Junkyard Creations

The Beginning

This is a casual game for at least three people, but preferably five or six. You’re going to construct the events leading up to a pre-established crime together; working through and creating all the twists and turns of a good murder mystery or whodunnit.

One of you needs to be the inspector; you ask the questions and work through the crime. The rest of the players are potential suspects.

To begin with, decide together on the crime that was committed, with just the bare minimum of facts. Generally this crime will be something stolen or someone dead.
For example, Cornelius Smith was found dead in his bath-tub, killed by a blow to the head with a blunt instrument, at his country manor.

Now everyone other than the inspector takes on the role of someone who could be the perpetrator, i.e. was in the vicinity of the crime.
Mister Smith’s butler, his wife, his daughter, an old friend staying at the mansion while in town, and the maid.

Each of the suspects writes down who they think the criminal is, and places the name face down in front of them, perhaps hidden under a book or something. Note that at this point you don’t actually have any facts on which to make this decision. You may not guess yourself as the criminal.

The inspector makes up and writes down three facts, representing what he ‘uncovered during his investigations’, and places these face down under three mugs.
- Whoever killed Cornelius was wearing greasy glove; they left greasy marks on the door handle, but no fingerprints.
- Monsieur Smith recently changed his will, leaving nothing to his wife and everything to his daughter.
- The butler and daughter were having a secret relationship

The Middle

When you’re all ready, the inspector begins asking questions to the suspects, to whoever they want and in whatever order they want. Questions can establish what the suspect was doing prior to and during the crime, their relationship to the victim, how they reacted to the crime; anything. The suspects make up their answers on the spot, and the answer can be anything within reason.

The inspector should take notes on a piece of paper; a good system is to have different boxes for each suspect and write relevant info in each box, and also have a big line at the bottom of the page, where you can make a time line of events. Any conflicting statements, (which are inevitable, since the players are making it up as they go!), mean that one of the statements is invalid. At any time, even at the very start or very end, the inspector may reveal one or more of the facts.

The End

Determine how long you want the game to go for. When the time is up, the inspector has to try and make sense of the information uncovered during the questioning to determine the criminal(s), the motive, and the method. Some things to bear in mind:
- anything a suspect says is true, unless it is in conflict with one or more other statements, in which case only one is true.
- the three facts must hold true if they are revealed. If the inspector does not reveal one or more facts, they don’t have to fit into the conclusion.
- the inspector only has to listen to things the suspect says in response to questions; you can cut an answer short, demand yes-or-no questions, or ignore freely volunteered information.

Remember that no-one actually knows who committed the crime, or how, until the conclusion is announced. Not even the criminal (!). It is up to the suspects to weave the story as they see fit, trying to influence it so that their original guess of criminal becomes correct, and to keep themselves out of the fire.

The person who gets declared as the criminal by the Inspector loses. Anyone who guessed that person wins! Yeah, there can be multiple winners. Ain’t that nice? And yeah, the inspector can’t win.

If you have the stamina, you can play again, with last round’s loser becoming the inspector. The winners of each round gain one point, and when you’re done the person with the most points is the over-all winner. If everyone agrees the inspector’s criminal-conclusion is based on spite for losing rather than the information presented, the inspector has to be inspector again for the next round. So watch it.

Example of play:
Inspector: Monsieur Pluck [the butler], did you hear anything the night of murder?
Pluck: No, nothing.
Inspector: Madame Smith?[the wife] Mademoiselle Smith?[the daughter]
Mrs Smith: Yes, I heard my husband cry out at around 11:00 pm from his office.
Miss Smith: I heard the same.
Inspector: Monsieur Gold [the guest], where were you that night?
Gold: The guest house.
Inspector: Which is located where?
Gold: Near the front gate of the property.
Inspector: Did you hear anyone leaving or entering?
Gold: Yes, I heard a car drive out at about 10:30.
Inspector: When did you hear about the murder?
Gold: Susan [the maid] came running out and told me at about 11:05. I ran straight to the manor.
Inspector: And everyone was there?
Gold: No, Mr Pluck did not arrive until about half past eleven.
Inspector: Is that so? Mr Pluck, where were you between half past ten and half past eleven?
Pluck: I drove out to the chinese take-away place in the village. I didn’t tell anyone because I’m not supposed to leave the grounds when I’m on duty.

In this example, the butler would seem to have an alibi; he wasn’t even on the property when the murder was committed. But the chinese take-aways would certainly cause greasy gloves... And perhaps the butler, knowing of the will, sought to knock off Mr Smith so that Miss Smith, Pluck’s secret sweet-heart, would become very, very rich.

Or maybe that’s all nonsense. After all, Gold didn’t report hearing anyone re-enter before he left the guest house at 11:05. And why was the cry heard from the office when the body was found in the bathroom? Evidently some further questioning is needed.