The Bollywood Murder Mystery
Custom-Designed birthday murder mystery game: BollyWood Themed
This Bollywood-style murder mystery party was hosted in honor of NK’s 45th birthday party. Before we hosted the game, we interviewed NK’s husband and sister, to get to know her a bit more and to learn about what she loves and cares about. Here’s what we found:
NK is a doctor of radiology
NK loves Bollywood movies and grew up watching them
NK loves murder mysteries like Sherlock Holmes
NK loves her sister, who lives in Seattle and unable to attend the party in San Francisco
NK spends her spare time playing Candy Crush
The game was set at the Harborview Restaurant in San Francisco. The guests enjoyed dinner together and then, suddenly, during dessert, Officer Jess strolled into the restaurant and exclaimed:
“A MURDER HAS OCCURRED! A big Bollywood star has just been murdered right outside this restaurant and he was holding a birthday present for NK. Since you guys are here, we need your help to figure out who killed Arjun Khan…”
Officer Jess walks into the scene and starts the game
At the start of the game, teams get a packet of 12 suspects and the start code to the game on the Cluekeeper app (where they receive clues, hints, and submit answers). Then it’s up to them to choose which puzzle to start.
Teams found a packet with information about the suspects in the case
Teams must solve puzzles to eliminate 11 of the 12 suspects to figure out who murdered Arjun
Very Customized Puzzles
Several of the puzzles were created exclusively for this event, for this client. Since NK is a radiologist, we created a puzzle where teams have to find the X-rays and align them in the right orientation to unlock a container. The patient name was Arjun Khan, the doctor on record? The birthday person.
NK also really likes playing Candy Crush, and we custom designed a Candy Crush puzzle. We had one of our Gr8er Good Games interns play Candy Crush for about an hour, taking screenshots of the game as she played. Then we hid some specific messages into these screenshots. Next we created a twitter account for Arjun Khan and uploaded the Candy Crush puzzle onto twitter for teams to find.
The X-Ray puzzle has Arjun’s doctor listed as NK
Can you decipher the message in Candy Crush?
A Mini-Escape Game
When players approached Officer Jess to ask for Arjun Khan’s briefcase, what they found was a mini-escape game. The locked briefcase contained three other locked containers and teams must work together to solve the clues and puzzles to unlock each container.
Once they unlocked the last container, they found a business card with a phone number.
When teams called the number, they spoke with NK’s sister, who lives in Seattle. Turns out that she was one of the 12 suspects in the case, and that she has some information for the teams.
Evidence, Forensic Files, Travel documents and more
Other puzzles included:
finding a hidden message inside the birthday present that Arjun was carrying
searching the restaurant for a lost evidence bag
finding and interrogating the Forensic Scientist who performed Arjun Khan’s autopsy
retracing his travel plans
finding information about his newest bollywood hit film by carefully reading his producer’s website. Teams found the producer’s website by locating a business card in the restaurant and reading his email away message
decrypting an augmented reality clue: teams had to follow a series of photographs to a location outside of the restaurant to find a man with a packet of film posters. When teams scanned the posters with our app, they found an encrypted clue that they must decipher
The evidence bag was planted somewhere inside the restaurant and teams had to search the restaurant to find and reassemble this note
When teams found the forensic scientist, she gave them a forensic report with clues as to how he was murdered
As a big Bollywood Star, Arjun had a demanding travel schedule. But if a team is clever enough, they might be able to decipher a hidden clue inside plane tickets.
And so ends the story of Arjun Khan: a Bollywood Murder Mystery Birthday Party custom-designed for NK.
If you’re interested in a custom-designed birthday party murder mystery, scavenger hunt, or escape game, click the box below and let us design the best birthday game ever for you!
Our games are all custom-designed for your group and include props, puzzles and actors. Our pricing ranges from $50-$150 per participant.