We’ve recently updated Happy Birthday R.J. to our latest format.
Happy Birthday R.J. was originally published in 2003. It was our fifth game and was written by Lisa Butler (who later wrote Snow Business and Casino Fatale). Next year it celebrates its 20th birthday!
Taking place on SouthSpoon Ranch in 1980s Texas, Happy Birthday R.J. is full of glamorous oil people. It uses lots of tropes (and similar names) from the Dynasty and Dallas tv shows and is for 11 to 15 guests, plus one host.
The game is a little different from many of our murder mysteries—there are two murders, and we don’t know who the murderer is for one of them. The host will decide the identity of the second murderer during the party, and it could be any of the other guests!
The changes we’ve made include:
- Each character now has an eight-page character booklet (previously they were on two pages).
- Rewritten the instructions to be clearer and in line with our current format.
- Given images to all the items (although this game doesn’t have many).
- Added a solution—which was tricky given we don’t know who the murderer is.
- Increased the value of the money to better reflect the wealth of the attendees.
- Given it a light edit and tidied up some of the language.
So if you’ve purchased Happy Birthday R.J., you can download it again using the same login details as before.
Let us know what you think!