Murder Mystery: A Melancholic Mood of Board Game

Jointly reported by:
Khoo Xin Yi Jr3Z(6)
Essien Sea Yu Xiang Sr3ScC

     On the 8^th of June, Kuen Cheng Board Game Society held a Murder Mystery event (《剧本杀》in Chinese) with the help of all their Committee Members. All students of Kuen Cheng High School were allowed to participate and have fun solving the mysteries. This article is based on the group joined by the reporters, titled 《你好》(translating to “Hello there”), though the content of other groups may vary.

Cover of《你好》

    Before the event, approximately 30 students participated in the event. They were divided into 5 groups and each group had their own murder mystery to uncover. Participants used Messenger, a messaging platform, in order to communicate with each other beforehand and choose roles by ranking their favourites. The host of each group sent in rules and operating procedures too, making sure that everyone understood how the game works.

    At 2pm, participants joined the breakout rooms in the Zoom video platform according to their pre-designated groups as the event started. The host proceeded to send background stories to each player according to their role, each consisting of their self-tracked motives and character relations. After reading their backstories, the players started to introduce themselves. After the introductions, the host began the story.

    Then, players were allowed to choose clues regarding other players or even themselves. After the host private messages, the clues, players then discuss and question each other based on the clues given. During the first questioning period, players are asked to show everyone all the clues they received. Players are asked to use this time to complete their tasks. After 40 minutes, the host proceeded with the storyline.

    During the cutscenes involving the storyline between each questioning period, certain players got to voice-over their own characters to add more realism and involvement into the game based on the scripts given. A murder mystery is introduced after the first act, allowing players to gain more clues and this time, they were allowed to hide one of the clues they obtained. This process repeated multiple times (depending on each script). The murderer was then revealed and all players proceeded to the ending scenes where they got to voice-over their characters once again.

    The specific script, “Hello There”, was a particularly sad one, where none of the characters had a happy ending. It revolves around Alzheimer’s disease, an illness that causes the victim to lose their memories, and at times even resulting in death as evident in the script. The host then explained certain scenes in the plot and answered the remaining questions from players.

    Originally, it was supposed to end at 5pm, the event ended about one hour late. Even so, the storyline of the plot was touching and worthwhile.