Halloween Night

Over on my Great Murder Mystery Games site, I’ve written a review of Halloween Night, an interactive murder mystery for 8-24 people (and a host) aged 18+ and published by Murder and Adventure Games in the UK. I’m not sure who the author is, as they are uncredited.

The game is set in 1892 Transylvania, at the castle of Count and Countess von Falcate. There, a tour party gathers for a social evening. Unfortunately, tragedy has struck lately – three local villagers have been savagely attacked and murdered. But who did it?

You can read my full review here.

Thinly-disguised larps

Halloween Night occupies the same sort of space as our Freeform Games’ murder mystery games – they’re thinly-disguised larps.

However, although neither company uses the term “larp” when describing the game, I think Halloween Night assumes a greater level of responsibility on the GM than we do. We provide a lot of help to hosts because we understand that hosting a larp is a significant step.

Halloween Night, unfortunately, expects more from a host (as I explain in my review).

And although Halloween Night doesn’t say who is behind it, I think one of the people involved is Richard ‘Doc’ Williams (who you can see in some of the videos on their YouTube channel). He used to run freeform-type murder mystery games at RPG conventions back in the late 80s/early 90s.  I may even have played one of them – I’m not sure.

Failed crowdfunding

Interestingly, I’ve just found this failed 2024 crowdfunding page for it.  Curiously, although it failed, they haven’t posted an update announcing the final game to potential backers. Perhaps you’re not allowed to do that.

(I’m not sure they got their marketing right – I would have been a key target for this, yet I didn’t hear about it until August 2025.)

Will I run it?

Yes, probably.

I’d like to run it to see how it works and how it compares to both our murder mystery games and also other modern freeforms. But I’m not sure when or where.