How long do murder mystery games take to play?
Overall, we suggest allowing about 3.5 hours for a freeform murder mystery party. At least, that’s for the game.
A typical Freeform Games murder mystery timetable
Here’s what our game timetables typically look like:
| Time | Your time | What’s going on |
| 7 p.m. | Guests arrive and settle in. | |
| 7:30 p.m. | The host starts the game with a welcome announcement. | |
| 7:30 to 10 p.m. | The game itself, usually broken into sections with timed events and announcements to break the game up. | |
| 10 p.m. | The mystery finishes, with everyone pointing at who they think is the murderer and the detective reading out the solution. Then everyone swaps stories and finds out what they were really up to. | |
| 10:30 p.m. | The evening finishes – although this can carry on if your guests are still talking. (We find that players can be talking about a game hours after it has ended.) |
(You can play the game at any time you want, of course. You don’t have to start at 7 pm. The timetable we give you has a blank column so you can add your own timings – a bit like the table above.)
Does the timetable allow for food?
No, the timetable doesn’t allow for food.
If you serve a meal as a sit-down event, you will need to add that time into your evening.
When we serve food, we usually serve finger food, as that allows guests to continue mingling and scheming while they eat.
Does the number of players affect the timetable?
Yes, it can.
Larger games (20+ players) may take a little longer to play, while smaller games (fewer than 8 players) may run a little quicker.
I only have two hours – can I shorten the game?
Perhaps.
If you only have a limited time (perhaps you are running it for work, or you can only book a room for a limited time), then you can run a freeform murder mystery quicker by:
- Sending out characters in advance
- Telling everyone you will be starting promptly
- Start promptly – and compress the times to suit your timeline
- Ending promptly – and don’t allow your players to swap stories after. (Or if they are swapping stories, they are doing it on their time.)
What if I only have 60 minutes?
In that case, we suggest you look at The Show Must Go On, an introductory freeform murder mystery designed to be played in no more than 60 minutes.
(Trying to compress one of our regular freeform murder mysteries into 60 minutes will probably result in disappointment.)