An office Christmas party murder mystery, ready to print
Murder at Holly Hall: a Christmas Eve whodunit for 8 to 16 colleagues. No acting needed, fits around dinner, and we can put your company and everyone's names on it.
The party game that gets the whole office talking
Ambrose Holloway, founder of a much-loved toy shop chain, has been poisoned at his own Christmas Eve dinner, and the snow has cut off the house. Your colleagues are the suspects: the glamorous wife, the son with debts, the furious daughter, the finance director, the doctor, the housekeeper, the singer and the colonel, plus up to 8 more. One of them did it.
What is in the download (63 pages, A4 and US Letter)
- Host guide: planning checklist, casting sheet, running order, house rules and read-aloud scripts.
- 16 character booklets: two pages each, with costume ideas, a secret and lines for each round.
- 12 clue cards revealed over three rounds, and a full solution for the host with the true timeline.
- 16 invitations with fillable date, time and place, 16 name badges and accusation slips.
Personalised for your team (£25)Standard game (£8.99)
Personalised for your team
At checkout, add your event name, date, time and venue, and who plays whom (or send the names later). We put the company on the cover and every invitation, and each person's name on their invitation, character booklet, the casting sheet and their name badge. It arrives in your Etsy messages within 24 hours of us having the names, and you get the standard game straight away so the host can start reading.
How to run it at work
- Two weeks before: cast the characters and send each person their invitation and costume idea.
- On the day: hand out the booklets; everyone reads page one quietly.
- Three rounds of clues, one per course (or one per drink), with mingling in between.
- Accusations, then the reveal. Prizes for best detective, best costume and best liar.
Planning the rest of the party? See 15 office Christmas party games that work at work.
Questions
How many players does it need?
8 to 16. The 8 core characters must be played; add the optional characters, in the order on the casting sheet, for 9 to 16 guests. The optional characters are never the murderer, so the puzzle works with any number.
Does anyone need to act?
No. Each guest gets a two-page booklet: who they are, their secret, what to say in each round and what they know about the others. Reading it out is enough.
How long does it take?
Two to three hours, in three rounds that fit around a three-course dinner or a buffet. You can also run it in an hour and a half over drinks.
Is it suitable for work?
Yes. It is a 1940s-style country-house mystery: no gore, nothing rude, no real people or brands, and every character can be played by anyone.
What does the personalised version add?
Your event name on the cover and every invitation, each guest's name on their invitation, booklet, the casting sheet and their name badge, and the date, time and venue filled in. Tell us at checkout; it arrives within 24 hours of us having the names. You get the standard game straight away.
Can we solve it, or is it guesswork?
It is a fair puzzle: every fact needed is in the clue cards and the booklets, and the solution walks through how to prove who did it. We checked the logic so there is exactly one answer.
All original writing; fictional characters. Written with AI tools (Claude) and checked by us, including a logic check of the solution. The table background in the photos is AI-generated (Midjourney); every printable page shown is the real file.