HUNT A KILLER
Co-creators Ryan Hogan and Derrick Smith join us as we open the case on their ambitious live-action game, which challenges players to solve a murder mystery using clues they receive in the post
Words by Owen Duffy
There’s something timelessly enthralling about a good murder mystery. From the enduring popularity of Sherlock Holmes to the golden age of Agatha Christie, gritty Scandinavian noir like The Killing to true crime hits like Making A Murderer, the appetite for grisly detective stories seems to be endless.
I’m certainly not immune to their appeal. I’ve spent hours in the company of fictional sleuths from Hercule Poirot to Philip Marlowe and binged on episode after episode of the Serial podcast. But recently I had the opportunity to step out of the role of passive observer and attempt some amateur detective work of my own.
For the past few weeks, I’ve been hunting a killer.
It all began with a plain manila envelope that slid through my letterbox one morning alongside the usual collection of bills and junk mail. I didn’t realise it at the time, but its contents would unlock something deep, dark and bordering on obsession. Inside I found a collection of seemingly unconnected objects: a chart showing positions of stars in the night sky, a woodblock engraving of a swan, a crushed paper cup, a newspaper article with words and phrases redacted seemingly at random.
It didn’t make any kind of sense, but more bizarre still was the letter. It was carefully typewritten and addressed simply to “My Dearest Friend”. While its author was clearly intelligent and articulate, it did nothing to shed any light on the meaning behind the strange package. BaThed, I did what any self-respecting journalist does upon finding themselves out of their depth: I turned to Google.
An hour or so of online research later, I found myself engulfed in a world of unexplained deaths, sinister organisations and shadowy figures. I still wasn’t sure exactly what I’d got myself into, but I was hungry for more.
A LITTLE HELP FROM YOUR FRIENDS
There’s not much more I can tell you about Hunt A Killer without giving too much away. A murder mystery game, it casts players as members of the Listening Friends of America, a non-profft organisation which connects isolated people in prisons, hospitals and mental health facilities with pen pals in the outside world.