A costumed murder mystery sounded like a fun way to spend a Saturday.
I’ve always enjoyed murder mysteries, and I’ve always loved playing dress up.
After writing a story for The Augusta Press on Feb. 21 about CluedUpp, the virtual murder mystery game, I decided I wanted to try it. It was a good excuse to buy a costume.
I tried recruiting teammates via Facebook so that I could write a story about it. Several people expressed initial interest, but because of various conflicts, they dropped out. It ended up being my two daughters, someone I performed with in “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat” and me.
Tabatha Hughes, my actor friend, and I decided that costumes were important. There was a contest. My daughters, Jessica Carroll and Allie Brackett, participated, too, but not as much as Tabatha and I did.
The theme of the mystery was “the ripper.” We thought it might be based on Jack The Ripper because they didn’t give out too many details prior to the day of the event. With that idea in our heads, Tabatha and I wanted to do a steampunk, Victorian theme for costumes.
On the morning of March 6, the four of us met at the Augusta Common to start the game.
To play the game, I paid the fee, and we downloaded the app onto our smartphones. One of us was designated as the team leader, but those responsibilities bounced among us throughout the game. Jessica was the leader for the bulk of the game.
The game covered several downtown blocks using. As we walked the streets of downtown, we encountered suspects, clues and informants via the map in the app. And we noticed several groups of people wearing costumes. We were not alone. Some 25 other teams participated throughout the day, according to the app’s leader board.
We had to answer a lot of riddles to get more information from the suspects. Some of them weren’t cooperative. One of the suspects decided to run as soon as he saw us, and Jessica and Allie ran two blocks to find him again.
Allie quoted Tony DiNozzo from her favorite show, NCIS, “Why do they always run?”
The girls found it ironic that the troublemaker they had to chase was named Jeremy. That’s their brother’s name.
We came across a few crime scenes along the way as we put the clues together.
At one point, we had a four-minute penalty because the app said we were mobbed by journalists. My daughters blamed me for that because I’m a journalist.
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The game led us from Telfair Street to Reynolds Street between Sixth and 10th Streets. My Fitbit said we walked more than two hours and logged about four miles when it was said and done.
We correctly guessed the suspect on the first try, but we were no where near winning. The 20-minute penalty for pausing the game twice in a short amount of time didn’t help us any.
Despite not winning any virtual prizes, we had fun, and it was a nice day to be in downtown Augusta even though it was a little on the cool side.
Allie said she enjoyed participating. She had seen an ad for CluedUpp the first time the game was played in Augusta and said she wanted to try it. And Tabatha, despite not getting the boots she originally wanted to wear for the event, said she had fun too. And yes, Jessica did enjoy it as well.
CluedUpp is based out of the U.K., and Nicole Read, a digital marketing executive with the company, said they have other storylines in their series.
If a game does well in a particular city, they come back to the city, she said.
Charmain Z. Brackett is the Features Editor for The Augusta Press. Reach her at charmain@theaugustapress.com
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