Brand Licensing
Brand Licensing
We turn a brand into a case worth solving.
A UK publisher of mystery and deduction games. We write and own worlds of our own, including Nursery Crimes, Play Bckwards and The Dark Menagerie. We are here for the other half of the business: brand IP to build investigations around, and partnerships with the people who own it. How far you come in is up to you. We can carry the whole build, or we can share the work, the reach and the upside.
The proof
What the numbers look like
Direct sales only. Trading began in August 2020, so that first year is five months long.
2026 is shown to 28 September and hatched, because the fourth quarter has not happened yet. It is the quarter that carries the year.
Share of all orders carrying a billing country, across the full trading history.
Germany is the one that surprises people. It has been ahead of, or level with, our home market for years, and none of it goes through a German retailer.
Orders by month across 2025, our last complete year.
Fifty eight per cent of the year lands in October, November and December. This is a gifting category, which is worth knowing before you set a launch date: a licensed title wants to be on sale by September, not announced in it.
Figures from our own store data, 28 September 2026. We sell direct and through Amazon, Walmart and Etsy. No distributor and no publisher sits between us and the player.
Six formats, one solve standard
Every case resolves on motive, means, opportunity and contradiction, so it can be worked out rather than guessed. One world can run across all six without being rewritten.
Host your own kits
Digital edition party games for 4 to 20 players, priced by group size. The engine of the business.
Boxed editions
The shelf ready version. The box always carries the full solution, so it never depends on a server.
Cold case files
Solo and small group investigations. The player gets the whole dossier and works it in any order.
Live investigations
The case moves while you work it. The folder starts empty, evidence unlocks only once it is earned, suspects react, and both time and wrong accusations cost you. Nursery Crimes is the pure form of it. Play Bckwards and The Book of Miller are cold cases with the live layer running underneath.
Self guided trails
The same investigation outdoors, in a real city. No venue, no staff and no fit out, so a city costs almost nothing.
Deduction card games 2027
A whole investigation in fifty four cards, with motive, means, opportunity and contradiction printed on every card. Standard footprint, standard cost, and nothing essential hidden behind a phone. First box 2027.
Digital edition first, boxed once it earns it
The usual way to licence a game is to commit to a print run and find out afterwards whether anybody wanted it. We do it the other way round. This is the format that has carried our business from the start: 84,228 orders of it in the last twelve months alone.
The digital edition launches first
Print at home, played alongside a web hub. The same materials and the same solve as the box, with no print run, no stock, no landed cost and no minimum order quantity.
The market answers
Real sales, real completion rates, real reviews, on a title carrying your brand. Not a focus group and not a forecast.
Boxed follows past an agreed threshold
The print edition triggers on a unit number written into the agreement. If the world does not sell, neither of us has a pallet of it in a warehouse.
This is the part worth taking to your finance team. A print first launch commits tens of thousands of pounds of production before a single copy is sold. Digital first commits a small fraction of that, and the money only follows the evidence. The risk falls on both sides at once, which is unusual in licensing and is the reason we work this way.
What a licence looks like with us
- We carry the cost. Production, artwork, print and fulfilment are ours. There is no build spend on your side.
- You approve how your brand is used. Marks, characters, packaging and anything carrying your name goes through your approvals process, to your style guide. The game design, the narrative and the art direction are ours to get right, which is the part you are licensing us for.
- We already own the audience. A licensed title launches to hundreds of thousands of people who have bought an investigation from us before, rather than starting cold on a shelf.
- Physical and digital together. We can report how far into a world players got and where they stalled, which is engagement data a boxed product does not usually produce.
- Territories and formats are open. We build to the age rating you set. The published range is adult, and our first title written for eight to twelve year olds launches in December.
- The 2027 card slate is not full. Our first deduction card box lands in 2027 on a world of our own. A licensed world can have the second one, and for the right number it can have the first.
What we are looking for
Worlds with an investigation already inside them. Crime and detective properties are the obvious fit, but so is anything with a closed circle of suspects, a secret worth keeping, or a reason for people to lie to each other.
We are equally interested in catalogue titles not currently in active production. A property does not need a film in cinemas for a case file to sell.
Start a conversation
Tell us the brand and we will come back with a concept, a format and a proposed shape of deal. No obligation and no charge for the thinking.
Jamie Readon, Head of Game and Innovation
jamie@mastersofmystery.com · +44 (0) 7791 497 381
Trading detail, market splits and financials are available under NDA.
© 2026 Masters of Mystery. All rights reserved. All third party brands named are the property of their respective owners.