The Open Verdict
St Agatha’s College, Oxford · 1969
“Academic rivalry, an old grudge, and a verdict the college would rather leave open.”
- Players
- 2 detectives, or 1
- Runs
- 60 to 90 minutes
- Setting
- St. Agatha's College, Oxford, 1969
- History
- Original fiction
- Evidence
- Five stages, to both phones
- Best for
- A night in for two, or one alone
- Acting
- None. No host, no guests
- You need
- A TV or laptop, and a phone each
- Difficulty
- Moderate
- Delivery
- Instant access
- Price
- A$39, one payment
- Content
- Original fiction. Involves a suspicious death and academic rivalry. No graphic detail.
St Agatha's has survived plague, fire and four centuries of committee meetings, and it fully intends to survive this. Port circulates in the senior common room while careers hang on a single proof, and a proof, once taken, cannot be handed back. When the college loses one of its own, the question is not only who did it but whether anyone will be permitted to ask. Some institutions prefer their verdicts open. It keeps the donors calm.
That is all the file will tell you. The rest arrives across the five stages, one piece of evidence at a time, and you won't see the whole of it until the end.
How this one plays
Two detectives, or one
Just the pair of you on a couch, working the case together, or on your own with one phone. No guests to invite, no costumes, nothing to host.
Five stages
Scene photographs, the victim's file, the first reports, then forensics and statements. Each stage lands on both phones.
It argues back
Log cause of death, prime suspect and motive on the shared screen. When the evidence stops supporting an answer, the board flags it amber.
Commit to move on
A stage only opens once an answer is locked in, so play can't get ahead of the evidence.
Sixty to ninety minutes
One shared screen, your phone or phones, one evening. Three from three at the end is a clean solve.
The Open Verdict is invented from end to end, and it is built to mislead. There is no real case behind it, nothing to look up, and nothing you can spoil by reading around it beforehand.
The solution is fair. Every piece of evidence you need reaches your phones before you are asked to name anybody, and the misdirection is in how the pieces are arranged rather than in anything being withheld from you.
Want a real one? The eight Case Files reopen genuine historical cases, with real inquests and verdicts still argued over.
Open The Open Verdict.
One case, two detectives, one night in. Your access code arrives by email the moment you pay.