Murder Mystery Costume Guide:
Regardless of whether you’re about to participate in an online or in-person murder mystery, one of the most important components to enjoy yourself and create ambiance for the people around you is to find a costume appropriate for the scenario. At Dastardly Deeds Murder Mysteries, we don’t explicitly provide murder mystery costume guides for any of our games and intentionally leave it up to the players to create their character. If you are looking for a jumping-off point or potential ideas for how your character may dress, you can always look at the meet the cast section on any of our published games. This is only a starting point, and it’s always best to create your character based on how you think they should appear. This freedom is one of the components that makes games of this style so entertaining. Every DD murder mystery allows you as a player to let your creative spirit run free. Create a costume that not only is right for your character but is something that feels right and looks good on you. Nowadays the hardest part of creating a character is procuring a costume. This normally was an easier undertaking but now it’s become more and more difficult with many of us leaving the house less often.
A vodka filled gun is an excellent prop.
Murder Mystery Outfit Ideas:
Before it’s time to even get to the stage of crafting or locating items for your costume, you first need to sit back and get some murder mystery outfit ideas. As mentioned earlier, you can get some ideas from people who have dressed up for our previous murder mysteries. This is just a springboard for crafting your unique character costume. In some games like Pandemic Murder Mystery, all of the characters portrayed are either scientists or professors. For games like this, the costume will inevitably be rudimentary. You can assume you’re going to want to obtain a lab coat and maybe a stethoscope to hang around your neck to get that textbook doctor appearance. This is just the beginning of a costume, even in a game as cut and dry as Pandemic Murder Mystery. There’s absolutely no reason not to accessorize whichever part you’re playing. Your costume and the accessories you choose can create a bold and unique statement for your character. While it’s not necessary to go all out for every game you play, I’d like to point out just how cheap you can find wigs on Amazon nowadays. Fake facial hair is even cheaper. I recently procured a delightful pack of 12 assorted mustaches for only six dollars. That’s a dozen murder mysteries worth of mustache coming out at an amazing price of only 50 cents per murder mystery mustache. Now that’s a bargain on mustaches!
Accessorizing with a variety of jewelry can also be an amazing thing to create a characterization for your specific role. When it comes to some of the more esoteric games like Wrestling Murder Mystery, all bets are off. Every costume can be freely created to represent you and how you would like to portray your character. Even games that have extraordinarily little character background such as A Game of Mutually Assured Destruction include a lot of opportunity for making a character your own. Something as simple as considering which country you’re representing from your bunker can put a different swing on your costume selection. Pair that up with a setting that is 50 years in the future and you can get some amazing ideas for costumes.
Some of the best costumes are cobbled together from nothing.
From Single Tractor Mingle
Where to Find Murder Mystery Costumes:
During normal times I would recommend almost anyone start their hunt for murder mystery costumes at the local thrift store. While this has become an impossibility for many of us who are staying home, some decent alternatives include ordering clothing and items off the internet. While you can’t find things that are nearly as unique or as inexpensive as you can in a thrift store, this is a safe viable option if you are quarantining at home. Rest assured the internet’s a big vast open space loaded with pretty much any kind of conceivable costume piece you can dream of. I’ve found everything from demon masks to shiny silver suits for games over the last year. To create perfect settings and ambiance for our murder mystery games, repurposing old clothing can also work to great effect depending on what kind of arsenal you have in your wardrobe. For example, an old button-up white shirt looks an awful lot like a lab coat when it’s left open. In games like Celebrity Mixer Party, you’ll simply be dressing up as a posh celebrity. If you just pull out your formal wear, you’re immediately set to play the game. One of the first steps to finding the perfect murder mystery outfit is looking at what resources you already have.
Make Your Own Costume:
If you count yourself amongst the world’s artsy-fartsy crafty, folk then chances are you already have some of the materials you need to make your costumes at home. While I’ve never gone so far as creating a costume from a template and sewing it together myself, I’ve had quite a bit of experience creating my own costume pieces for murder mystery games. One of my favorite tools is something that I realized many of you may not have access to. A 3D printer. I’ve used my 3D printer to create everything from props and visors to jewelry and hats. If you do have access to a 3D Printer, I highly recommend brainstorming some good ways to put it to use for your next murder mystery costume. Just because I have a 3D printer doesn’t mean I haven’t utilized much more rudimentary concepts to create amazing costume effects. For example, when I was playing Cardinal Billy during the Serial Killer Social, I created myself a lovely tentacled pope hat using nothing more than a piece of poster board and a standard printer. Likewise, Mercy O’Doul, traveling nurse, made her nurse hat from cardstock and a red pen. The only limit for your costume is your imagination. Given time and enough creativity, anyone can make anything happen for their next murder mystery game.
Find a costume that fits you and makes you feel like your character.
Lastly, if you are struggling in conceptualizing how you would like your costume to look, I’d suggest resorting to the internet and the power of search engines. If you’re playing a scientist, simply type in “scientist” and see what images pop up. If you’re playing a mountain man in Murder at Refuge Ridge Lodge, try looking at photos of “mountain man”. If you’re playing a crazed serial killer who hunts people for sport… you probably shouldn’t look that up because you don’t want that on your search results. I’m sure you catch my drift, though. The internet should be a good starting point to conceptualize what kind of costume designed you would like for your playthrough.
To all you game hosts out there, it’s entirely unfair that you’re making all of your friends, families, and coworkers dress up in hilarious costumes and you’re planning on not doing it yourself. As the host, you should always pump up the game and bring the ambiance to the rest of the players by wearing a costume of your own. Now, when it comes time to craft or create your costume, hopefully, you have some better ideas for a perfect fit for your next murder costume. Remember, when creating your costume, if you’re utilizing things like makeup and wigs please be sensitive and make sure not to do anything offensive. While all of our games are intended for adults, that doesn’t mean anyone should ever go out of their way to offend anyone else through their costume.
Have fun playing and stay safe out there!
