The Great Northwest Baking Show

Welcome to the Great Northwest Baking Show!

For the first time ever, the global baking competition phenomenon is going local with a season focusing on the amateur bakers of the Pacific Northwest region of the United States.

Everything was lined up to make this season a smash-hit. With a gorgeous shooting location of Lakewood, WA’s Thornewood Castle and a superstar judging lineup that included of Baking Show legend Paul Holyroot, this was going to be the best season of the Baking Show yet.

At least, that was the plan. Alas, late on the night before the finale was to be shot, Paul Holyroot was discovered dead in his personal dressing room by one of his co-hosts. The blood splattered across the room left little room for doubt – this was a murder.

The detectives have been called.

The crime scene has been locked down.

Now day is breaking and one thing has been made clear – no one is leaving here until the murderer has been found.

The Great Northwest Baking Show is an online murder mystery party that I designed in 2020 for a friend’s birthday party. The game is played socially-distanced over video chat and makes use of a custom website built in Twine to allow the players to explore the digital crime scene.

Much like Genius Northwest, this project was inspired by a Korean reality show, in this case the mystery investigation show Crime Scene. Unbeknownst to me, this format has become extremely popular in China, where it is known as jubensha. This is at least partially thanks to the popularity of the Chinese version of Crime Scene, Who’s The Murderer.

In 2021, I produced a sequel set in an alternate-universe Disneyland called The Outer Rim.

If you want to play if for yourself, instructions for running The Great Northwest Baking Show are available on Github. If you’d like to hire me to run a session for your group, send me an email!

Header image from Pixabay.