and the the company does a great job with details. It felt like perhaps there could have been more time to sleuth after the murder… like there was touch time at the beginning and then the end went really fast in the last 2 rounds. A hair lopsided. But still had a lovely time.

This is the second year I’ve purchased a murder mystery for my son’s New Year’s Eve party. The group of thirteen 17 & 18 year old boys said they liked this game better than last year’s. We did need a few boys to play female parts, but really overall they could have been unisex anyway. Three of the boys did solve the mystery, they said because the forensic files confirmed their guesses. It was a fun night!

Used this for a dinner party for 12 people. I did not want it to be one of those parties where the men and women separate. It was so much fun. Everyone really got into it and stayed in character the whole time. Great idea for a Christmas party!

Pros:
This is overall a good game!
Super fun to play, and a really cohesive story
The ability to upgrade and add a lot of players really worked out well.

There are some significant cons, not a reason to avoid purchasing, but an awareness you'll need to have before you can just run your game.

Cons:
-you'll be printing and cutting out hundreds of pages if you're running anything larger than a dinner party.
-format and design of the pages are not friendly for cutting out. Margins are tiny. I would recommend the creators redesign and format the pages for ease of setup.
-The game comes with no visual aids or graphic support outside of the 2 short videos. The game could use quite a few digital assets to be used on TV's/projectors, etc... to help create a better and immersive feel.
-The host example itinerary needs to be editable to change times and add remove steps in the game order. And could use an update

Pros:
This is overall a good game!
Super fun to play, and a really cohesive story
The ability to upgrade and add a lot of players really worked out well.

There are some significant cons, not a reason to avoid purchasing, but an awareness you'll need to have before you can just run your game.

Cons:
-you'll be printing and cutting out hundreds of pages if you're running anything larger than a dinner party.
-format and design of the pages are not friendly for cutting out. Margins are tiny. I would recommend the creators redesign and format the pages for ease of setup.
-The game comes with no visual aids or graphic support outside of the 2 short videos. The game could use quite a few digital assets to be used on TV's/projectors, etc... to help create a better and immersive feel.
-The host example itinerary needs to be editable to change times and add remove steps in the game order. And could use an update

I purchased this to play at our small (20 people) company Christmas party. It was quite fun. It was a lot of work to put together, printing everything on card stock, etc. but everyone enjoyed it.

We did have a great time doing something “different” this Christmas. I bought this and gave it to my daughter to be the host of our 13 family members Christmas party. After playing, we all feel like this mystery has too many flaws for the price we paid.
1- I knew within 2 minutes of starting who was going to die because that was too obvious. 2- I feel like the directions for each character were a little too vague. 3- There also should’ve been more directions on who to talk to because my character only had to talk to 2 people. I even realized when it was all over, I never even talked to the killer and other players said the exact same thing. 4-The clues that were posted, even though they are optional, were basically pointless.
5- The first riddle was easy to figure out, but the second riddle was a joke. It was too mind boggling to only find out one simple word. 6- too many copies needed after paying $50 for the kit, I spent about $50 on an ink cartridge. 7- Many people figured out the killer, but only because the report said it had to be a strong person, there were no other clues that gave away the killer.... only one. 8- My character didn’t even know she was blackmailing the victim until he told me, so strange. Anyway, with that being said, maybe some changes to the kit will happen, but until then, I would not suggest purchasing this flaw filled mystery.

We wanted to do something different for our Annual Christmas Party. Our group was so excited! Everyone dressed in costume and had fun playing their role. The video clips were an excellent touch to the game. I played the hostess which was really fun with the well organized instructions and tips on set up such as hiding clues and the victim attire. Our group is already asking when we can play another one of your games. Thank you for an amazing, well thought out game.

The office had a blast. It was fun, good length of time (not to short or too long). The only thing I would say is to make the instructions a little more clear in the areas of "required" portions of the script/instructions and what is optional.

We had a group of 19 ranging in age from 13-60 on Christmas Eve. I was surprised at how much the group got into the characters. I did not play, and not sure how that would have worked. I was busy coordinating the event and getting food ready to be served. I bought this on the 23rd for a party on the 24th...a bit rushed to put it together.

2 people figured out the mystery. Most were close by the time it ended.

I planned this murder mystery party for a group of my co-workers for our annual Christmas shindig - it was totally different than anything we have ever done, but it was so well received, we may be considering doing it again! It was so very well organized and easy to follow and play as the hostess.

We had a teen Christmas party with 50 kids and 20 of them choose to participate in the Bad Santa Murder Mystery, whole others watched or did other activities. I cut all the optional activities and only had them watch the two video clips, and gave them 3 sets of clues, and the forensic report to cut it down to an hour and a half. I had ordered a couple costumes on Amazon and also bought a pile of silly Christmas headbands and hats for them to choose from. They loved it! One thing is, (with kids) make sure you know who the victim is before hand. This part wasn’t clear to me until one of the kids said, “Ok I think I’m supposed to tell y’all I’m the victim!” Ha!

Bad Santa was great fun for our youth group event! It was nice to do something different. A few people were able to guess the murderer at the end, but not everyone! But the motive was a total surprise for all!
My only meh comments: the victim figured out early that he/she would be murdered and a couple of the older youth could tell that they were optional characters which seemed to bother them a little.
Overall, it was a very successful night!