Fun fact about me: when I was like seven or eight I literally ran away from home in hopes of joining the circus that had been in town. I only made it about a mile away before my parents picked me up and took me home!

When I heard that my parents, my two brothers, and my sister were all coming to see me, I just knew I had to find another one of these games to try out! So I found Night of Mystery and their Murder Under the Big Top game and was sort of surprised that this company only offers downloadable games. The only things that may come in the mail are extras like props, which I didn’t feel the need for since it was just a small family gathering.

As you can tell from the link I posted below, this is probably one of the nicest looking websites I’ve seen in my search for murder mystery games! The color scheme, red and gold, was beautiful, with little elements of some of their themes, like playing cards and a sheriff's badge. It was also very well laid out and I didn’t have any trouble finding what I was looking for. There was SO much extra content for each theme, like photo galleries of customer’s parties! I felt totally at ease while on this website and I knew that I was going to have a great experience with them! Kudos to them, because they totally made me want to buy something just because of their beautiful website!

I really liked how inexpensive these games were! I bought the 8-12 guest version (we had 8 people because Kenz and Jer obviously came to hang out with us!) and it was only $45. Not bad at all for an entire evening of fun! There wasn’t as much extra stuff piled in with this game though, like it was pretty bare bones when it came to character info and stuff like that. But Night of Mystery had a theme-specific website, too, which was super cute and laid out all the circus lingo for us and helped us get into character as performers and various circus folk!

There weren’t a whole lot of themes to choose from which could be a problem if you didn’t go into it with the perfect one in mind like I did with the circus theme. BUT! They had a “player’s exchange” which was a message board for each theme where people could share their experiences with the game and post photos or helpful hints, which is a really great idea!

My dad got a kick out of being the owner of the circus, and my sister was an acrobat, which was pretty great for her since she’s done gymnastics her whole life. Not exactly the same thing, but she still loved it! For whatever reason, it was really, really fun for us to all get into our new personas. None of us are any good at acting, but it was definitely fun to take on these larger-than-life characters! That’s what I liked about this one over any of the other games I’ve played: instead of just taking place in a certain era, it was like we were in an entirely different world! SO fun! I put out carnival food like popcorn, hot dogs, and peanuts to help us stay with the theme!

And the best part of the evening was when Jeremy, as Nick Dagger, knife thrower, literally threw a knife and it got stuck in my wall. Yep. I’ll probably keep all sharp objects away from him for a while! He patched the wall afterward, of course!

This was probably the most fun at-home murder mystery game I’ve ever played! I loved the characters, the storyline, and the price! It was a little lacking in extra stuff in comparison to the other ones I’ve tried, but otherwise, this was the best throw-your-own murder mystery dinner NYC has ever seen!