Fun Detective Games

Warm-Up Detective Activities

• Before engaging in any detective activities, make sure your guests have ID badges and a magnifying glass; they more than likely will need the latter at some point.

  A good way to kick off a detective party is to put your guests through a spy school training course, where they test their coordination, flexibility and speed. Create an obstacle course (including boards, chairs, ropes and tires) in a large room or your yard, and time how long it takes each participant to conclude. Let participants take several turns, and upon completion, award everyone a spy school certificate.

  Detectives often utilize guises, so give guests an opportunity to see how fast they can slip in and out of disguise. After dividing players into teams, give each team a suitcase of such disguise items as glasses, a hat, trench coat and wig. Upon start of the game, each team's first player puts on the disguise, runs to the finish line, back to the start line and removes the items. Each player on a team does this until everyone has had a turn. The first team to finish wins the game.

Games Putting Detective Skills to Use

• Sifting through clues is part of a detective's everyday life. For the game of "Who Am I?" write names of favorite book, cartoon or movie characters (or your own type of characters) onto 3- by 5-inch index cards (you also can use pictures) and tape them to the backs of each player. Have them ask other players questions until they correctly guess their character. You also can play by using characters' biographical information (make it small type, so players have to use their magnifying glass).

  You can add a detective twist to the popular "Follow the Leader" game by choosing one player to be the detective and sending her out of the room (if you'e outdoors, she can hide behind a tree). You then choose a leader, who does some kind of movement that everyone else mimics---he may do a dance move, flap his arms like a chicken or nod his head. Have one of the players go and bring the detective back to the game; the detective must figure out who the leader is.

  Every 30 seconds, have the leader change his movement, with everyone following his lead. Players should change their movements quick enough so the detective has trouble identifying the leader. As soon as the detective determines who the leader is, the old leader becomes the detective and a new game begins.

  Footprints sometimes act as vital clues in a detective's line of work, so have your guests leave footprints in police-lineup style, and then take turns guessing which footprint belongs to which guest.

Murder Mystery

• A good detective party would not be complete without a murder mystery. You can play Clue, the classic board game where players have to guess not only the killer, but what weapon he used to commit the murder and in what room. Or, you can play a live-action version, in which you either follow the same principals or come up with your own scenario of mayhem and murder.

  For starters, read a short letter informing guests that one of them is a ghost and one is a murderer. Have them go off to find clues about the victim, killer and how the killer murdered his victim. Have envelopes addressed to each player, with the clues inside pointing them in the direction of the next clue. Writing clues in the form of a riddle may be fun.

  The last clue players come across should be a fingerprint; at that moment, they go take each others fingerprints (preferably with an ink pad) and try matching them to the clue.

  Whatever detective games you play, enhance players' experience by playing mood music, such as Henry Mancini's "The Pink Panther Theme."