Dead Man’s Party: A Knives Out Game arrives in time to turn Christmas into an argument

It is Christmas Day, and hopefully by the time you are reading this, you have done the usual traditions. Eaten food, opened a gift….and performed a murder??? Hopefully, that last doesn’t apply to many people, and if it does, we promise not to judge if you keep adding to our readership. But now it can be a new tradition, thanks to the release of Dead Man’s Party: A Knives Out Game.

If you haven’t seen the Knives Out movies, you truly must. It is a trilogy of mysteries starring Daniel Craig doing the worst southern American accent as Detective Benoit Blanc. And I mean that as a compliment; I adore it. Apropos of nothing, the second film has one of the funniest monologues/rants I have seen in a movie towards the end; it killed me. The third film, Wake Up Dead Man, began streaming on Netflix earlier this month. 

That last bit is relevant for two reasons. First, it's just a timely release for a tie-in game. Second, it means you can only play this game on Netflix, adding to their march to becoming a gaming giant. And boy, are they not trying hard. Dead Man’s Party adds to the roster of Netflix-show spin-offs off which already includes the likes of The Queen's Gambit Chess, Stranger Things: 1984, and Squid Game: Unleashed. 

Even outside their own properties, you can play big names like Red Dead Redemption, Dead Cells, and Exploding Kittens. The final one might not be the biggest, but I love it. Dead Man’s Party has some storied siblings in its home, but it might not stack up, if we are being honest. That is because it is a social deduction game, in the vein of Werewolves and Mafia. 

The problem with that is this is a wildly crowded genre. And it doesn’t seem like Dead Man’s Party adds much. You play on a TV using your phone, and try to figure out who the killer is through interrogation, as they try to use some abilities to throw suspicion around and confuse things. It sounds like a fun party game for maybe one or two tries.

If you want to give it a go, download Netflix from the App Store and Google Play, subscribe, then realise you have eaten too much for this today, give it a miss, and binge watch the Knives Out movies instead.