Murder Mystery....

With this in mind, I have a different perspective on the many exotic builds on full or partial sims that are simply underpopulated. Because of "camera clipping," castles and dungeons with small, claustrophobic spaces may be rough on audiences. More open space settings, like whole villages, might be more suitable.

For example, the two sims that Minerva runs on have castles, market towns, fishing villages and marsh lands. Audiences could settle at various points around the area designated as the setting for "act one", then shift to the setting for "act two." As the area is relatively open, viewing via the flying camera controls would be easier than if inside a twisty-turny space with confined sight lines.

With the assistance of the owner, access could be limited to those in an audience group to which audience members could be admitted for the period just before, during and after the performance. The audience group could be free or require an admission payment.

Before the performance, the group could be used to communicate to the audience "out of character" and for the audience to discuss the performance afterwards. Then, the temporary audience members could be dropped from the group until the "box office" opens for the next performance.

That is a really great idea, Frank! I know there are a lot of really spectacular builds out there that a lot of people probably have never heard of. I'm still infatuated with the recently opened "Lost Gardens of Apollo". There are a lot of really nice settings there.

"On Location" performances have a great feel to them, as well as eventually having a place for more "Staged" productions like a typical theatre. Audiences could sit in a normal auditorium and watch the performance through "mouselook" or however they want, and it would have a real authentic theatre feel.

That is what is so great, for each performance you can really personalize it to the production. Great ideas, Frank!

If anyone else is interested in joining up with the planning commitee for this pretty exciting new project, just IM me in-game or join up with the "Horizon Theatre" group! Looking forward to a creative and exciting new year!

My avatar is able to be active during the week, mid-day Eastern US time, so I hope that the Horizon Theater will have some "matinee" activities in addition to the busier hours during US evening time.

I hosted a murder mystery event about 6 months ago... Ive actually had 3 of them. I'm thinking of another one around the beginning of January, right after the holidays.

Look in events and check it out, you can give me some advise on how to make them better.

Looking forward to seeing you all, and happy sleuthing!

Neualtenburg is an atmospheric but usually unpopulated sim that might make an interesting setting for a murder mystery set in a Bavarian village with cathedral and half-timbered old buildings and a modern suburb.

That sounds like a good idea. I think it would be fun to start with something like that, something interactive. I'm hoping that now that the holidays are over people will be more free to put something like this together. I tried sending out an IM to our group members to see when everyone would be available for a meeting, but didn't get any responses (or they got lost somehow). I think next would would be a good time to start the planning process and see how we can go about putting something together!

Taltos, I think that IM's only go to group members actually online at the time of transmission; I don't think they are stored for later transmittal to those offline.

Vote proposals, however, seem to be stored and delivered as soon as each group member logs in. Many groups in which I participate use that tool to deliver group "news" to all members. Not its intended purpose, but many inventions are put to better use than their inventors original idea.

Just back from a week away... and some gr8 event ideas here. I went to my first murder mystery dinner a few months back and had lots more fun than I expected too (I was the evil murderer which might have helped!)

I've joined Taltos group in world, looking forward to a meeting to set up the first event.

I love the idea, my g/f and I would be more than happy to attend. Sounds like a hoot.

I just found this thread. What a great idea! In RL I've done both Murder Mysteries and plays and would love to do it SL.
Needless to say, the success of the event lies in the planning which will be hugh. I'd be glad to help. IM me in world.
I think the "box office" idea is excellant.
If not, you can count on me attending the event. Let's not let this idea pass by. I think it would be a blast and something new and exciting for SL.

Hi guys,

I wanted to direct you towards the thread I started about the opera house build I am trying to start up -- i love the murder mystery idea and think the opera house space could be really neat and atmospheric. Join up with my group "Dell'Aria Opera House" in world if you are interested. Yay!

-Operetta

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I hosted and participated in a murder mystery dinner on my land here in SL last year and it worked out really well. I've great interest in hosting or participating in another. I also wouldn't mind just watching the drama unfold..though it works out better for players if those people are unseen so it's easier to immerse oneself in a role. Perhaps seat them upstairs.

We sat at the dinner table..with mock courses and a french maid role that served us. The maid was also the person that delivered the clues to be admitted by each player and pushed us through the 4 parts of the game to conclusion. There were breaks as clues were passed out and some players used this opportunity to wander and act out roles indepth. One person RPed their character was incensed and went outside to fume. A couple went into the castle hall to whisper. I excused myself to go upstairs and happened to wander by the couple that was just outside of the main group's chat distance..and I heard clues that they did not otherwise hear. If you have players wandering the game site it makes it more fun to roleplay stumbling onto hints like this for relating to others in the gameplay..."I happened to pass by a hedge and I thought I heard voices on the otherside relating..." this allows for some interaction when those players roleplay their reactions to being heard. Anyways..just some enhanced gameplay. It would also be fun to leave out props to give clues such as newspaper clippings on a table...blood drops around a corner...a radio that when touched plays a wav file like a newscast of someone's arrest or mysterious murder. Line of sight would have been put into play but we ran out of prims to build props and time to build them but there was a murder that took place in one bedroom of the castle. The killer was on top of a roof from across the garden..that could have been seen clearly from the bedroom if one had only walked in there to look for clues...the natural progression would have been to walk to the rooftop across the way and start examining things there.

We used a castle build of mine. It was set in 40's hollywood. I remember most of the time spent on this was by one person who typed typed typed the RL game into SL. Huge effort and...as an offbeat sort of retail offering I would love to buy game kits inworld. If someone could package the props, the clues, the story, plot..characters...blah blah..I think it could make for much better event listings. I'd love to see games like this replace a few -ingo type events.

Another bit of advice. Our first game lasted about 4 hours...close that anyways and in that last hour we were all beginning to get a little tired. Exciting still but very long. The magic number seems to be a good solid 3 hour game.

We had four rounds however and 8 players if I remember right. During the game we had to stop and find an emergency player because one person had to leave. That's to be accounted for and perhaps have backup players signed up, or take one of the audience watching above into the game.

Just some recap of our game. I hope this makes it smoother for others. : )

Hopefully if I remember I'll join that group. I -really really- want to play again. That was a brilliant 3 hours spent.

..and btw..because I'm an avid fan..I willing offer up any of my builds to be used as a stage.

I've been chewing on this idea for a bit...I cannot help my thoughts turning to business. I'm so tempted to custom build a dodgy old space in the back of the new art deco theatre that I'm building and start a shop that hosts selling only murder mystery related game products. I'd like to build props since building is my life...I can see a small browsing area for people to market their new games.

...props...complete games...wha else could be included?. If there were this sort of shop open before when we were planning our first game it would have been really helpful. I could have a board listing groups that play to help bring awareness to open membership games. People could advertise in one spot that they are willing to hire themselves out to host/organise these games inworld as well. That would have been nice for us when we played as the person that typed in the game was not allowed to play the game since she knew the outcome. She was disappointed to not be able to play.

I'm willing to build this and open up the shop to like vendors to create a one stop murder mystery store. I am just starting the Sanctum Sanctorum sim remodel to deco 40's inspired builds. When done it should be a small mockup of a mainstreet. I'd doing all the textures from scratch so it's taking me a bit of time. I figure a month or two to really have it looking decent. I'd like to give this notice ahead of time for others that build props for games like these. If no one in here writes original murder mysteries, I wonder how easy it would be to contact a company that writes them outside of SL and bring that product inworld through licensing.

You know wha would be fun...I'm willing to host and fund the prizes for a first annual Murder Mystery Writing Contest. We could have 4 best scripted games played inworld over the course of a month. One per weekend...with winners being announced by popular vote.

If anyone takes interest in these ideas..please let me know. Either way I'll build the shop because I have interest in making it easier to play these games inworld. As I mentioned before..the biggest time spent was one person having to type in manually from a book of games...it would have been so much easier if the games were available inworld....we probably also would have played them on a more regular basis.

It would also be nice if someone scripted for opensource or purchase an object that could distribute the notecards at each turn to the players listed in a notecard. Basically have a prim act as the thing that moves the game along isntead of having one person have to manually IM and drop each little thing.

...Ooo another idea....how about a server that can relay temp rez objects at certain SL gametimes. These would be the props needed for gameplay. It could then derez them when done in that round.

That sounds like a lot of fun Baron, and it sounds like you've struck on a business idea that noone else has cornered yet. I hope it's successful. It does sound like a lot of work though but I wish you well.

Are you still in touch with the people who put together the notecards and materials for the game you took part in? I hate to be so mercenary but, if we could get hold of a ready-made game it would make it much more likely that this project will get off the ground.

Do you have any other 'lessons learned' that we could apply to this idea? You've already given us a useful pointer on timings - three hours max! Are there any other hints and tips you'd like to share?

Anything new happen with this? I haven't heard anything lately.

Hey guys, there are some great ideas out there for this performance type.

Of course, as it happens EVERY time I get involved with something I WANT to do, work calls me out for stuff I DON'T want to do. =( I probably won't have time for awhile to invest into anything SL for awhile, but would still love to see this thing take off.

I'm more than happy to help out when I can, as I'm full of ideas, but no way of seeing them through (which is very frustrating for a virgo, believe me!). I'd still love to help in whatever capacity I can.

Baron, your ideas are great, and mass producing kits is a great idea. Perhaps even the main event would be a full fledged production, and the buyable kits could be 'scaled' down versions that people could plan with friends to do in 30 minutes or so. Something on a smaller scale. That way you wouldn't be selling your business out from underneath you. =)

I'm still planning on doing it. I'm just in the middle of a sim remodel so I'm bogged down with other projects. It's slow going because it's just me. I do still have it on my list and with each project finished it does slowly move up in priority. I don't however, see it finished soon unfortunately.

Perhaps after I finish the remodel and I finally sit down to design the shop, I'll contact you Taltos and brainstorm a bit. : )

I would be interested n participating in as an attendee and helping develop this and if we need space we also have space available at Imaginicity to host. Depending on time constraints we might be able to rope Dominus in too.