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Real cases.
Real evidence.
Your verdict.
Most murder mystery games invent a crime. These eight do not. Each Case File reopens a murder that actually happened, with the scene as it stood, the testimony as it was given, and the questions the courts left open. Your table gets what the inquest got. Your table has to decide.
A true crime listener rather than a history reader? Start here →
A real historical murder mystery game is one built from an actual documented case rather than an invented crime. The eight Case Files reopen murders from 1876 to 1929 using the real evidence, the real suspects and the real open questions. The game does not tell you who did it, because in most of these cases nobody knows.
Invented crimes cannot surprise you.
A fictional mystery has a solution because somebody wrote one. Work the logic and the logic works, because it was built to. That is a puzzle, and puzzles are fine, but they are not an argument.
A real case is different. The evidence contradicts itself, because real witnesses contradict themselves. Two people saw the same thing and remember it differently. A timeline has a gap nobody could account for at the time and nobody can account for now. When your table argues about it at eleven at night, you are having the same argument the coroner's jury had, with the same information they had.
- The evidence is the real evidence. Statements, timings, the layout of the house, what was found and where. Not invented to fit a solution.
- The suspects are the real suspects. The people the inquest actually looked at, with the motives the record actually gives them.
- The verdict is yours. The game does not reveal a killer it cannot prove. It tells you what the court decided and what has been argued since.
- Closed era only. The most recent case is 1928. No living families, no recent crime, no open police matter.
Eight murders the world
never agreed on.
In date order, 1876 to 1929. Each one runs as a full murder mystery party for six to twelve at your table, hosted from your television and everybody's phones.
Alongside these there are eighteen original fiction cases across the Christmas, Halloween and War Files, and five two player cases in Be the Detective. Those are fiction and the site says so on every page. Only these eight are real.
Five real murders nobody ever solved.
If you're after famous unsolved murders from the 1800s and 1900s rather than a game with an invented solution, here's the honest list. Five of our eight real Case Files were never solved: no conviction, no verdict anyone settled on, nothing since to close the file. That's the actual state of the historical record for each of the five below, not a marketing claim.
The other three Case Files are a different shape of evening. The Cellar at Hilldrop, Curtain Call and The Red Velvet Swing each ended with a real person standing trial. What the court decided is not something we're printing on a marketing page. It's the reason to book the case.
History, not true crime.
True crime has a habit of treating a dead person as content. We have tried hard not to do that, and the rules are written down rather than left to taste: closed era cases only, no living families, victims named and given their own account where the record has one, and no confession put in the mouth of a real person who never made one.
Where the record is genuinely open, the game says so. A case is described as unresolved when it is unresolved. The language on the site is the prosecution's theory, the coroner's finding, the most supported reading, and your table's verdict. It is never the killer, unless a court established that and history has not since unpicked it.
Real cases, answered.
Are there murder mystery games based on real cases?
Yes. The eight Case Files each reopen a real historical murder: the Bravo poisoning of 1876, Ardlamont in 1893, the killing of William Terriss in 1897, Peasenhall in 1902, Stanford White in 1906, Crippen in 1910, Hall and Mills in 1922 and the Croydon poisonings of 1928. Your table gets the evidence the inquest had and has to reach its own verdict.
Do you use recent or unsolved modern crimes?
No. Every case is closed era history, the most recent from 1928, and none involves a living family. That is a fixed editorial line rather than a preference. How we choose and handle a case is written out in full on the methodology page.
What are some famous unsolved murders from the 1800s and 1900s?
Genuinely unsolved cases from that era include the 1876 Bravo poisoning, the 1893 Ardlamont mystery, the 1902 Peasenhall murder, the 1922 Hall and Mills case and the 1928 Croydon poisonings, none of them ever settled with a verdict that stuck. We've built a Case File around each one: Poisoned at the Priory, Not Proven, Providence House, Under the Crab Apple Tree and A Death in the Family.
Which of the eight real cases are actually unsolved?
Five: the ones listed above. The other three, The Cellar at Hilldrop, Curtain Call and The Red Velvet Swing, are a different kind of case, each with a real trial. All eight are built on real deaths and real inquests, but only five are genuinely open questions, and we don't describe the other three as unsolved.
Do the games tell you who really did it?
No, because in most of these cases nobody knows. The game gives your table the evidence as it stood and asks for a verdict. Afterwards the case notes set out what the court decided, what historians have argued since, and where the record is genuinely open.
Are the seasonal cases real history too?
No, and the site never says they are. The eighteen Christmas, Halloween and War Files cases are original fiction with period settings. Only the eight Case Files reopen an actual case.
Is it disrespectful to make a game out of a real murder?
It is a fair question and the reason there is a written policy. The short version: closed era cases only, no living families, victims named and treated as people rather than plot devices, and no invented confession from a real person who never made one. The long version is on the methodology page.
Reopen a case
the courts closed badly.
Eight real murders, $39 each, hosted from your television and everybody's phones. Your access code arrives the moment you pay.