Superhero Assassination: Murder Mystery Party Game

We had a great time hosting a social distancing birthday party in our backyard for my daughter’s 14th birthday with the super hero murder mystery game. The game was appropriately hard for 14 year olds, 4 girls guessed it correctly and 6 were wrong which I thought was pretty good. It was a hit!

Our family tradition is to do a murder mystery for people’s 16th birthday party. We had 20 people, so we did the basic and expansion pack of Superhero Assassination.

I still had to change some things to make it work. For example, we had already done a vampire murder mystery, so we changed the dark fang character to dark widow (knockoff of black widow). We didn’t use the Fabulox character, replacing her with a character we called Cadabra ( a Zatarra knock off). In addition, we renamed The Animal to Annie Maul (worked better for the person), did not use Pogo (stupid character), renamed Bron to Chi (and had her sport a third eye, being very in tune with this the life force in all characters), and renamed Burly to Athleta (since she was a she). The biggest issue is that it is so clear who the expansion characters are base pd on how much they had to do, who they talked with.
I added lot more of a storyline.for the secondary characters. So, I added a serious music rivalry between Gothicon and Red Wonder, added a backstory between Cadabra and the Jester (they shared a bill in Vegas and may have had an affair), and minimized the whole electron had captured Da Bomb stuff but someone interfered. I ordered a t-shirt that said “OMG I’m totally dead” for the victim to put on before reappearing. Also, the Morphox character was anxious about really playing, so all of his instructions were to say nothing, give basic yes or no answers, and to generally be there but remain unnoticed.

It went very well, and everyone had a great time. We created our own games to play before and during the game. We did a superhero bean bag toss and a “Pin the A on Avengers” version of pin the tail on the donkey (both ordered on Amazon) . We also did a “Times you don’t remember” game (list of events people had to guess) and a Spider-Man toss (crepe paper that people threw to see whose goes longest. We also did a Captain America shield toss (captain America paper plates that people tossed into a bin).

We also named all of the food (“e.g., Quasar’s Queso, El Diablo dip, Gamora’s Greek grains, etc.

Next 16th birthday is in June and ordered the once upon a time mystery. Already know some changes: Dreamy will become The Mad Hatter, and I will be changing the guilty party, which means emphasizing some of the motives. Gonna have Glinda (good witch) announce in middle of round two that she senses dark magic in action, then advise everyone to find a seat/safe place and close their eyes. The victim will put on a “bloody tatto” during the blackout, have a character retrieve a blood stained lantern and stand over the victim, and have another character get a packet of the forensic data to distribute. Once they are all in place, the blackout will be lifted, and the solution will be debated by those not involved.

In all, however, if you are willing to do a bit more work to fit your crew, these are so much fun!

In sum: don’t be afraid to modify to fit your guests.

I have hosted over a half dozen murder mystery parties, but I really enjoy the setup of the one I purchased on this website!
All the characters could be played by anyone attending the party, which is extremely helpful when friends cancel late and you need to replace them. They’re are always extra roles not necessarily needed for the storyline, but they still can add interesting elements to the game.
There are plenty of extras added for an entire night of fun, including some pre party dialogues and more games to play for the duration of the night. These are completely optional, but can enhance the overall event.

I purchased this particular game because it fit the age range and amount of players need to play. The superhero theme would not have been my first pick for a group of 11 to 12 year old girls. I pulled off the game in just 24 hours after I purchased it. If I had more time I would have done more with props and costumes, advance info to the players etc. However, none of that mattered! The girls loved the game and got right into character and stayed in character for the whole evening. This was a big hit and the girls would like to do a more elaborate murder mystery game some time soon.
The content was appropriate for the age. The directions, though lengthy, were well laid out and easy for me to organize the evening before the game. We had one guest not able to make it so I had to play mommy host and one of the essential characters. This worked out just fine. The optional characters were helpful so the 6 year old in the house could be part of the game. He had envelopes to open with the big kids and loved his superhero alter ego.
I will use this site again.

My 12 year old daughter had 21 of her best friends, girls and boys, come and have a fantastic time. I wasn't sure everyone would be into it, but when I saw the crazy, elaborate or more subtle but well planned costumes, it was clear they were all in. We planned for 3 hours and finished in 2.5 without any extra games or activities except for dinner. One thing I would recommend is for the Round 3 envelopes to not be all distributed at once. Only the 1st reader gets an envelope and when the 1st reader is done, s/he announces who reads next and at that time the next envelope is handed over. I think it keeps the surprise under wraps a little longer. Anyway, all the kids had a blast!