"Print-and-play" covers everything from a two-page PDF to a full evening's production, and listings don't always make it obvious which you're buying. Here's what's actually inside one of our kits — and, if you're comparing kits before you choose, what each piece is for and why its absence matters.

The printable kit

Instant download, print-ready A4 PDFs, about 7 MB in total:

  • The host guide — one page of prep, and a full run sheet for the night. The run sheet has a column for each way of playing: with the on-screen Show, or entirely from print. If a kit can't tell you what happens at each point of the night in one glance, the host ends up improvising the structure.
  • A sealed solution sheet — for your eyes only, and only if you want it.
  • Eight character booklets, one per guest, each with an original portrait, private secrets, a motive, a line on every other character, and something to actively do in every act so nobody sits quiet. The booklet is the game — a character sheet that's just a name and a costume note leaves your guests with nothing to play.
  • Clue cards as in-world props — a coroner's note, a doctor's case, a newspaper clipping, the victim's own ledger. Props read differently at a table than paragraphs of text: they get passed around, held up to the light, argued over.
  • Two extra insert cards for six-player games, so the case still solves when fewer guests show up. This is the piece most kits skip — check for it if your headcount ever wobbles.
  • Fold-over place cards with portraits, and invitations — one per character, with a costume note.
  • The licence and terms, in plain English.

The Show

This is the part nobody else does. Alongside the printables, every kit includes The Show — a cinematic companion that runs on your laptop, through your TV, and hosts the night for you: opening titles that roll like a film, an intro film where the body is found, the Inspector arriving on screen with new evidence, a reveal sting for the final accusation, on-screen countdown timers for each act, and a full original score with different music for every act.

It opens in an ordinary browser tab from an access code — no app, no account, nothing to install. It streams on the night, so it wants decent wifi in the room. And it's optional: the printed host guide carries the Inspector's speeches word for word, so the mystery plays in full without a screen at all.

What you need — and don't

For the printables: a printer, A4 paper, and anything that opens a PDF. Nothing to install, no fonts, no account. For The Show: an ordinary web browser on a Windows PC or a Mac, and an HDMI cable or the ability to cast a tab to your TV. It's not built for phones or tablets, and won't run on a games console or a smart-TV browser.

Three questions to ask of any kit

  • Does it solve at your real headcount? Look for how it handles six, seven or eight — the honest answer involves insert cards or adaptive casting, not "leave a character out".
  • Is it genuinely solvable? The mark of a fair mystery is that every clue either implicates or exonerates. If the reveal could have gone three ways, the deduction was decoration.
  • Does the host get to play? If the kit needs a narrator, one of your friends isn't coming to the party.