How to Play the Who Burnt the Turkey? A Thanksgiving Mystery

We love mystery games around here. Our obsession started with Clue Jr and moved on to the classic Clue, and Mystery Train and escape rooms and so much more. Through the years I’ve created several games (like the line of escape rooms for kids) and now I’d like to introduce you to: Who Burnt the Turkey? A Thanksgiving Mystery.

It’s the prefect addition to a beautiful Thanksgiving and will keep you entertained and full of laughter. Just like these other Thanksgiving games we have that makes the best memories!

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The Who Burnt the Turkey Story

It’s Thanksgiving and the food is all ready but there is one big problem. The turkey is black and still smoking! The family can’t agree on whose responsibility it was to watch the turkey. Was it mom? Grandpa? Tucker? The mystery deepens with the questions of where was the guilty party when they should have been watching the turkey. And what were they doing that was more important than the bird? This family needs your help to get to the answers before they start flinging food at each other and they ruine Thanksgiving!

How to Play the Mystery game Who Burnt the Turkey

This game is similar to other who done it games but it has a fun twist that makes it fun and unique.

There are six suspects: the mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, Amber and Tucker. They’re all decked out in their Thanksgiving best.

There are eight locations where the turkey burner could have been in instead of the kitchen.

And there are six excuses as to what they were doing. Things like napping, shopping the Black Friday flyers, and playing video games.

As is common, you shuffle these cards and one card of each category are set aside as the answer. You then shuffle the rest and deal them out to the players.

What’s Different

What’s different? Each player gets three “You’ve been turkeyed” cards that you pass as place holders for guessed items.

After looking at their cards, they mark off their items on the score sheet.

Now for another twist. Players will roll a dice to decide what they get to do doing their turn. If they roll a one they can ask one player for one item. A two will let them ask one player two items. Similar, a three will let them ask three items from one player. If you roll a four then you’re unlucky as the Brussel sprouts distract you and will miss your turn. A five will have you rolling again. And the six will let you ask one item for two different players.

There is an alternative play where if you roll a six, you’re unlucky and will have to show a card to someone that you haven’t shown them yet.

When a player is asked for an item and they have that card, they must show it to the player who is asking. But what if they don’t have it? That’s when they get to show the “you’ve been turkeyed” card. When a player is asked for two or three items, they need to show the items they have and fill in any spaces with a turkey card. For example, if you ask someone if they have Grandma, the den and decorating for Christmas and they only have the Grandma card, they will show the Grandma card and two turkey cards.

Players also need to keep track of how many times they have been turkeyed for a fun twist at the end.

Making an Accusation

When a player thinks they have the answer on their next turn, they can state who they think it was, where they were and what they were doing. They may then look under the oven card to see if they are correct. If they are they have won. On the other hand, if they are incorrect, they place the cards back under the oven and play moves on. When they are being asked for items, they need to pass cards to that player. On their next turn, they roll the dice but instead of seeing other player’s cards, they must choose a player to give that amount of cards to. For example, if they roll a 2, then they will need to pick a player to pass two of their cards to. If they run out of cards, they are out of the game.

Winning Who Burnt the Turkey

The player who correctly guesses who burnt the turkey, where they were and what they were doing when it happened is the winner.

For extra fun, players count how many times they were turkeyed during the game. The player with the highest count needs to dance around like a turkey.

Sweet Dessert

The Who Burnt the Turkey Thanksgiving mystery game is great or players of must ages. Gather the kids, the parents and the grandparents and get ready to dig into this holiday mystery game that is full of twists, laughter and most of all memory-making fun!

Get your copy here and get ready for some epic fun!

For more Thanksgiving fun check out our Gobble card game—the card game that will have you in side splitting laughter. As well see the Big List of Thanksgiving games that has something for everyone. Be sure to visit the shop for games like Turkey Trivia, 5 Seconds of Thanksgiving, Turkey Trot Race and so much more fun!

Don’t forget Christmas is just around the corner! Visit our Big List of Christmas games here!