Quick Mysteries.
Short interactive cases for one person or two. A premise, a handful of evidence, one culprit, and a verdict in the time it takes the kettle to boil. None of them is playable yet. This page exists so that nobody has to guess what is coming, and so you can be told when it does.
Quick Mysteries are short cases, three to thirty minutes, planned for murdermysteryparty.com. The first is a daily whodunnit: read the premise, inspect the evidence, name the culprit, see whether you were right and why. It is being written and tested now. Nothing on this page can be bought or played today.
Three shapes of
a short case.
In the order they are planned. Each one is a different kind of thinking, not the same puzzle in a different hat. None has a price, a date or a buy button, because none is ready.
The Daily Whodunnit
One new case a day. A short premise, three to six pieces of evidence, three or four suspects, and one answer the evidence supports. Hints if you want them, in tiers. The explanation afterwards shows its working, so a wrong answer teaches something.
Being written and testedThe Alibi Files
Four witnesses, four accounts of the same hour, and they cannot all be true. Lay the timelines side by side, find the one that does not fit, and say who is lying and about what.
PlannedThe Interrogation Room
A suspect across the table and a limited number of questions. Every answer is written in advance from a fixed set of facts, so the suspect cannot invent evidence or change the story under pressure. You can.
PlannedWhat you can
play tonight.
Everything below is on sale and plays the minute payment clears. All of it is one payment per case, in Australian dollars.
Fair, or it does
not go up.
A three minute puzzle that cheats is worse than no puzzle. Before a case is published it has to meet every line below, checked by someone other than the person who wrote it.
- One answer. Each case has a single authored solution and enough evidence on the page to reach it.
- No outside knowledge. You should never need to know a fact the case did not give you, and never need to guess.
- Nothing leaks. The solution is not in the page, the images or the code. It is checked when you submit, not before.
- A second reader solves it blind. If they cannot, or if two answers fit, it goes back for rewriting.
- Fiction only. Invented people in invented places. No real victim, no real accused, no real family.
- No clock you cannot switch off. A timer is optional. Readable text, keyboard access and one thumb on a phone are not.
Be told when the first one opens.
One email when the Daily Whodunnit is playable, and nothing before that. No newsletter, no sequence, nothing charged.
We handle your address as set out in the privacy policy.
Quick Mysteries, answered.
Is anything playable now?
No. The first short case is being written and tested, and this page will change the day it can be played. Until then the shortest thing on the site is a Be the Detective file, which runs 60 to 90 minutes for one person or two.
What will a Quick Mystery cost?
That has not been decided, and nothing is charged for leaving an email here. The full cases are A$39 each; the short ones will be priced, or not, once a few people have played them and said whether they were worth the time.
Will I need an account?
Not to try the first case. That is the plan and the test. Saving a streak or a history would need one later, and it will be optional.
Are these the party cases cut down?
No. A party case is built for a table of six to twelve over an evening and does not survive being squeezed into ten minutes. The short cases are written as short cases, with a premise, a handful of evidence and one culprit, and they are original fiction.
Is this the same app?
It will run in the browser on a phone, like the rest of the catalogue. Whether it lives inside the play app or alongside it is a build decision, not one that changes what you see.
Want a case
you can play now?
Thirty seven of them are on the shelf tonight, from an hour for two to an evening for twelve.