A couple of nights a year a huge group of our friends gets together, and we either go out bar hopping or we go over to somebody’s apartment and hang out all night. This time around, Jeremy and I decided to host everyone at Jer’s apartment and play Murder in Manhattan from the company Playing with Murder! We figured the Murder in Manhattan theme would be perfect for our own NYC murder mystery dinner party.

I admit, of all the websites I’ve seen in my game search, this is probably the sketchiest looking. I was a little apprehensive, because it didn’t appear to be as professional as the other ones I’ve visited. It wasn’t as elaborate as Night of Mystery’s site, which might be an unfair measure, considering how amazing that one was. However, I clicked around a bit and I decided that it seemed alright. It was easy enough to navigate, and they had great customer reviews, which eased my worries. I’m super glad I decided to go with it, because it ended up being a fantastic game and company.

I’ve done tons of these games, so by the time this one rolled around I was pretty much an expert at planning! Our group had 23 people, and it was perfect because this game could host 10-25. The theme of the game was a Manhattan cocktail party, so Jer and I went all out and bought tons of alcohol, and then we decided to just do finger foods to pass around on silver trays (since the host, me, was supposed to be Taylor Walker, the head caterer) so that was pretty much perfect! And who doesn’t love mozzarella sticks and jalapeno poppers?!

The only option for buying the games from this company is as downloadable files, so again, if you want any of the extra stuff like props or decorations, you’ve gotta do that yourself. The PDF download included a lot of stuff (it was 171 pages!) to help make the party amazing, like character sheets, invitations, customizable awards, and other goodies. It was a really great deal for $40. Jeremy’s apartment already has a very Manhattan feel to it, so we didn’t have to do much extra decorating. I just put up a photo backdrop on the living room wall, put out lots of candles, dimmed the lights, and called it good, and it all really looked perfect.

It was tons of fun to get all dressed up, and every single one of our guests was dressed to the nines, too, in sparkly cocktail dresses and snazzy suits. It almost felt like we were on Gossip Girl or something! Our friends were all super great at becoming these characters, so much so that it almost felt like we weren’t acting at all… except for the murder part of course! My friend from college, Alex, was stoked to play the murderer! I won’t tell you which character Alex was so that the game isn’t ruined for you, but it was actually sort of unexpected, so I loved that the game wasn’t so easy that we were all able to guess it right away!

This was totally the perfect game for us and it made for an amazing get-together! This company also sells 30-minute mysteries, which doesn’t involve as much preparation and can be added into any type of party. I’ll definitely try one of those, too!

Every single person who came had a great time! I keep getting texts and Facebook comments from people saying that they want to do another one the next time we have one of our big hangouts! Someone even said I should be the new designated hostess… we’ll see about that.