Core Gameplay Mechanics
The game can be played solo or with multiple players, with no strict limit; however, we recommend a maximum of six players for the best experience. Players do not role-play as suspects. Instead, they act as independent detectives analyzing evidence to solve the case.
The main package contains several folders that must be opened in sequence:
Folder 1: Initial police documents such as the crime scene report, autopsy report, gala poster and museum map.
Folder 2: Witness testimonies from the eight suspects.
Folder 3: Clues and documents found at the crime scene that help reconstruct the events like camera footage, cafe receipt, e-mails etc.
Folder 4: A folder designed as the victim’s bag, containing personal items such as letters and her phone screen shots.
Folder 5: Supplementary clues that introduce two difficulty levels: Beginner players may use them for extra guidance, while Intermediate players can attempt the case without them for a greater challenge.
Final Folder: Contains the solution revealing the killer and their motive.
Players work through these folders step by step, piecing together the narrative and uncovering the truth behind Anna Weiss’s murder.
Historical References
For this project, we were inspired by real historical figures and events, especially Princess Henriette Amalie von Anhalt-Dessau. She was a princess who went against the usual expectations of her time and had a strong passion for art. She even founded the Amelienstiftung to protect her collection, which is why many of her works are still part of the gallery today.
In our murder mystery, we used this story as a base for the plot: our victim, Anna Weiss, believes she is a descendant of the princess and becomes obsessed with proving it. The central artwork in the game is a painting that had been lost for decades and is now being exhibited for the first time at the 100th anniversary gala. Anna claims she is the rightful heir to this painting. This backstory also helped us create connections and tensions between Anna and other characters — like Nora or Max — and build layers of suspicion between them.
The painting and its details are fictional, but they were inspired by real events. For example, we created the portrait using AI, referencing actual royal portraits from that period. The idea of the painting being “lost during World War II and rediscovered years later” came from a real case we loved — a missing painting was unexpectedly found in a chicken coop. We added this as a subtle nod to history.
Themes, Periods, Styles of art
Our mystery takes place in the near future — on September 16, 2027, the day before the 100th anniversary celebration of the gallery’s opening. But while the main storyline unfolds in 2027, we wanted to weave in references from several different historical moments to give the game a richer sense of time and continuity.
There are four key dates that shape the narrative:
1927 – The gallery’s original opening date, which serves as the historical anchor.
Post–World War II (1940s) – The period when the key painting in our story was lost.
2025 – The year when this long-lost painting is unexpectedly rediscovered, sparking the events of the game.
2027 – The present timeline of the story, set just before the anniversary gala.
By connecting these moments, the game moves between different eras, using the painting as a symbolic thread that ties them together.
When creating the documents and clues, we reflected this layered timeline both in content and style. Some materials — like police forms, autopsy reports, and speeding tickets — were inspired by real official formats, which we carefully adapted to fit our fictional narrative without losing their realistic tone. Other materials, like museum maps and testimonies, were designed to visually complement each other and the 2027 setting.
This blend of past and future elements helps create a believable world where historical echoes influence the present-day mystery.
Character Developement
Miriam Bilgin
Inspiration: I actually based Miriam’s character loosely on a real-life experience I had with a former boss of mine who also lied on their CV. I exaggerated those traits and added obsessive behaviors to make her more dramatic and to create natural conflict with Anna, our victim. This balance of real-life inspiration and fictional twists made her feel believable yet interesting for the story.
First Ideation
Miriam Richer (Francesca Bush)
Age: 43
Physical Traits: Curly red hair, 1.70 m tall, curvy/balanced figure. Dresses in flamboyant, over-the-top fashion, often combining fake designer brands with loud accessories. Wears excessive perfume and often carries an elegant but clearly fake handbag.
Psychological Traits: Pathological liar with a compulsion to deceive. Frequently reinvents her identity. Charismatic, manipulative, and emotionally theatrical. Quick-tempered when confronted or caught in a lie.
Social & Cultural Background: Came from a very poor and unstable home, lost her parents at a young age, and left home as a teenager. Built a life through deception, stealing, and forging documents. Has managed to integrate into upper-class circles through scams.
Profession (False): Claims to be the official curator for the 100th Anniversary Collection. Applied under the alias “Miriam Richer” with a fake CV and forged credentials.
Strengths: Highly persuasive and charming; plans long cons with remarkable finesse.
Weaknesses: Easily enraged when her lies are exposed. Under stress, she mixes up her fake stories and even forgets what accent she was using.
Values: Only values wealth and power. She believes morals are a luxury for the rich and views manipulation as a survival skill.
Backstory: Francesca Bush grew up in a chaotic home and lost her parents as a teenager. She dropped out of high school to care for her ill mother, working odd jobs to survive. With no diploma and no stability, she drifted into the world of wealthy elites after marrying a much older, affluent man. That marriage ended badly, but it introduced her to a lifestyle she became obsessed with. Reinventing herself under new names, Francesca began mingling in art galleries and high-society circles, jumping from one city to another, always pretending to be someone else. Her second marriage fell apart when her lies were exposed, forcing her to flee and start fresh in Dessau. There, now calling herself Miriam Richer, she forged credentials and secured a position at the gallery just in time for its 100th anniversary celebrations—desperate to finally cement her place among the elite she has always envied.
Development and Finalized Version
After I first designed Miriam, our group later decided she would be the killer. To strengthen her motivation, we changed parts of her backstory. Instead of multiple failed marriages, we focused on a more dramatic reason for murder: blackmail. We also made her Turkish, renaming her Meryem Bilgin. In our version, she lied about having a PhD to get her job at the gallery. When Anna discovers this and threatens to expose her, Miriam faces losing not only her job but also her right to stay in Germany — risking deportation back to Turkey. This shift gave her a much stronger, more desperate motive that fit perfectly into the story’s tension.
Finally, during the visual design process, Miriam’s first visual appeared overly grumpy and visibly villainous, making her stand out too much from the other characters. With feedback from our guest lecturer, I realized the character needed a more complex appeal — someone the audience could both dislike and still sympathize with, similar to Anna Delvey. This led us to adjust her appearance and traits to be more charming and relatable while still keeping hints of her manipulative side.
Melina Müller
Inspiration: I wanted to include diverse LGBTQ+ representation in our story, which inspired me to create Melina’s character. Drawing from my personal understanding of OCD, I aimed to give the character a unique psychological depth that adds a strong motivation and distinctive traits to the Murder Mystery game.
First Ideation
Melina Müller
Age: 28
Physical Traits: Short black hair, extremely slim and petite frame. Often wears dark, oversized clothes that seem to envelop her.
Psychological Traits: Suffers from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD). Exhibits strong obsessive behaviors, especially toward her deceased secret girlfriend. Highly introverted, struggles with anxiety in social environments, and has a deep fear of abandonment.
Social & Cultural Background: Grew up in a conservative family that she became estranged from after revealing her bisexual identity. Lives alone in a small studio apartment. Financially unstable, often works part-time, low-income jobs.
Profession: Gallery worker
Strengths: Loyal to those she deeply connects with; possesses an eye for detail thanks to her compulsive nature.
Weaknesses: Obsessive behavior leads to social isolation. Struggles with anxiety and emotional regulation.
Values: Loyalty, secrecy, and emotional intimacy. Believes true love justifies everything, even morally questionable acts.
Backstory: Melina Müller grew up with severe Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) and was rejected by her conservative family after coming out as bisexual. Forced to leave home, she moved between unstable, low-paying jobs and struggled with isolation. During a stay at a mental health facility, she met Anna, who was being treated for depression. Their bond evolved into a secret romantic relationship, hidden due to fear of stigma. After their discharge, they lived together under the guise of being roommates. Melina’s love for Anna turned into an obsession, leading her to meticulously document Anna’s habits and cling to every detail of their life together.
Development and Finalized Version
During the visual development of Melina, we made adjustments to her age, emotional state, social status, and clothing to better reflect her character. To express Melina’s obsession with Ana, we incorporated love letters, drawings, and other subtle clues and false leads to confuse players. Since in playtests many players didn’t realize Melina and Ana were lovers—often assuming Melina’s feelings were platonic—we added Ana’s voice recordings for Melina to clarify their relationship and help players fully understand Melina’s character and motivations.
The Process of Developing Characters and Integrating Them Into a Cohesive Story
In the final stages of developing the characters, we faced some challenges figuring out if others were understanding the characters the way I intended, and how we could show that to the players through clues. We realized that sometimes things weren’t interpreted the way we thought. It was actually really interesting to see what people picked up on and how they understood the characters. We kept tweaking and improving the characters with small changes.
Then, as a group, we brought together 8 different characters. We separated similar traits and worked on making each one unique. After the initial ideas, we made changes to differentiate them even more.
At first, the characters felt pretty disconnected from each other, so we thought about how to connect them. We created different relationships — love, work, revenge, boss-employee, close friendships — to tie all 8 characters together into one story.
To keep the game from feeling repetitive and to make sure everyone’s motivation was different, we gave each character a unique connection and reason related to the main character.
While doing this, we also changed some small details about their age, jobs, behaviors, or physical traits to better fit the story.
During the development process, we ran five different test plays, both online and in-person, with groups of varying experience levels — beginner, intermediate, and advanced. After each test, we made changes based on feedback and observations, then tried new things in the next round. Let them write on our documents and clues to understand how their mind is working. We also realized our initial plan — giving players all files and alibis at once — didn’t work as expected. Some important documents got lost in the pile and weren’t read until the end, while others revealed things too early, which ruined the tension. After that, we started structuring the clues so suspicions could rise and fall naturally throughout the game. These playtests helped us understand not just what we wanted to tell, but how players were actually interpreting the story, which shaped many of our group decisions along the way. Step by step, this helped us refine and improve the game to get it as close to perfect as possible.
Team Collaboration
We organized our team by meeting every week in class and sharing what we had worked on so far — whether it was new characters, relationships, or updates to the rules. Everyone mostly focused on their own character, but we constantly checked in with each other to see how everything could come together into one story. For documents that belonged to everyone, like Anna’s files or the autopsy report, we split the tasks and worked on different parts as a group. Decision-making was also collaborative: we shared ideas, discussed what might or might not work, and whenever we disagreed, we tried to explain our reasoning and find common ground. For example, if we weren’t sure which envelope a clue should go in, we tried different placements in separate test games and kept whichever felt clearer for players. This back-and-forth really helped us refine the story and made sure everyone’s characters felt connected in the final version.
Conclusion
In conclusion, this class was a really fun experience for me. It was my first time designing a Murder Mystery game — even though I had played many before, creating one felt completely different. I learned a lot about storytelling, especially how to communicate ideas through clues, documents, and small details rather than just a written narrative. It taught me a new way of building a story piece by piece for the players to discover. Working in a team was also a big part of this process; even when we disagreed or understood things differently, we managed to find solutions and create a cohesive story together. That made the whole experience even more enjoyable.
