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For example, some may seek out interactive experiences and pretend that they are real, to increase the fear.Īpart from being thrilling, such scary play may help people deal with the real world. People use various emotional strategies to regulate the fear-factor of an experience and meet that sweet spot, a study by researchers at Aarhus University in Denmark showed. For some, reading a crime story may be enough to create a realistic scenario in their minds, while others may need the stimulation of a physically immersive setting: 'There's this sweet spot of fear, where you want to toe the line between reality and fiction, where it seems to be the most fun'. But Scrivner says that people simply choose the kind of scary play that is right for them, where the fear feels exciting, but not upsetting. On the surface, curling up with an Agatha Christie novel may seem to have little in common with screaming one's lungs out in a haunted mansion. Watching horror movies, visiting haunted house attractions, playing murder mystery games, or reading a crime novel, are all forms of such 'scary play', says Scrivner. One solution can be to engage with fake threats in a safe setting, and practice emotional coping strategies. 'And so we don't get a lot of practice with dealing with those feelings and seeing that we really can come out on the other side of this.' You don't want to experience something anxiety-inducing in real life, because it has real consequences,' he says. 'In real life, we avoid situations that are anxiety-inducing or fearful for good reason. He calls such games 'scary play', and likens them to play-fighting among animals, which prepares them for real-life fighting, but also hunting or stalking prey.

The response could be behavioural, or even just emotional, in terms of handling the fear. 'The basic idea is that we are using them as a way to simulate threatening scenarios, and then play around with how we would respond to that,' Coltan Scrivner, a behavioural scientist and researcher at the University of Chicago, says of games that involve fake danger or violence.

They allow us to learn and practice important mental and emotional skills, and can even teach us not to overlook important evidence. Instead, murder games follow a surprisingly intricate set of psychological rules.

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But researchers say that is not the full story. One simple explanation might be curiosity. The enduring popularity of these games presents a mystery of its own: what motivates ordinary, law-abiding people to spend an evening investigating fake bloodshed, and hunting pretend murderers? These hallmarks are still called upon today, as evidenced by the 2019 film Knives Out. They popularised the classic tropes of that literary genre, such as a country house or other mysterious and secluded location, a cast of glamorous but suspect characters, and an often amateur sleuth. Murder-inspired board games, card games, interactive books and party games have been around at least since the so-called golden age of British crime fiction in the 1920s and 1930s, which saw the rise of legendary authors such as Agatha Christie, GK Chesterton and Dorothy L Sayers. You're in this sort of reality where we're very casually solving the death of a human being.' 'If it was a real-life situation, and someone's been murdered, that's not a fun subject. After all, real-life violent crime is every person's worst nightmare. Emmerson and his team stage up to a hundred of these interactive shows each year, at private dinner parties, in hotels, and, in the case of the mail-train mystery, titled Murder on the Underground, at the Postal Museum in London.Įmmerson says people like the puzzle aspect of it, and the improvised exchanges with the actors: 'It's the reputation that murder mysteries have built up these days, as being a fun thing to go to.' But he also acknowledges that it is, in some ways, a surprising phenomenon.

A cast of actors plays the suspects, and the participants solve the case. The case of the murdered post manager is one of about 20 scenarios scripted by Sam Emmerson, creative director of Moonstone Murder Mysteries in London, a company that creates and runs immersive mysteries. All of them have a motive – but who is the murderer? There are four suspects: Archie, the track engineer. Suddenly, one of the conductors makes a horrific discovery: the sorting office manager is lying dead on the ground, hit from behind with a crowbar. In a secret tunnel beneath the streets of 1930s London, screeching mail trains deliver precious parcels to the Royal Household.

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