SPOTLIGHT
By Megan Blankenship | Photos by Annie Lesser
Criminally Creative: Bestselling Author and Arkansas Native G.T. Karber Blends Mystery and Humor in Murdle
For bestselling author G.T. Karber, the journey to creating Murdle — a murder-mystery puzzle game turned global phenomenon — felt like solving one of his own riddles.
Originally a daily digital brain teaser, Murdle has grown into a worldwide bestselling book series, board game, massive online community, and soon, a TV series. Despite his powers of deduction, Karber could never have foreseen the extent of Murdle’s success.
Murdle follows a character named Deductive Logico as he solves puzzling murders. As in the classic board game Clue, players determine the suspect, weapon and location of each crime. It’s quirky and hardly macabre at all, instead paying humorous homage to mystery tropes with secret codes, dramatic revelations, and quirky characters such as Inspector Irratino and Uncle Midnight.
Each puzzle builds on a larger story, which fits Karber’s natural instinct for storytelling. “All I’ve ever wanted to do, from the time I was a little kid, is write a book,” he said.
Over the years, his interest led him to explore a huge variety of creative fields.
Karber, who grew up in Fort Smith, earned dual degrees in English and mathematics from the University of Arkansas before moving west to pursue a Master of Fine Arts in screenwriting from the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. A longtime mystery reader, he ran a theater troupe for a time in Los Angeles that staged interactive mysteries for the public.
These pursuits were major sources of community and creative development, but like many of his experiments, including dozens of interactive digital games, film scripts and more, they didn’t constitute a full-time profession.
G.T. Karber
One of his resolutions for 2021 was to create small, interactive, mystery-related projects online in an effort to connect with a wider sleuthing community and expand what he calls the “Detective Club,” which is now the name of Murdle’s fanbase.
The second week of his resolution, Karber was at a coffee shop trying to get some work done. Bored, he scribbled a short logic puzzle on a napkin to entertain a friend. As it turned out, this personal, exploratory touch was exactly what he needed for inspiration.
“The projects where I learned a lot of the skills necessary to make Murdle, those weren’t ever successful projects,” he reflected. “Some of the things I learned the most from were things I made for friends of mine rather than for a wide audience.”
His community was immediately delighted with the concept. Once Karber started posting the puzzles and accompanying stories online, Murdle began to be shared on social media, gaining swift traction among mystery lovers and puzzle enthusiasts.
Soon, Karber got a call from a literary agent asking about making Murdle a series of books. It was the opportunity he’d been waiting for, but even then, he wasn’t sure his peculiar online game would work on a large scale. He took time off from his day job to write, collaborated with an international team of editors and agents, and waited nervously to see how the first book would land with the public.
It didn’t take long for it to become a hit. The day it reached No. 1 in Christmas sales in the United Kingdom was the day Karber finally realized Murdle was a genuine success. More importantly, he knew he’d finally found his creative groove.
“In retrospect, Murdle is the perfect thing for me,” he said, especially in comparison to the many projects he pursued before he hit on Murdle’s perfect combination of storytelling, humor, logic and interactivity.
He stresses that creativity is about finding what speaks to you as an individual: “Is the idea good in general or is it good for you?”
He resists the classic advice to “write what you know” in favor of “write what you love,” trusting the excitement will translate to the right audience. Delight brings people together and inspires them, as Murdle has done for hundreds of thousands of readers and players.
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Fans of Murdle and aspiring detectives can hear more about Karber’s journey during his upcoming Honors College Mic lecture Feb. 27 at 5:15 p.m. in the Gearhart Hall Honors Student Lounge at the University of Arkansas. The event is free and open to the public.
Like Deductive Logico, you always have to be searching for clues.
Graphic courtesy of St. Martin's Griffin and Rob Grom
Remembering that day in the coffee shop, Karber said, “It would have been so easy for me to have just goofed off that day or done something else and not made this thing that’s snowballed into becoming my whole life. Sometimes it comes and surprises you.”