Jubensha script murder games

Jubensha? What is Jubensha?

I hadn’t heard of Jubensha until a few days ago, but Jubensha script murder games are a kind of Chinese murder mystery game – and they’re huge!

Here’s the video that introduced them to me. (You don’t need to watch the whole thing – the first five or ten minutes give you a pretty good idea of what jubensha involves.)

If you’ve watched that, you’re probably thinking the same thing I am: Jubensha script murder games are just like Freeform Games murder mystery games.

There’s a murder to solve, but there are other things to do as well. Everyone has their own character, it’s unscripted, and it’s up to everyone how they try to achieve their goals. Plus, there’s an independent person running the game.

Freeform jubensha?

There are four big differences that I can see:

• First, while there are now lots of boxed products you can purchase (albeit mostly in Chinese – although some English-language games are starting to appear), it seemed they started in jubensha rooms – a kind of cross between one of our games and an escape room.
• Second, we design our games for a wide range of players. If the video is anything to go by, most Jubensha script murder games are for six players. (We only have a couple of games that are that small.)
• Third, the number of players is fixed. This is because the plots can  be extremely convoluted, and I guess it’s hard to allow for different numbers of players.
• Fourth, the murder is more structured in Jubensha than in our games. (Some characters in our games may not be interested in the murder at all.)

Social mixing

One point the video makes is how good jubensha is at introducing people who don’t know each other. I’m not great in large groups where I don’t know people, but that’s never been a problem in this kind of game, as you’re given plenty to talk about.

Jubensha-adjacent

I think our games are probably Jubensha-adjacent. There are a lot of similarities – and if you think you might enjoy Jubensha, you’d probably enjoy one of our games.

So if you’re looking for a Jubensha-adjacent game, here are some suggestions:

Or see our full list of games here.