Murder Mystery Party - Pasta, Passion and Pistols
by University Games
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List Price: Our Price: $12.18 You Save: $12.81 (51%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $11.00 (click here) Category: Toy See more product details |
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Toys and Games Reviews of Murder Mystery Party - Pasta, Passion and Pistols
Customer Review: First-time user of murder mystery kits
Summary: 5 Stars
I bought this kit as a guide for my husband's 30th birthday party (held just last night) and invited four others after having read the review regarding the "extra guests," for which I am so thankful. While the box might say 6-8 people, this is definitely better played with only 6 as the two extras do not have any speaking roles and are not suspects.
At first, we planned to host dinner at a restraunt while serving appetizers and drinks for round one at our house, but after reading the party planning guide, I realized that wasn't the best plan. If you hope to host this in a public place, make sure it's somewhere where you can reserve a private room at a minimum. If guests get into their roles, accusations can get pretty loud, with guests calling names and pointing fingers wildly. In addition, the place would need to either have a sound system (and you need to listen to an audio cd) or would need to be willing to allow you to bring in one. While you will get loud at times, at other points, you'll need less noise so everyone can concentrate on the details being said.
Since we changed our plans and stayed at home, I fixed several of the recipes from the book, as well as a few others, and those we used (the garlic and white bean dip, the baked ziti, and the mushroom salad) were excellent.
My tips? Make sure your guests are willing to get into their roles (you can help with this by reading the brief about each person from the invite and assigning roles based on the personalities of the people invited), and give everyone time to read a page before playing it out (not reading in advance, but as you're starting round two, for example, give everyone a chance to read who they're supposed to be accusing and how they're supposed to respond to other people's accusations). Have as much prepared as possible before the party starts so you can focus on the mystery as well, and again, don't play with the "extra" characters.
This was the first time any of my group have participated in a murder mystery party, and we're already planning a second one--enjoy!
Customer Review: Fun group activity
Summary: 5 Stars
Overall, we had a blast playing this. We did this as a church event and the evening was very festive. We plan on re-doing it again real soon with another group from our church - this time we will be the hosts.
We took some of the suggestions that others have given to make it as real as possible. We modified the invite cards (by making our own) on this so that they didn't reveal anyone elses parts, so when everyone got to the party we started off with dinner and everyone got to share what there part for the evening was going to be. This idea made it a bit more suspenseful for our guests and our guests were already starting to question each other before we finished dinner and started the game.
We also made up menus with the restraunts name on it for our guests, made up a restraunt sign and placed it at the front of the house, and there was a part that noted that one of the characters could come in an optional limo (so we made up a sign and a couple of magnets and put a sign on the side of my car for the limo service).
After dinner we setup the crime scene and living room area to play the game and then walked our guests by the crime scene area just prior to playing the game. We made some other minor changes as well that helped facilitate the game.
For our first murder mystery game we thought it went exceptionally well and we plan on doing more.
PS - Amazon notes that this is a toy, but really its an adult party game.
Customer Review: Pasta Passion and Pistols
Summary: 4 Stars
We finally had our party last Saturday. It was a lot of fun. Everyone put effort into their costumes and that was fun. Started the intro part, then broke for bean dip, onion tart, and wine refills while we did Round 1. Then broke for dinner (Baked Ziti, Mushroom salad, and Orange Arugula salad). Then back to the living room for Round 2. Then the Mocha Cake in the dining room and then back to the living room to finish up Round 3. That progression worked really well! No one guessed the murderer.
A couple of comments- we followed another comment and took a picture of Rocco who is Pepi's identical twin brother, added a mustache and another outfit, and put it in a memorial shine to Pepi. Did pistol in a bag, and outline on the floor, menu on the wall, restaurant sign outside front door.
The recipes were all good, but the ziti was too much carbohydrate for me.
My husband and I played Claire and Father who are supposed to be the extra characters. I can't see how you could do it with out having them. They have parts in the dialogue and parts in the questioning!
Some people got bogged down in the questioning and couldn't make the change from "you" to "I." Be sure to go over this with guests. The dialogue is reading from a script, but the questioning section of each round is much more informal and we did not always know who should go when and some didn't get in with their follow up at the right place- but after a couple glasses of wine- who cares. It was fun.
Customer Review: Not perfect, but lots of fun.
Summary: 5 Stars
We were a group of 8. The hosts played the "lesser" characters, Claire and the priest. Although we were less involved with the twists than the other characters, we didn't feel unessential. We had secrets to reveal, questions to ask. It wouldn't have worked with just 6.
We had a group of 6 guys and 2 girls, so we re-engineered the parts (without looking ahead in the scripts, hoping for the best). Claire became Carl. That added a little sexual tension between characters that wouldn't have otherwise been there (a good thing). We also made Angel a son instead of a daughter -- and that added some intriguing political twists. It was a little problematic when script-reading, changing "her" to "him" and daughter to son, but it worked out reasonably well.
It was a little difficult to get started. After the 1st script completed, we all sort of looked around, waiting for somebody to make the first question/accusation. But it started flowing very easily after that. (Host: be sure to keep the party planner guide within arm's reach to insure you're following steps in order.)
Final verdict: everyone had a great time. The solution made sense, although one of our guests came up with an even better solution and we awarded him the best detective award -- his solution, we all agreed, SHOULD have been the one the writers came up with. I'd explain it here, but it would be giving away things you don't want to know in advance.
Customer Review: Extra guests left out
Summary: 3 Stars
This is the second murder mystery game we've played and while we had fun, we thought this one could have been better. The story line was fine, the menu was good, and the decorations were easy to make or buy. We had fun playing the game and we didn't think the mystery was unsolvable (even though only one person guessed correctly). We had a good time with our horrible accents and people did a good job with their costumes.
The part we were disappointed in was the "Extra Players" part. This game is actually for 6 players, even though it says you can invite 8. We invited 3 other couples to the party, and the couple that played the extra parts (Father Alfredo and Clair Voyant) felt very left out. They had very few lines, weren't suspects in the mystery, and their parts were pretty lame. I felt this game could have included them more if they had better parts, even if they still weren't suspects in the mystery. I would suggest that if you have friends who aren't likely to get into the game to give them the extra players' parts. They can easily sit by the wayside and not do much and still enjoy what the other players are doing.
Overall it was fun and I enjoyed the Italian/New York theme, but just keep in mind that it's really a game for 6.