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Personalized Christmas murder mysteryAdults and teensSold on Etsy

A Christmas murder mystery with your friends as witnesses.

Christmas Eve, 1928, at the Mistletoe Ball: 3 to 14 of your friends sign the clues and stand in a register of 5,000 guests, and the killer is always a stranger.

14.90 € on Etsy

Two cases in one order: Case No. 1 to download right away, and your own case with your friends as witnesses a few minutes after your payment goes through. Each comes as A4, US Letter and E-ink PDF.

Buy on Etsy See the real pages first

You buy on Etsy: Etsy takes the payment and sends the receipt, and any refund goes through Etsy too. In the EU, Etsy adds local VAT (23 percent in Slovakia), and elsewhere it may add local tax; Etsy shows the final total before you pay.

The real cover of a personalized case: Private case file, Christmas. Murder at the Mistletoe Ball, a Christmas elimination mystery with Grace, Oliver, Sophie and 5 more as witnesses; 5,000 guests, 15 clues, 1 killer; detective in charge Clara; a red bauble, holly and a Confidential stamp
The real cover of a sample case built by the same service that builds yours, from eight sample names. The detective, Clara, came from the optional second box.

How your case is made.

Two boxes on the Etsy order page. After that, your case is built automatically as soon as the payment goes through.

  1. Type 3 to 14 names. In the first box, type your guests, each as First Last, separated by commas. For example: Emma Walsh, Liam Turner, Olivia Brooks.
  2. Name the detective, if you like. The second box is optional: a detective name for the cover, for example Sophie.
  3. We build your case. Your friends become the witnesses, named above the clues they gave, and they appear in the register among 5,000 guests. The solution page shows which clue cleared each friend.
  4. Download it a few minutes later. A few minutes after your payment goes through, your case is ready at arling.sk/case. Enter your Etsy order number and the surname of the first guest on your list (or your own), and download three PDF files: A4, US Letter and E-ink.
Page 4 of the same case, Fifteen facts about the killer, clues 1 to 8. Grace Holloway found a half-burnt place card in the Library fireplace: Surname starts with a letter from E to P. Oliver Finch found a torn ticket stub: Ticket is less than 60000. Sophie Marlow, who saw the killer hurry past: Age is more than 48. Jack Rowan, who chatted with the doorman: Arrived between 20:15 and 21:45. Then a checkpoint: after clue 4, exactly 474 guests are left.
Page 4 of the same case, clues 1 to 8. Every clue is signed by a witness: clue 1, for example, by Grace Holloway, who found a half-burnt place card in the Library fireplace. Open the picture for the whole page.

Find your friends. Clear them.

Every friend you name stands somewhere in the register of 5,000 guests, sorted by surname. Nobody you name is ever the killer, so sooner or later a clue clears each of them.

Rows from the register of the sample case, Pierce to Porter, with ten columns: name, age, costume, mask, arrived, ticket, table, drink, street and sweet. The row Pike, Henry, a witness at table 1, is struck out with the label Cleared by clue 5 to show the pencil work; the printed register has no strike-through or label.
Rows from page 61 of the A4 sample, typeset from the case file, with clue 5 applied in pencil. Henry Pike, one of the eight witnesses, sits at table 1; clue 5 says the table is an even number, so he is cleared. The yellow strike-through and the label only show that pencil work: the printed register has neither.

The register is sorted by surname, like a phone book, so a clue about the first letter of the surname lets you skip whole pages.

Two cases in one order.

Both take place on the same Christmas Eve at the Royal Alder Hotel, with a different register, different clues and a different killer.

  • Your case with your friends as witnesses

    A few minutes after your payment goes through, at arling.sk/case

    A4, 88 pages
    US Letter, 96 pages
    E-ink, 116 pages

  • Case No. 1 Murder at the Mistletoe Ball

    Instant download on Etsy, with a Start here page

    A4, 88 pages
    US Letter, 96 pages
    E-ink, 116 pages

  1. 1The cover, with your witnesses’ first names and your detective’s name, if you typed one
  2. 2The case: the toymaker who pays for the Mistletoe Ball every year is found poisoned in the quiet Library of the Royal Alder Hotel while 5,000 guests in costume dance under the tree
  3. 3How to solve: the rules, how to read each kind of clue, and a worked example
  4. 4 and 514 to 18 clues, each signed by one of your friends, with a box for your count and 3 checkpoints
  5. 6 to 87The register: 5,000 guests sorted by surname, with your friends among them
  6. 88The solution: the killer, every clue checked against the killer’s row, and which clue cleared each friend
Page 2 of the sample case, The case: Murder at the Mistletoe Ball, Marbury, Christmas Eve, 1928, with a Your file stamp, the story in four paragraphs, the task in a box, and a table of what each register column means.
Page 2, the case. A classic style mystery: no blood and no violence on the page.

The E-ink file (157 x 210 mm) has an index page and a row of letters on every register page that jump to that letter. You may print as many copies as you need for yourself, your family or your friends; please do not share or resell the files.

Every case checked before you get it.

A computer program builds each case. Before your files are released, a second, separate program reads the printed clues and the printed register and checks that exactly one guest fits all the clues, that every clue removes at least 5 percent of the guests still in play, and that every checkpoint number is right. If anything is off, the case is not released.

  1. 5,000guests at the start
  2. 474left after clue 4
  3. 47left after clue 8
  4. 5left after clue 12
  5. 1left after clue 15

The checkpoints of the sample case shown on this page; the one guest left after clue 15 is the killer. If your count is different at a checkpoint, go over the last four clues again before you go on.

Names and privacy.

You type the names in the first box on Etsy. This is how we read them.

Each name
First name and surname, separated by commas, up to 20 letters in each.
Two surnames
Join them with a hyphen (Garcia-Lopez), or we use the last one.
Left out
Titles, initials and middle names. Accents are written without marks: Zoë becomes Zoe.
Fine as typed
Apostrophes, hyphens and surnames with van or de, like O’Brien, Smith-Jones or Van Dijk.
Unreadable
If we cannot read at least 3 names, the download page asks you to type them again, and your case is built right away.
Privacy
We use the names only to build your case. Your files contain them and are deleted automatically 30 days after they are ready, so please save your files. Please only use the names of people who will be happy to appear in a game. More in section 8b of our privacy policy.

Who it is for, and who it is not for.

A good pick if

  • you want a Christmas or Secret Santa gift for a group of friends, a game for a winter evening or a quiet afternoon with a pencil
  • you like logic puzzles and detective stories; it suits adults and teens
  • you are happy to play alone over several evenings, for example between Christmas and New Year, or to split the register pages between friends

Not the right pick if

  • you want a role-play party game with characters and scripts; this is a pencil and paper logic puzzle
  • you want a quick game; the early clues mean going through thousands of rows of the register
  • you need another language; the text is in English
  • you want something in the mail; it is a digital download, and nothing is shipped
  • you want it for Halloween; the Halloween case at the Lantern Ball is a separate listing with its own hotel, register and killer

You need a printer and a pencil, or a tablet with a PDF app; the E-ink file is sized for e-ink tablets.

Before you buy.

Is one of my friends the killer?

No. The killer is always a stranger: nobody you name is ever the killer, so the puzzle stays fair and nobody gets accused. Your friends are the witnesses. Each of them signs at least one clue and stands in the register among 5,000 guests, and the solution page shows which clue cleared each friend.

How do I type the names?

When you order on Etsy, type 3 to 14 guests in the first box, each as First Last, separated by commas, for example Emma Walsh, Liam Turner, Olivia Brooks. The second box is optional: a detective name for the cover.

When and where do I get my files?

Right after you pay, your Etsy download has a Start here page and Case No. 1, Murder at the Mistletoe Ball, in A4, US Letter and E-ink, so you can start tonight. A few minutes after your payment goes through, your own case is ready at arling.sk/case: enter your Etsy order number and the surname of the first guest on your list (or your own), and download three PDF files. The order number is in Purchases and reviews on Etsy and in the receipt email from Etsy.

Is it a party game with roles?

No. It is a pencil and paper logic puzzle for one solver or a team, not a role-play party game with characters and scripts. To play as a group, split the register pages between friends: everyone strikes out guests on their own pages, and at each checkpoint you add up your counts. Or play alone over several evenings.

How long does a case take?

We have not timed how long a case takes to solve, so we do not promise a playing time. It is a long puzzle: the early clues mean going through thousands of rows of the register.

What happens to my friends’ names?

We use the names only to build your case. Your files contain them and are deleted automatically 30 days after they are ready, so please save your files. Please only use the names of people who will be happy to appear in a game. The details are in section 8b of our privacy policy.

A Christmas case built around your friends.

Case No. 1 to start tonight, and your own case with your friends as witnesses a few minutes after you pay.

14.90 € on Etsy

Buy on Etsy

In the EU, Etsy adds local VAT (23 percent in Slovakia), and elsewhere it may add local tax; Etsy shows the final total before you pay.

Colophon

Publisher
ARLing s. r. o., Ivanská cesta 32E, 821 04 Bratislava, Slovakia. Company ID 56583486, VAT ID SK2122352100.
Who makes it
Andrej in Bratislava looks after the products and the support. Texts and puzzles were created with the help of AI tools. Every page is drawn in code; no AI images are used. Other names in the register were combined at random by a computer program from public lists of common U.S. first names and surnames. It is a work of fiction.
Where you buy
On Etsy, in our shop ARLingStudio. Etsy takes the payment and sends the receipt. Case No. 1 is in your Etsy download right away, and your own case is ready at arling.sk/case a few minutes after your payment goes through. Nothing is shipped.
Questions
Before you buy, write to support@arling.sk. After you buy, message us on Etsy (ARLingStudio).

How we workAsk a question