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Here's what people have been saying about Curse of the Pharaoh:
"Curse of the Pharaoh was last night. It went sooooooooooooo well that I would just like to thank you for doing an amazing job. Thank you! I thought it was perfect. Absolutely amazing.
Me and my friends had the best time, with relatively no work on my part. Four months later and my friends are STILL talking about it.
It let us get really creative, and yet we all saw a competitive side of our friends that we hadn't seen before."
Emma Bardes
"Just a quick note to say thanks for helping our New Years Eve go so well! We played Curse of the Pharaoh and everyone had a fantastic time. I was surprised that the cost was the same as purchasing a 'kit' from the shops but the money-back guarantee (and the quality of the introduction doc) won me over!"
Rob Tudor, Hertfordshire, United Kingdom
"We had a great group, and it was a terrific time. For a group where only one of the participants besides myself had every heard of roleplaying, they did a super job at getting into character... Thanks for the wonderful game [Curse of the Pharaoh]!"
Jay Shaffstall, United States
"We had the Curse of the Pharaoh a few weeks ago and had such fun! Thank you for a very inventive and clever game."
Liz H, United States
"I played Curse of the Pharaoh at my friend's birthday party. I had a great time. My friend made traditional Egyptian cuisine and all the costumes looked great. I was very impressed with the quality of freeform games, and now I know what to do for my birthday party!"
Scott, United States
"First time we played a Freeform Games game, and Curse of the Pharaoh Expanded was totally enjoyable. We had played another Murder Mystery game, but it was nowhere as good as this.
Well done – the setting and characters were brilliant. The plots were intricate to the right point, and the fact that the players have their individual objectives rather than just focusing on the main murder is a great touch."
Marvin Zammit, Malta
"Curse of the Pharaoh was a great game. Was fun to watch the guests dress up, and take to character. Though they were slow on the uptake (lots of reading for 16yos), they quickly came around and had a blast. After the game, they sat for over an hour, talking about their characters' successes and failures."
A Customer, Queensland, Australia
"I enjoyed Curse of the Pharaoh very much, and must say congrats to you for creating a great storyline."
Mark Doney, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom
"I've never had an activity at any party that got everyone talking to each other quite as quickly as Curse of the Pharaoh did!"
Glenn Selwood, United Kingdom
"Well, actually I'm about two years late in reporting on this murder mystery but it was excellent (the best one so far our guests reported!) We used the garden mostly for Curse of the Pharaoh and it was a great success – we bought around seven sand-bags and emptied it all onto sheets in the garden – placed half a gazebo/tent over the sand and added the props table and hid scorpions etc in the sand! It was fantastic! This was our fifth murder mystery and we all thoroughly enjoyed it!"
Nick Eccles, United Kingdom
If you would like to tell us how your party went, please click here to send us your story.
Curse of the Pharaoh – an archaeological murder mystery game for 6 to 9 guests (or up to 19 with the expansion pack) and a host 
Costs £20.00 (about 30.5 US dollars)
Written by Mo Holkar
Download the free
introductory file
Curse of the Pharaoh is a dinner party murder mystery game for 6 to 9 guests (or up to 19 with the expansion pack) and a host – download the free introductory pdf file.
(NULL)Join us in Egypt, 1894, and determine the fate of the British Empire in a thrilling evening of mystery and murder. You will be in the middle of the action and it will be up to you to wheel and deal with the other guests. Can you achieve your goals, keep your secrets hidden and survive Curse of the Pharaoh? It's up to you.
"We did Curse of the Pharaoh Expanded for my birthday and had a blast! I was so impressed with the game, the flow and of course everyone's costumes. Super fun!"
Laura Bohen,
Curse of the Pharaoh
The Valley of the Kings, Luxor, Egypt. 23 April 1894. The excavation season will soon be over, as the baking sun makes digging unbearable, but the Oxford University archaeologists lead by Sir William Saville have made a startling discovery. Tonight, the team and their guests prepare to enjoy a slap-up dinner to celebrate the uncovering of the tomb of a previously unknown XVIth Dynasty pharaoh. But while the archaeologists make merry, dark clouds gather, internal tensions among the group burst to the surface and one of the local diggers is brutally murdered.
Read Curse of the Pharaoh
stories See Curse of the Pharaoh
pictures Read the
Cairo Gazette
Curse of the Pharaoh lasts for about four hours and is suited to an evening. It is often played over a meal – a finger buffet if possible to allow guests to circulate and talk in private.
"Curse of the Pharaoh Expanded is a brilliant game – better than any other murder mystery I have played."
Becky Pruitt, United States
The free introductory pdf file contains an introduction to the game, a list of all the characters, an invitation to send to your guests, the Cairo Gazette – plus details of how to buy the game.
New expanded version!
Now available in German!
You can buy a German translation of this game – click here for more details.
These are the characters in Curse of the Pharaoh:
- Alvy Spanheim – The charming and sinister German cultural attaché
- Ariadne Price-Evans – The respected archaeologist with an intriguing past
- Eva de Chalons – The beautiful and mysterious Frenchwoman
- Helen Mackinnon – The belle of Oxford, fought over by men
- Hugh Carlaw – The enthusiastic young student
- Lindsay Wilde – The downtrodden assistant with hidden depths
- Robert Tregarne – Detective Sergeant in the Colonial Police, charged with the responsibility of clearing up this dreadful crime
- Shahfeez Merouf – The enigmatic curator of the Luxor Museum
- Sir William Saville – The veteran leader of the archaeological team
and these are the characters in the Expanded version:
- Alex McQueen – The ambitious young detective sergeant in Her Majesty's Colonial Police Force
- Alvy Spanheim – The charming and sinister German cultural attaché
- Angela Fox – Wife of a Church minister and member of the Cambridge archaeological team
- Ariadne Price-Evans – The respected archaeologist with an intriguing past
- Armand Lenoir – The French archaeologist with a sad romantic history
- Chris Kovacs – The Hungarian student, dogsbody of the Cambridge archaeological team
- Eva de Chalons – The beautiful and mysterious Frenchwoman
- Fatima al-Mansoor – The unscrupulous antiquarian and collector
- Helen Mackinnon – The belle of Oxford, fought over by men
- Hugh Carlaw – The enthusiastic young student
- Lady Jane Fortescue – The financial backer of the Cambridge archaeological team
- Lindsay Wilde – The downtrodden assistant with hidden depths
- Marie-Claire Guiscard – The French archaeologist, dedicated to her parents
- Professor Reginald Mathers – Professor of Archaeology at the University of Cambridge
- Reverend Godfrey Fox – Church minister and member of the Cambridge archaeological team
- Robert Tregarne – Detective Sergeant in the Colonial Police, charged with the responsibility of clearing up this dreadful crime
- Shahfeez Merouf – The enigmatic curator of the Luxor Museum
- Sir William Saville – The veteran leader of the archaeological team
- Tariq al-Mansoor – The wealthy antiquarian and collector
| Number of guests | Male characters | Female characters | Characters that can be played by either sex |
|---|---|---|---|
| 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| 7 | 2 | 2 | 3 |
| 8 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| 9 | 3 | 3 | 3 |
| 10 | 3 | 3 | 4 |
| 11 | 4 | 4 | 3 |
| 12 | 4 | 4 | 4 |
| 13 | 5 | 5 | 3 |
| 14 | 5 | 5 | 4 |
| 15 | 5 | 5 | 5 |
| 16 | 6 | 6 | 4 |
| 17 | 6 | 6 | 5 |
| 18 | 7 | 7 | 4 |
| 19 | 7 | 7 | 5 |
How Freeform Games Murder Mysteries Work
Curse of the Pharaoh is unlike many murder mystery games. Although the game starts with a murder, most of the characters have more important things to do than to investigate it. And the killing may not be over – it is unlikely that everyone will survive the remainder of the evening!
Curse of the Pharaoh is played just like a murder mystery game. You may be trying to solve the murder, but primarily you are (initially at least) concentrating on your own goals and objectives. Unlike most boxed murder mystery games, Curse of the Pharaoh lets you decide how to achieve your goals and thwart your enemies.
"Curse of the Pharaoh Expanded has a brilliant story – I have played other mystery games from other sites in the past – your story was unique and everyone loved the complexity and the props."
A Customer, United States
On the evening of the game the guests are met by the organizer, the archaeological team's native servant. They then receive their detailed backgrounds - including dark secrets, objectives and money. When everyone has arrived the servant announces that, with the corpse tidied away into the camel shed for safekeeping, dinner will now be served. The fun then begins as everyone questions, bribes and blackmails each other. As the evening progresses they may even try to murder one another! Depending on what the players choose to do, there are several different possible endings, but finally everyone finds out how they did, and what secrets everyone else was concealing.
Extra characters
Sometimes you have too many guests and you need more characters. So we've written a free extra character for each of our games that you can add in, and some of our customers have created their own characters for their parties and are kindly willing to share them.
Please note that we haven't tested these and they may not tie in exactly with our games.
IMPORTANT – if you've bought the game, you can download the files for these characters from the download page where you got your main game files. Contact us if you need the link and password to get back to that page.
- 'Ginger' Roberts – freelance reporter in search of the Big Story. (M/F)
(by Freeform Games) - Paige Money – archaeological reporter for The Times. (M/F)
(by Philip Murray)
Purchasing Curse of the Pharaoh
Curse of the Pharaoh costs £20.00 (GB pounds). That works out at about US$30.5 at today's exchange rate, although the rate charged by your credit card may vary slightly.
To purchase Curse of the Pharaoh, follow these three steps.
Step 1: Download the free introductory pdf file. You will need the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to read this. If you do not already have Acrobat Reader, click here.
Step 2: Read our terms and conditions of purchase. Then come back here and click on the button to buy the game!
Step 3: Our orders are processed by WorldPay – we don't actually see your credit card details. After you have entered your credit card details you will be emailed the location of the main pdf files, plus the password required to unlock them. You can then download those files and enjoy the game!
Or, buy now!
Cards we accept
We accept the following credit and debit cards:
Cast Iron Guarantee
We offer a Cast Iron Guarantee on all our murder mystery games. If you're not completely satisfied with Curse of the Pharaoh then please let us know within 30 days and we will refund you.