This evening’s birthday celebration was a little different from usual! After spending the day at Black Park, we descended at Sharon and David’s place for a murder mystery dinner. Dave had purchased a murder mystery game pack titled, “Murder a la carte: The brie, the bullet and the Black Cat”. On the invites circulated a while ago, the scene was set, and suggestions for suitable attire were made. The game is set in Casablanca in the early 1940’s (sound familiar?) with a motley group of individuals, and a murder. Everyone is a suspect, and the game was afoot this evening. I had been cast as Kurt Ramson III, a philandering, shady American, biding his time in Casablanca sheltering from the war. I even managed a rather dodgy sounding American accent.

The game started with some more scene setting, as well as information about various characters slowly appearing, either directly, or through discussion. By the end of the round of discussion, most of us were none the wiser as to who might have committed the murder, but the seeds of suspicion were being sown. After the first round of discussion, dinner was served, with the first course of soup. Once the first course was dispensed with, more clues were trickelled out, again some of it in the form of hard evidence, and some of it in the form of pointed questions to various characters. Again, after a little discussion, the second course was served. This pattern continued until all four courses were served, and rather sordid revelations about the various characters had surfaced. It then came to deliberations, and decisions.

After a lot of finger pointing and accusations, we made our decisions concerning the identity of the murderer and the truth was revealed. Yet, even if we had misjudged and got the wrong verdict, this seemed unimportant, the actual proces of the game was fun. It was interesting analysing the situation after each round, watching how various characters interacted, as well as learning about the intricacies of the relationships of each of the characters. The game was well structured and well-written, not that this was the greatest crime story ever, but that it was entertaining to experience.

A fun evening was had by all, as we each played out our characters and had a good laugh. Above all, the birthday boy and girl seemed to enjoy themselves.