Murder board game is deadly serious

In 2016, a reality show, Who's the Murderer, began broadcasting on Hunan TV. And so the audience grew.

"In 2018, my friend from college asked me to play Jubensha with him. That was my first experience," says Li Dong, a 39-year-old financial analyst from Beijing.

In some cases, Jubensha players need to get dressed for a part and play a role according to the script. The decor of the shop where the game is played matches scripted scenes.

"There are different types and themes-horror, romance, history and detective. Some of the scripts are based on famous movies or storylines from novels," Li says. "Each script takes about five to seven hours to finish playing and find the murderer. I know a very popular script that takes 14 hours to finish and haven't had the time to try it out.

"I enjoy the process of inference, reasoning and deducing the right answer. It gives me a sense of achievement.

"It's boring to just have meals or a drink with friends, so we sometimes play Jubensha as a way of interacting. You can also learn history through the game because many scripts are based on historical figures and stories."

Experiencing other people's lives as if living in another world is one of the reasons people enjoy playing Jubensha, according to Xu Jing, a psychology teacher at Shanghai University.

Different themes in the scripts meet people's psychology of thrill-pursuing. "Jubensha provides more opportunities to experience different lives," says Li Shijia, psychology expert from East China Normal University.