Murder Mystery and Escape Room Games to Play at Home

Find the right mystery for your table

A good mystery game night depends on a few facts the box does not always make clear: how many people can really play, how long the case takes, how hard it is, whether you can play it again and what you will find inside. Escape Game Box gathers those facts and compares the games that matter, so you can pick a case that fits your group before the evening starts.

We cover games you play at home, not escape room venues. That includes boxed murder mysteries and cold case files, escape rooms in a box or a deck of cards, detective board games and case books, mystery puzzles, and murder mystery parties where every guest plays a character.

This season

November and December are the busiest months for mystery games at home. Four pages cover the holidays:

• Christmas murder mystery games: holiday kits sorted by guest count, playing time and age rating, from a 20-guest office party to a family Clue, with a three-week hosting plan.
• Christmas escape room at home: a boxed game for one evening, a daily advent calendar or a room you build from gift tags and ornaments.
• Best escape room advent calendars: one puzzle a day from December 1 to Christmas Eve, compared by difficulty and group.
• Best murder mystery party games: party kits for holiday gatherings of any size, and how to host a murder mystery party with an hour-by-hour plan.

Five ways in

• Murder Mystery Games: boxed cases and cold case files solved around a table, from quick one-hour cases to stories that run over several evenings. Start with how murder mystery games work, then compare the best cold case games.
• Escape Rooms at Home: escape room games, card-based series such as EXIT and Unlock!, and advent calendars with a puzzle behind every door. Learn how an escape room in a box works and the types of escape room puzzles, pick from the best escape room games, then read our escape room tips or build a DIY escape room.
• Detective & Deduction Games: case books, detective board games, mystery card games and murder mystery jigsaw puzzles. See the best detective board games, how to think like a detective and which Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective box to start with.
• Host a Murder Mystery Party: party kits, characters and roles, costumes, the murder mystery party script and an hour-by-hour plan for the night.
• Mystery Games by Group: picks for a date night, for families with teens and for a crowd.

How we compare games

Every comparison uses the same checkable criteria: player count, playing time, difficulty, age rating, replay value, what comes in the box and the help available when you get stuck. Our information comes from publishers’ pages and rulebooks, official hint systems and published player feedback, and every figure we quote links to its source.

Each page shows its evidence label. Most of our pages are researched, not played: we say so plainly, and we never claim to have tested a game we did not play. Read how we choose games for the details.

Where to start

To see everything at once, browse all five topics or the full list of guides. If you have never played a mystery game, read how murder mystery games work. It explains the main formats and what an evening with each one looks like. If you are deciding between a quiet case for a few friends and a party with costumes, our guide to murder mystery games versus parties will settle it.

Ready to pick? Compare the best murder mystery board games or the best cold case games.

Independent and reader-funded

Escape Game Box is an independent site run by a small editorial team. We earn a commission on some purchases made through our links, mostly on Amazon.com. Commissions never decide which games we pick or the order we rank them in. See our affiliate disclosure and our editorial policy.