A Speakeasy Murder

12 reviews for A Speakeasy Murder

1. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   Ryan Jacobs – 2 May 2024

   We had such a great time playing A Speakeasy Murder! It was admittedly pretty complex and took the first-time players some time to really catch on, but once they did, everyone had a really great time. I would suggest to anyone thinking about playing this game to have as many players as possible! It got a little confusing keeping track of which characters WEREN’T there, but still enjoyable nonetheless. We will definitely be getting more games from Freeform!

2. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   Audrey – 28 February 2024

   Our group had a blast playing this game! We knew it would be an undertaking since this is advertised as a more complex game but the info is presented in a way that’s easy to understand. Our whole group got into character, which really helped. Everything you need to play is provided and it’s a complex story that helps keep everyone involved.

3. 

   Rated 2 out of 5

   Janet G. – 19 January 2024

   It’s a bust. A group in our park wanted to do it, and after reading the instructions and “part” they said no it was too confusing and would not participate. Didn’t even print it off. Would love a refund as it was expensive. Thanks

4. 

   Stuart Antrim – 21 November 2022

   We played A Speakeasy Murder at our nudist park, which gave members a chance to dress up for a change. Ha! Well-done start to finish! The killer turned out to be one of our residents who is on the autism spectrum, and believe it or not, NOBODY figured out who it was! And everyone had a BLAST! Repeat customer for sure.

5. 

   Dina Mancini – 13 November 2022

   Last night, we hosted a party with A Speakeasy Murder for our 20th anniversary and we had the BEST time. We have friend groups that don’t all know each other and this was the perfect way for people to mingle with people they don’t know. Everyone got into character and did a great job. Because this was my first time hosting a game like this and it was so large, I had two friends help me cohost and we divided up the tasks. All in all, it was a great time. Thank you!

6. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   Monique Swirsky – 1 January 2020

   A Speakeasy Murder review and suggestions: What an incredible game! By far the best murder mystery I’ve ever hosted – this is so perfect for my group of friends who are big board gamers or LARPers. Everybody had plenty to do so it was a really engaging night! Nobody ended up correctly guessing the murderer, who did an awesome job with their role and everybody else was so shady. In the other murder mysteries I’ve done I think it would have been pretty disappointing if nobody could figure out the murderer correctly, but given that there was so much else to do and people had other goaIs to accomplish, nobody minded that they couldn’t figure it out.
        I had 15 players (supposed to have 16 but one backed out day of so I didn’t have Tillie but I did have Reno) and I think that as just one host, that’s all I could manage. Any more people and I would have needed another host. My night was the perfect amount of busy for me, I always had things to do, but nobody was waiting for me to help do anything. There are a few things I would change if I did it over again, but this is pretty nitpicking, overall I wouldn’t change much because it was such an awesome game.
        I would start officer Pilkington off with an item that would help him restrain people to arrest them – like handcuffs. Constraining people was pretty hard so I might do something to make that easier. Or I might give players suggestions on how to be creative with that to begin with because they had a hard time. That’s more player error though. I would add in more rules for how ghosts work. I decided on the fly that since they could still talk to people that they could share information up to 10 minutes before their death. That way if the murderer wanted to hide the body, they couldn’t just tell everyone who murdered them. I also had them just discreetly write ghost on their name badge. That way people talking to them may or may not realize they’re just a ghost. This worked well enough, but without having more detailed rules it was a little clunky. Our ghosts still had a fantastic time continuing to play so I’m really glad that was a mechanic. Reno’s character was a pretty interesting one to have. I think their ability to cleanse the wicked is a bit OP/unrealistic/ruins other people’s game play. On the fly I changed it so that if you were converted it just meant that you couldn’t choose to drink any more alcohol and did need to try to help Reno, but you didn’t necessarily immediately support prohibition: that way, the players who were converted early on could still work on their own goals.
        I think another way you could change that is to have no conversions before happy hour. Another thing I would have done was clarify for the players before the start that there may or may not be multiple guns in the game. Apparently a lot of my players thought that if they came across any gun, then that gun was the murder weapon used on Scabface. That was mostly a player error. Another big player error was that Sasha forgot that they could decode the map, they thought they needed Bobby to do it who wasn’t in the game. This caused a lot of frustration for everyone chasing the lead and thinking that there were no players in the game that could help them (Lola died right after happy hour so she was out).
        I loved the horse race mechanic. Somebody in my game early on picked a random horse to spread a rumor about, and it happened to be the actual winner of the horse race! So everybody wanted to bet on the winner and Sammy ended up not trusting anyone including Stan, since it seemed crazy that everybody could know the winner. That being said, Sammy had a hard time finding time to do anything other than deal with people trying to bet. This was a pretty difficult character to play and my player did a fantastic job – but I would note that you need to give it to somebody very good at multitasking. One way you could change that is by making it so that bets can only be placed at certain times, there could be an announcement for that or it could happen only before happy hour.
        I checked in with my players throughout the game to see how they were feeling about the difficulty. If some people were struggling or finding things to easy to the point of making it far less fun for them, I would give them a little guidance, drop or take away helpful items, or change things up. 10/10 would play again!

7. 

   Kelly Wittman – 15 February 2019

   My guests had a blast at A Speakeasy Murder. The costumes were great. We had a full house including Ginger Roberts. I strongly advise allowing plenty of time in advance to pull everything together. You should have at least two doorkeepers (we had three) because they will be very busy. If possible assign someone to be the party photographer because you don’t want to miss out on getting picture of people in their 20s finest.

   
8. 

   Angela James – 29 June 2016

   My husband & I completely rented an old hotel, converted its lobby into a speakeasy, involved the staff in our game, and ran A Speakeasy Murder all weekend! Guests loved that they always had things to do, that there were ‘easy’ parts as well as more challenging roles, and that even if people didn’t figure out how the murderer was, they could still talk smack about accomplishing other goals (like killing a rival, finding a lost heirloom, or making some money…)

9. 

   Jesse Felzien – 18 January 2016

   Over the last couple years since our friend invited us to a play-through of Curse of the Pharaoh we fell in love with your games and have since gone to two more of your mysteries run by our friend. Last year my girlfriend hosted Dead Man’s Chest and for our New Years Eve party last year I hosted A Speakeasy Murder Mystery. I just wanted to thank you for writing up some awesome games, I’ve never seen a person frowning by the end of any of your mysteries (well if you don’t count excessive drinking).I could tell you all of the escapades in our mysteries, but mostly I just wanted to thank you all again.

10. 

    Amy Diaz – 20 April 2015

    We ran A Speakeasy Murder last weekend with 22 guests and 1 host. This was our fourth Freeform Game and the largest one yet. A great time was had by one and all, including our brand new guests. I think this one was my personal favorite for the creative costumes our guests came in.
    I asked each of our guests for their “mug shot” before we started play and put together this compilation. I thought you would enjoy it!
    Thank you for another excellent game.

11. 

    Amy Diaz – 20 April 2015

    We ran A Speakeasy Murder last weekend with 22 guests and 1 host. This was our fourth Freeform Game and the largest one yet. A great time was had by one and all, including our brand new guests. I think this one was my personal favorite for the creative costumes our guests came in.
    I asked each of our guests for their “mug shot” before we started play and put together this compilation. I thought you would enjoy it!Thank you for another excellent game.

12. 

    Mark Wolff – 2 November 2014

    My wife and I just did A Speakeasy Murder (Halloween 2014) in our home for 32 guests. We had a BLAST. We are already planning to do another of these games next Halloween. Our friends are still talking about the party. We have a huge list of things we will do differently next time to make it even more fun for them and easier for us.