Before you ask

Six to twelve. That counts you.

About three hours from the door to the reveal. The body is found fifteen minutes in. Round two comes with the main course and round three with dessert. The host guide works out every time from your start time, and calls them a rhythm, not a deadline.

Both. You read the lines when the night needs one. The rest of the time you’re a suspect with a drink. You are cast like everyone else. You are never the murderer, because you read the reveal.

Yes. Skip the last pages of the host guide and leave the solution file closed. Everything you need to run the night comes before them.

The host guide is written for you. It opens with a page called Start here, and it tells you what to say at every turn.

That is what the booklets are for. Everyone arrives as someone else, with questions to ask.

A booklet is eight short pages, and a clue card is forty to sixty words. Nobody memorizes anything.

No. A boxed kit is written once, before anyone knows who is coming. Ours is written after you tell us, for your headcount, your date, and your table.

Every character is marked. Some can be dropped, and the host guide tells you which cards to pull. The ones the night leans on get played by you.

A character can carry your guest’s first name, and nothing else about them.

Their health, family, money, sexuality, religion, immigration status, or past relationships. And anything on your no-go list.

Give them a comfort level of one. They get a part with lines to read and a reason to be at the table, and never the murderer. That’s often the guest who surprises everyone.

It is drawn at random. It is never worked out from anything you told us about a guest.

One week before the party, by email, to every guest. You can send it sooner from your dashboard.

Only if you turn filming on. Then the invitation says so, and your character page carries the note. Anyone can ask to be kept out. As the host, you are responsible for your guests’ consent. The app provides the notice and the note. The filming page has the whole of it.

No. Any home inkjet or laser, on plain paper.

Both are in the download. The A4 files are in a folder of their own.

As much as you like. Print everything and you never need the app on the night. Or print the envelopes and run the night from your phone.

No. Name tags and ballots are cut from plain paper. You write each envelope by hand.

Use your printer’s draft or grayscale setting. No page has a dark background.

The kit plans a three-course dinner, with a recipe card for each course and a grocery list scaled to your headcount. The recipes are chosen so the cooking is done before round one. Once the night starts, you are playing.

Every course has a vegetarian swap, with its own ingredients and method.

Recipes and grocery lists are for convenience. Nightcapers gives no dietary or allergy advice. The host checks every ingredient, label, and substitution and decides what is right for the table.

Recipes, menus and grocery lists are general suggestions. They are not written for any guest’s allergy, intolerance or diet, and they may be incomplete or contain errors. Before you shop or cook, you check every ingredient and every label against your guests’ needs. Serving the food is your decision.

That depends on the tier you pick. These are estimates for groceries and props, a person. None of it is paid to us.

$24.99 per kit, paid once.

The premise, your cast and their motives, the casting sheet, the menu, the timeline, one complete character booklet, and the invitation with a watermark.

Ten to twenty minutes after you pay. We email you when it is ready.

Every kit gets one free rewrite. Same guests, same answers, a new mystery.

If your kit has an error that keeps the mystery from being solved, or the files won’t print, tell us within seven days and we’ll replace it or refund you. No refunds after the party date.

A kit is licensed for your own party. A business needs the commercial license. Write to hello@nightcapers.com.

The mystery’s structure comes first: who did it, who was where, and which card clears whom. Our own software works that out and checks it can be solved. Then a language model writes the words from your answers, and every page is checked against the structure before you see it.