Customer Reviews

Roswell That Ends Well (How to Host a Teen Mysteries)

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

We used this game at my daughter's 11th birthday. The subject matter was not too "adult" for them, but it was a good thing they were all strong readers. I think it is a perfect storyline right through the suggested ages. It took longer than the 2+ hours the game stated. If the clues are just read out it may take that long, but the girls at this party spent time conversing about the scene and it took more than three hours. The whole time they were engaged and reading and using their reasoning skills. It was a hit with everyone. If you are looking for a great party game with both a luau theme (suggested menus and timing schedule) AND an alien theme, this is it. The kit comes with name tags, individual dossiers, clues, invitations, a poster, and a tape to introduce the mystery. For boys and/or girls, some names are not gender specific. Well worth the money.

My daughter and her friends(ages 11-12) played this mystery game at her birthday party. We decorated the house accordingly, and all the girls really got in to playing their character parts, costumes and all. It comes with an excellent guide on how to host the mystery, including food ideas and a time line to follow.
We had some confusion as to how exactly the game itself proceeds, but we improvised a little and it turned out to be easily played and all had a great time. The game did take longer to play then expected. Be sure all players are strong readers. My daughter and her friends are looking forward to playing another such game.

We had 8 kids play, aged 9 to 14. This is a bit younger than the typical teenage crowd they're anticipating, I suspect. Our group had lots of fun, and I heard plenty of laughing for three hours. I will say that I had to modify the game before the kids came over, because we had 6 boys and 2 girls -- so one of the casted girls had to officially become a boy. Thus I changed Ariel LeSalt (a female) to Gunnar Huntem (a male) and took out all the dating between Ariel and the other boys -- the only reason gender was specified at all was because of the dating issues: I took all the dating out altogether, because the kids I invited wouldn't have appreciated it, and my daughter was only 9 -- there were references to favorite pastimes of so-and-so being to give mouth-to-mouth resusciation to a girlfriend and plenty of other dating references, cheating one one's boyfriend/girlfriend, finding certain girls to be total babes . . . Since our group included two sibling sets and was mostly on the young side, I knew the kids wouldn't really get into that part of the storyline so I took all of it out and converted boyfriend/girlfriends to really good friends who hang out a lot together . . . the game play was completely unaffected! The story was a hoot, the kids had fun, and I've heard back from several that they'd like to do something like this again . . . The humor was just right. I had to spend quite a bit of time before the party date altering everybody's clues as mentioned above (Ariel becoming Gunnar), but on the actual date of the party, this was totally easy. We ordered pizza, so no fuss.

This has to be the best party activity ever! My best friend and I hosted it for her birthday. We decorated with lots of beach things and put flowers and dolphins all over and then put a bunch of blow-up aliens for the guests. The room we did it in looked like a beach, only with out sand, when we were done. Everyone dressed up a LOT and we spent weeks after that laughing at the pictures. The game was done during diner and for a litte while after. Allow at least 3 and a half hours for it. It was so funny that we spent half the time laughing at the hilarious little secrets that all of the guests have in the game. We found that it is ok to just have girls or boys if you want, though it is fun to have the right gender for the characters. As long as some of the guests are willing to play the oposite gender, it works out fine. I wouldn't recomend this for kids under 12 but if you are willing to give more time and have a parent help out it is probably ok to do this at age ten. We had so much fun that I am doing the Vampire one for my party.