Fairhaven’s Fallen Flower: Author’s Journey

Near the end of June in 2023, Cryptid Escapes had been busy. Unlike our normal “busy” - with groups and planning - this kind of “busy” was new. We had just finished working on our first commissioned project, building a Minecraft-themed game for a local robotics club. In addition to that, we were beginning a new project with Village Books and Paper Dreams with their own puzzle adventure. One of the executive team was out of town most days with another job and another one of us was on a whole different continent! This is when we found a new inquiry from the Fairhaven Association: to write the 2024 Dirty Dan Murder Mystery. It was a huge opportunity, so regardless of the craziness around us, we didn’t hesitate to say yes. (Though, I will note, we did try to play it cool for a few days.)

As semi-new university graduates and very new business owners, we were unpracticed in what it was like to collaborate on a project of this scale. Until that summer, we were more experienced with ideating within our own walls. Having just dipped our toes into commissioned games, it was exciting to imagine bigger ones. The only thing is… none of us had ever written a murder mystery before. So, where do we start?

Break out the wine and cheese, we’ve got a murder!

In my own personal experience, the only way to get good at building games and adventures is to play them. Plus, it’s a good excuse to have some fun. After our initial meetings about the story, I read over every murder mystery dinner party I could get my hands on. (Along with transcribing the dialogue and events of “Who Killed Markiplier?” which didn’t end up helping, so there goes an afternoon.) But, like theater, these kinds of things were better done live. 

For those of you who’ve never experienced the joy of a murder mystery dinner party, they combine role-playing, story-telling, social-deduction, and puzzle-solving (all the hyphenates). You assign roles to your party and they each play those roles with a series of motives and secrets. Depending on the structure, the party eventually finds out which one of you is the “murderer.” In other words, I highly recommend it the next chance you get. I’d found plenty of good candidates for a story and structure online and just needed to gather our lovely guinea pigs (Cryptid Escapes employees) to play. You know, for research. 

I decided on The Detective Club Murder by Ruth Ware for our game. After rewriting a few things and giving out the packets, we were ready to play. I narrated and poured virgin drinks as the butler Stebbings and our game began. The structure allowed for a lot of control on the narrator’s end and the murderer was also randomized. We decided that these were not elements we wanted to pass on to the final project. One thing did catch me as a critical piece of the puzzle: the characters were all distinct and in-depth. That seemed to me like the key to this murder mystery lock.

What do you do… with a minor in theater?

One other thing I learned from our little experiment was that there was a lot of script writing. Once we assembled a variety of characters, we needed to get down the basics: what was their relationship to the deceased, what’s their alibi, and what is their “hidden truth.” 

Unlike previous years, this next murder mystery was going to be written by puzzle-makers instead of fiction writers. Fortunately enough, you don’t get into the theater of escape rooms without a little bit of a theater background. Personally, I’d written scripts before (granted, most of them sucked), but this was a new beast. 

The executive team got together to brainstorm ideas of setting, which is how we develop our escape puzzles, as well. Also unlike previous years, us and the Fairhaven team wanted something a little fresher than the 1800s. So, we started looking into the history of Fairhaven and, turns out, the 70s were a groovy time here. Also, who doesn’t love a little 1970s costuming? 

So, with the setting and a few typical archetypes ready, we got to writing. A lot and a lot of writing. Opening remarks, personalized clue sheets, general overviews, and 12 individual in depth character analysis. After hours of research and rewriting, we had it all down. The hard part is over, right?

The Hard Part (aka the Best Part)

Now that our writing job was done, we were ready to join the amazing volunteers of the Fairhaven Association in facilitating the event. Everything was printed and the cast had received their scripts and write-ups and we were set! That was until things had to change. Because, of course they had to change!

Unfortunately, one of the members of the cast suddenly couldn’t participate. We tried finding replacements in the understudies and friends of the escape room to replace them. No dice. We were searching our brains for someone that could step in at the last minute and learn everything necessary within 2 days. Well, who better to learn everything than the person who wrote it? Despite the conflict of interest, being the only cast member who knew the outcome, I stepped in as Perry “Peace” Out. Staying true to what the character knows, answering odd questions on the fly, and answering questions from the rest of the cast was definitely hard work. I typically prefer to do my work from behind a keyboard so this was a challenge, for sure.

However, it gave me a whole new perspective on the event. For one, it made me grateful to the actors who choose to volunteer every year because it was raining and most everyone stayed outside to talk to Gumshoes for hours, so they became my heroes. Another thing I got to see firsthand, was how excited a lot of people feel about the event every year. No matter if it was their 4th year in a row or first, I got to see the beauty of Fairhaven come alive in a way I hadn’t before. Babies in strollers and grandparents alike were participating despite the cold and rainy weather like it was Disneyland. I got to see the adaptability of the cast and volunteers at work, working to make the event the best it can be. 

It made me more than proud to be in such a loving and creative community. For that, I am forever grateful. Cryptid Escapes is grateful to be part of it. 

Even if we aren’t involved in this specific event in the future (which we’d love to be!), we’ll take what we learned and give the community what they deserve: some good puzzling. Stay groovy, Fairhaven!