This review has NO SPOILERS whatsoever. As I read the reviews for this game, I kept coming across reviewers that stated that there are two "extra" characters that don't matter/play a lesser part in the story. This couldn't be further from the truth. All eight characters are essential to the story and aid in casting doubt and adding substantial clues to the story. They all get clues that they get to reveal, and they all get the same gear as everyone else. (Reading some of those reviews made me mad, because essentially I knew 2 characters were for sure not the murderer, and there were no spoiler warnings, so be careful reading the reviews here.) We just played the game this past weekend and you absolutely needed 8 people to play all of the 8 characters. Here are my suggestions (for first-timers with this specific murder-mystery set-up). Some of the recipes that they give you in the book are a little... eccentric? The baked ziti, which is supposed to be the main dish, had kind of a goofy recipe for the red sauce, if you think that you won't like it, you are probably right, just google a different recipe for baked ziti. Also, you don't even have to serve anything in the recipe book, because it isn't referenced (at all) during the game. (The only food they talk about isn't even a recipe in the book...) So make whatever you want. OR (what we will do next time) invite your guests to each bring their own version of each of the recipes in the book and have a pot-luck. I will say: The Mocha Rum Cake with Ricotta Cream was amazing. And I made it with gluten-free flour for a guest who had dietary restrictions and it still turned out amazing! It tasted like a cannoli cake. I am sure with wheat-flour it would taste even better. We invited 8 guests to play the 8 characters, and like I mentioned above, they each had an equal part to play. My husband and I, who were hosting the party, created our own characters that brought our group to 10 total. My husband and I made up our own characters because, 1) if someone shouldn't come at the last minute, we could substitute in for them 2) we wanted to be sure that we could help if any of our guests didn't understand the game mechanics and had a question they wanted answered without feeling like they were going to reveal too much information or harm their chances of winning 3) we wanted to be able to serve and clear the dinner without missing any lines or clue reveals that would hinder the flow of the game The game has an audio CD that has four tracks that you play in between the three rounds where a person named "Antonio Telastori" narrates what is going on and fills in some of the blanks. So it goes like this: Play Track 1 on CD: Introduction to the story by Telastori Introduce Characters Begin Round 1 Dialogue Begin Round 1 Questioning Play Track 2 on CD: Continued Story by Telastori Begin Round 2 Dialogue Begin Round 2 Questioning Play Track 3 on CD: Continued Story by Telastori Begin Round 3 Dialogue Begin Round 3 Questioning Final Statements made by each character Accusations Play Track 4 on CD: Telastori reveals who is the real murderer. So rather than play the CD, my husband decided to dress up as Antonio Telastori and typed up everything that Telastori says in the CD on tracks 1-3 and read it as Antonio Telastori from a wingback chair in front of the fireplace. He didn't want to know who the murderer was so he chose to wait to play the final track of the CD at our party rather than perform it for our guests. I made up a character named "Colleen DiCoppza" who was a new waitress/bus-girl who was (totally obviously) an undercover cop. I basically waited the table and then got to "arrest" the murderer at the end of the night. Our guests got to be the real stars of the show. Before the party, let your guests know which characters they are, and what the costume suggestions are. In lieu of the invitations, we just invited everyone on a Facebook event and private messaged everyone their character's name and their costume suggestion. I put a list of all of the characters and their background description on the wall of the group so that everyone could see. But that's all they really need to know before they get to the party. At the party we had each table setting include their CHARACTER BOOKLET (this contains all of the dialogue and questioning), their CLUES (some of the characters will have different clues that their character booklet prompts them to reveal during different parts of the game. Instruct your characters to keep the clues face down, until they are instructed to reveal them (or you could put them in sealed, labled envelopes - what we will do next time...), and their NAME TAGS. All of these items came with the game, we also included (at our own behest): NAME TENTS, SPIRAL MEMO BOOKS, PENS, MAGNIFYING GLASSES, BALLOT FOR BEST DRESSED CHARACTER, and of course a plate, napkin, fork, knife, spoon, water glass, and wine glass. We did have a prize for "Best Dressed to Kill" and a separate prize for whomever solved the case. (We explained to our guests at the beginning that if more than one person guessed the murderer correctly, that we had already picked a number between 1-10 and that whoever got closest would win the prize, which ended up being what happened.) Next time I think I will include a prize for whoever is the actual murderer since they have to be so sneaky the entire night and have no shot at winning the other prize of correctly guessing the murderer. The murderer will learn that they are the murderer on the first pages of their character booklet. Unfortunately for our murderer, they happened to be a terrible liar and started sweating profusely immediately, haha. Luckily no one really noticed, but as a host or hostess I would recommend that there are several pitchers of water available to your guests to refill their glasses as they play because it is easy to get caught up in the game and not realize someone is dying of thirst and an empty glass.... ...oops. As the host and hostess, we played the game not knowing who the murderer was and so we each got to cast an accusation at the end, and I was glad we did it that way, because I don't know if I would have accidentally revealed to much knowing who it was the whole time. I drank a lot of wine as the game went on. The instructions say that the game will take about 3 hours, it could really swing one way or the other depending how your night goes. We pulled it off in about 2.5, but we talked for ages afterwards, so it really rounded out to being longer than expected. Be sure to set up your dinner table (where your game will be played) so that everyone can see everyone else and no one has their back turned, because you don't want to miss out on any little clue. Hopefully that helps answer a lot of questions about how this game goes, I know it can be overwhelming at first, but the little character booklets really keep your guests moving through the game.
