Murder on the Ghost Train – Large group script

The inspector/facilitator role is essential for the game to work. He/she facilitates the entire evening.

The other characters can be taken from the audience and briefed before game play starts, OR you can select a group to play your suspects in advance of the night and give them time to get fluent in their roles and answers.

The rest of the guests are fully included in the game as they’ll be asking questions throughout the night.

Essential Cast:
Inspector Hal Owen – The policeman responsible for solving the crime
Efficient in his own peculiar way, Inspector Hal Owen has an unusual method of solving crimes – he involves everyone!

Count Ing – Vampire
With starched white collar, black suit and pointy teeth, Count Ing is a somewhat flamboyant mathematical genius with a penchant for jelly and peanut butter sandwiches.

Dee Composed – Skeleton
With her body on show day in, day out, Dee is forever worrying about her weight and has become a bit of a finicky eater and calorie counter.

Ed Less – Grim Reaper
With hooded cape and scythe ever to hand, you cannot miss Ed in a crowd, even if you might want to.

Flo Ting – Ghost
Ashen faced and always in white, Flo is a terror for drifting through parties or coming when she hasn’t been invited.

Frank Enstein – Monster
With green tinged skin and bolts ever to hand, Frank is a real hands-on sort of a guy who loves nothing better than fiddling with electrical or mechanical devices.

Cassie Spells – Witch
With black pointed hat, black cape and broomstick, Cassie is a stickler for cleanliness and loves nothing better than to wave her dust-busting wand around the place.

Additional characters in the 9 cast game:

Ben Tover – Hunchback
With dark ill fitting suits and terrible arthritis, Ben is almost doubled up. It is hardly surprising his hair has grown so long – he can never stand straight enough to look at his appearance in a mirror.

Iona Crypt – Mummy
With rolls of bandages ever to hand, Iona is somewhat accident prone, not helped in the slightest by the bandaging on her face which always manages to slip down in front of her eyes.

Additional characters in the 11 cast game:

Dr. Jack Ellenhyde – Mad Scientist
Jack is nothing less than an eccentric white coated doctor with a split personality – you just don’t want to get on the wrong side of him.

Carrie Onlivin – Zombie
Pasty faced and with bags under her eyes, Carrie is a bit of a night owl, rarely venturing forth in daylight hours.

Additional characters in the 13 cast game:

Ivor Wand – Wizard
With flowing beard, a cape and a pointed hat you might be forgiven for thinking Ivor Wand had magical powers – in actual fact he doesn’t, he just never bothers shaving.

Kat Noir – Black Cat
Able to make a black cat suit look purr-fectly divine at any time of day or night, Kat Noir loves nothing better than a night on the tiles.

These games require 7-13 cast and involve the rest of the audience by getting them to ask pre-set questions – which are provided to them on paper by the inspector at the start of each round.

They run in a similar way to a dinner party, so are an ideal first choice for novice hosts and acing teams with little or no experience running large scale events.

These games work best as a sit down event with 6-12 tables of guests, with a suspect on each table.

As a rough guide these mysteries take approximately 2-3 hours to complete with a three course meal.

During the game the audience will listen to five short sets of dialogue from the cast and pose pre-scripted questions (which the cast answer with pre-scripted answers). There are three rounds which can be evenly spread throughout the night or, if preferred, the question and answer rounds can be bunched together into one large round.

At the end of the final round the guests are given time to decide who is the murderer, and once the guests have decided who did it, how and why (i.e. the murderer and motive) they will complete the answer sheet and hand it in.

How these games usually run.

Introductory Round: Introductions by the cast and the facilitator “inspector character”.
Rounds 1, 2 and 3: Scripted dialogue from the cast, followed by pre-set questions and answers.
Concluding Statements and solution: conclusions by the cast and denouement from the inspector.

There is one “inspector character” who acts as facilitator during the event and is essential to the cast.

Reducing the cast size will reduce the length of time required to solve the mystery.

We can customise this game.  However, sadly we do have to charge for this service as even minor customisations take between 1-2 hours to process in the office and we need to buy toilet roll and biscuits as much as the next person…

It’s hard to give “ball park” figures for what different customisations would cost however we’ve attempted to HERE.

Remember… if you just need 1 extra person, or 1 less person, why not add in the inspector as your extra guest.  The inspector can usually be male or female as the “for real” inspector can simply invent a new name for themselves.

Some hosts prefer to play the inspector role as it means they can work on the catering while the round plays out amongst their guests.