Tag Archives: Murder on the Istanbul Express

Freeform Games’ review of 2023

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2023 was Freeform Games’ most successful year in sales since we started in 2001. Growth has continued strongly since the end of the pandemic, and our sales have finally beaten our pre-pandemic best.

We’ve been doing these reviews since 2013 – you can read them here.

Best-selling games

Our best-selling games for 2023 were Way out West, A Speakeasy Murder, and Casino Fatale.
These three, along with Murder on the Istanbul Express and A Will to Murder, are consistently our best-selling games.

As for our French and German partners:

FranceMurder’s bestsellers were Réunion Mortelle (Reunion with Death), Istanbul Express (Murder on the Istanbul Express), and Mort à Venise (Death in Venice)

Die Besten Familienspiel’s bestsellers were Mord in der Flüsterkneipe (A Speakeasy Murder), Hollywoods Lügen (Hollywood Lies), and Eiskalte Geschäfte (Snow Business)

Neither partner has our entire range of games, but it’s striking how little overlap exists between them (and us). Our perennial bestseller, Way out West, doesn’t feature at all – but most of our customers are American, so I guess that’s not surprising.

New and updated murder mystery games

We published two games in 2023: The Roswell Incident (a 1947 alien-themed game for 10-13 players set in Roswell, New Mexico) and A Purrfect Murder (a modern game for 9-12 players set at a cat-fancy show).

We also updated Davy Jones’ Locker and Way out West to our current format.

(We also removed our Way out West book from sale on Amazon. It didn’t sell, so it wasn’t worth maintaining.)

Last year’s goals

We set ourselves a few goals in 2023:

Improve our website: We made a massive change by moving to WooCommerce for our shop. So now our online store looks much like other stores rather than the bespoke store we had previously. This has three benefits – it should feel like a more familiar online shopping experience for customers (particularly new customers), it is easier for us to maintain, and it has addressed many of the niggly issues we had with downloads going missing under the old system.

We also started putting more customer stories and photos onto our blog rather than just on the game stories page. That means the stories stand out better, and the stories pages will be quicker to load (they were getting rather long and slow).

We’ve also paid for dedicated server bandwidth, so our site should respond more quickly than it used to.

So, a clear success.

Updated games: We updated Way out West and Davy Jones’ Locker. That was everything we planned to do, so that was a success.

New games: We published A Purrfect Murder (as planned) and The Roswell Incident (which wasn’t). So we over-delivered there.

Shine light on our French and German language partners: We’ve been linking to them more on the blog, and I’ve included them in our review above. Maybe we could have done more, so perhaps a partial success.

With three clear successes (and one partial success), we achieved everything we intended to do in 2023 and perhaps a bit more.

Plans for next year

Cover to the Court in the Act murder mystery game

Improve our website: This is always a work in progress, but we need to let the shop settle in and sort out any teething problems that may arise. We will also move more photos across to the blog.

Updated games: Court in the Act is the last game still in the old format, so we will update this year.

New games: We’ve got a couple of games in the early stages of preparation, but nothing we want to commit to right now.

Summary

2023 was an excellent year for us. Hopefully, the changes we’ve made to the shop have given us a good foundation for 2024.

Looking back at 2022

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2022 felt like the pandemic was finally behind us. While COVID-19 is still around, it’s not the terror it once was, and the world (or at least, our part of it) is on the road to recovery.

From our perspective, that means people are gathering in groups – and where there are gatherings, there are murder mystery parties!

The recovery that started in 2021 continued in 2022, and it looks as if 2023 could be one of our best years ever.
We’ve been doing these reviews since 2013 – you can read them all here.

Best-selling games

Our best-selling games for 2022 were Way out West, Murder on the Istanbul Express, and A Speakeasy Murder.

Way out West

That’s a change from previous years, where A Will to Murder and Casino Fatale have usually been in the top three (they’re now in the top 5). Murder on the Istanbul Express was published in 2021, and we’re pleased it has been selling so well.

New and updated murder mystery games

We published one new game in 2022, Vanished in Vegas by Jennifer Vals.

We also updated Curse of the Pharaoh and Happy Birthday RJ to our current format.

An unusual side project

We were contacted by a Houston-based organisation looking for a steampunk-themed game for over 100 people. This was a one-off commission, and they were looking for a different style of game than our usual heavily-plotted murder mysteries. So we wrote a game involving rival families, secret societies, pirates and map exploration.

Last year’s goals

We set ourselves a few goals in 2020:

Improve our website – expand the game themes and bring a little animation to the book covers: While we added a little animation to the book covers (a slight zoom when you hover over them), we didn’t do as much with themes as we were hoping. We made some improvements, but only some. Maybe in 2023.

We also made numerous small changes to the website – such as adding icons so visitors can easily see which games have combat or poisoning.

Resolve the payment process glitches: These continued throughout 2022, unfortunately. Something about the Paypal payment process results in some emails ending up in spam filters. However, we made another change just before Christmas, which seems to have made a big improvement.

Continue to work on new games: We hadn’t expected to publish Vanished in Vegas and were delighted it came out ahead of programme.

Run games online: Steve ran Reunion with Death online in 2022 – he also ran Murder on the Istanbul Express offline at a games convention.

Reunion with Death – online

Change the focus of our two online games and promote them as games the host can play: We have now done this and now promote Reunion with Death and Death in Venice as games you can host and play.

So overall a successful year. We didn’t quite do everything we wanted to, but we did most of it and sometimes did more.

Plans for next year

Improve our website: Always a work in progress. We have no specific plans for this year, but it would be remarkable if we didn’t improve the website in lots of small ways.

Updated games: We’re currently updating Davy Jones’ Locker to the latest format, and then Way out West will be on the list.

New games: With a bit of luck and a fair wind, A Purrfect Murder (dark goings-on at a cat show) will be our next game.

Shine light on our French and German language partners: We have two partners who have translated many of our games in French and German: FranceMurder and Krimispiele-Seite. When appropriate, we will mention them more in our posts.

Wrapping up

2022 represented a welcome recovery after the pandemic. It was a good year for us; hopefully, we can build on it for 2023.

Casting Murder on the Istanbul Express

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I ran Murder on the Istanbul Express recently. I ran it at a games convention, and while I knew some players, I didn’t know them that well.

Playing Murder on the Istanbul Express
Some of the train crew serving the Istanbul Express

So I created a Google Form form to help me cast the game.

Basic approach

My basic approach to a casting form is to list the characters (using the information from the cast list on the back of the character booklets) and let players choose the ones they like the sound of. Like this:

Which of these characters would you like to play? (Please tick more than one!) There is, of course, more to these characters than meets the eye.

And then I listed all the characters as a picklist, starting with “I don’t mind whom I play!”

Further questions

The main problem with that approach is that few characters are exactly what they appear (the detective perhaps being the exception). There were two situations I was concerned about.

First, not everyone wants to be the murderer.

Second, one character is in love with a background character (not a player). As all the characters are gender-neutral, that may result in a same-sex relationship, which not all players are comfortable with.

So that led to these questions:

Would you be happy being the murderer? Murder on the Istanbul Express is a murder mystery – so there’s a murderer. But not everyone likes playing the murderer.

Are you happy if your character has a same-sex relationship in their background? (All the characters are gender-neutral, and there is no in-character romance written into the game, but depending on casting, one character may have a historical same-sex relationship with a background character.)

Two final questions

And two final questions, a general one covering anything else the player might want me to know, and a courtesy one about photographs:

Is there anything else you would like to tell me?

May I use a photograph of you playing the game in future publicity?

How I used the form

Using the players’ answers made casting Murder on the Istanbul Express relatively straightforward.

First, I cast the murderer. I checked for those who were happy to play the murderer and that nothing else they’d put in their answers prevented that.

Then I did the same with the character with a potential single-sex romance.

Then I cast everyone else, leaving those who wrote “I don’t mind who I play” to the end to fill in any gaps.

Casting done

With casting done, I notified the players and sent them their details ready for the game.

Playing Murder on the Istanbul Express
Tense negotiations

Murder mystery party games you can simultaneously host and play

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Our murder mystery games require a separate host because we include items and money and abilities like pickpocketing and rules such as combat and arrests. We find a dedicated host helps the game run smoothly.

However, the games we developed during lockdown (Reunion with Death and Death in Venice) are more straightforward because we designed them for online play. So they don’t include combat or items that need swapping between characters.

Playing in person – you can’t share food like this online!

And so, as we wrote before, with care, the host can play a character.

Sales

Initially, in 2020 when the pandemic was new and terrifying, and we were all in lockdown, sales of the two games were good.

However, since then, sales have not been so good.

We think there are two reasons for this.

First, as lockdown has eased, people meet in smaller groups. That means they can host our smaller games, such as A Will to Murder or Murder on the Istanbul Express. (And that theory is backed by the improving sales of those games.)

Second, as life moved online during lockdown, we became more familiar with using online video chat such as Zoom.

Playing Way out West using Zoom

And our customers have used the technology to host our other parties (and they’ve shared their stories with us). That means they don’t need a dedicated online game—they can host our existing games online.

We think those two factors mean our ‘online-only’ games are less appealing and haven’t sold so well.

Hosting and playing

So we have re-branded the games and changing their focus.

The games work well, and they work well face-to-face. They play just like our other games—except there’s nothing that needs a neutral host (such as combat) and no items to swap.

So rather than focus on hosting them online, we’re emphasising that the host can both host and play a character in these games.

Therefore, we’ve updated the game files with the default assumption that the host will play a character, and the game will be played face-to-face. That meant some changes, as the games assume that players will be isolated from each other.

For example, in Reunion with Death, it is assumed that everyone is locked in their hotel rooms during the party. However, in a face-to-face game, the hotel is still in lockdown following the murder, but everyone is in the hotel ballroom and can mingle as they would at an ordinary party.

Of course, you can still play them online, just like our other games.

And if you want to host them without playing a character, you can do that too.

Photos!

However, the only problem at the moment is we don’t have any photographs of people playing Reunion with Death or Death in Venice in person! So if you have played them in person, please share your photos and tell us your stories!

Freeform Games’ review of 2021

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As you might expect, the pandemic dominated 2021 for Freeform Games, but we slowly started to recover from 2020.
We’ve been doing these reviews since 2013 – you can read them all here.

Online and offline play

While 2020 showed a strong interest in playing our games online (using Zoom or similar), in 2021 we sold fewer copies of our online games (Reunion with Death and Death in Venice). Instead, our smaller games continue to sell well (a trend that started in 2020).

Playing Way out West in 2021

We suspect that’s because although many restrictions have been lifted with the vaccine rollout, many people are still wary about large gatherings. However, smaller groups (maybe family and close friends) appear to be okay, hence the popularity of our smaller games.

And while October and November had strong sales (compared to 2020), December’s dropped back. This was presumably due to the Omicron variant and fewer parties being held. (That’s not surprising – our own party season was quiet, too.) We’re keeping a close eye on how Omicron plays out, but early signs are looking promising.

Best-selling games

Our best-selling games for 2021 were Way out West (10-24 guests), then A Will to Murder (6-9 guests), then Casino Fatale (15-30 guests). Casino Fatale sold half as well as the other two, demonstrating the popularity of games for smaller groups.

As mentioned above, Reunion with Death (6-9 guests) and Death in Venice (5-9 guests) didn’t sell well, despite being for smaller groups. I think this is because we promoted them for online play. Both can be played in person—and because they are simpler (no combat or items) they are suitable for the host to play. So we are thinking about promoting them differently.

Our new game, Murder on the Istanbul Express (7-11 guests) has started strongly, although time will tell if that’s just because it’s the new game.

New and updated murder mystery games

We published one new game in 2021, Murder on the Istanbul Express. It’s been on our to-do list for ages, so this year we knuckled down and pushed it over the finish line. We’re really pleased with it.

We also updated The Night Before Christmas and Dazzled to Death to our current format.

We also updated the covers of all our games to make them more striking and obvious.

Scratching an itch

We created a page on itch.io for our games. Itch is ‘an open marketplace for independent digital creators with a focus on independent video games.’ It also has roleplaying games and larps, and we thought we’d add some of our games.

Our itch.io page

We’re not expecting sales through our itch.io page, but we have our free version of Way out West there and it gives us a little exposure to the indie gaming scene that we might not otherwise have.

Last year’s goals

We set ourselves a few goals in 2020:

Improve our website: We made a few improvements this year:

  • We added a banner made up of lots of customer photographs.
  • As described above, we changed all the cover photos for the games, making them brighter and clearer.
    We created theme pages for bestsellers, Christmas games and Halloween games.

Publish Murder on the Istanbul Express: Published!

Another new online game: We talked about another online game, but given the drop in sales of Reunion with Death and Death in Venice (as noted above), we didn’t push that.

So that’s two out of three goals achieved.

Plans for next year

Improve our website: Specifically, we have plans to expand the game themes and bring a little animation to the book covers.

Resolve the payment process glitches: We’ve had a few payment glitches lately—customers not receiving the download email (or it going straight to the spam folder). So we’ll investigate and fix that.

Continue to work on new games: We have a few new games in the pipeline, but realistically I don’t think we’ll be ready to publish any in 2022.

Run games online: We will try something new and run an occasional game online. We’ll promote this using our Facebook page.

Games the host can play: Change the focus of our two online games and promote them as games the host can play. As they don’t include items or money or the complicated rules that require an independent host, they are ideal if you want to host and also play in a game. (Steve ran Death in Venice this way back in 2020.)

Summary

Although 2021 was bad, we weathered the pandemic and released a new game. Sales are slowly recovering and as normality returns, hopefully we will return to playing our games in person.

Our games by year…

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Following on from our birthday post last month, I thought it would be interesting to show when we published each game. I’ve excluded translations to keep things simple…

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

2006

2007

2009

2010

2011

2012

2013

2014

2015

2018

2019

  • Christmas Lies (the festive version of Hollywood Lies) by Steve Hatherley

2020

2021

2022

2023

One of the things that amazes me is how my memory has changed everything. I think of A Speakeasy Murder as one of our newer games, but it’s now over seven years old! And was it really in 2009 when we published The Karma Club?