For internal review
Greenville, NC
CLOSING
TIME.
After last seating on a Friday night, a regular at the corner booth doesn't make it home. The five staff still in the building are the only people it could be.
A noir mystery, hosted on Instagram, solved by your audience.
A three-post mystery on Ford & Shep's Instagram, narrated by a charismatic fictional detective named Steven Sleuth. Players follow the case through an announcement, an evidence carousel, and a final reveal. To solve it, they have to share the carousel and tag three friends. That unlocks the missing piece on a secret companion account called @happyhunting.tv.
The mystery is real. The detective is a personality. The restaurant is the world. Players don't just watch, they investigate, theorize in the comments, share for the unlock, and come back for the reveal.
The format is built to be a repeatable Catch property. Detective Steven Sleuth takes a new case for a new business each time. Ford & Shep is File 001.
Three posts, one secret account, one share-gated unlock.
Detective Steven Sleuth.
A fictional, slightly absurd, fully committed detective in a trench coat and fedora. Played by a charismatic on-camera personality already partnered with the project. He's the warm front door to a serious mystery.
Trench coat / Fedora
Magnifying glass
Notepad
The face of the case.
Steven opens the announcement in full costume, addresses the camera directly, and asks the audience to help him solve a death at Ford & Shep. He posts the carousel as "the case file." He drops the share-gated clue on @happyhunting.tv "for those of you who earned it." He returns for the reveal video, walks through the evidence with theatrical flair, names the killer, and announces the winner.
Between posts, Steven plays in the comments. Responds to theories by name. Pretend-investigates the funniest guesses. The character is the engagement engine.
For future installments, every Catch mystery for a different business is "Detective Steven Sleuth takes a new case." The IP is yours to license.
The story.
It is a Friday night at Ford & Shep. The doors lock at 11:00pm after last seating. By 11:55pm, a regular is found dead, face-down in the doorway between the corridor and the bathroom. The five people still in the building are the only people who could have done it.
A regular. Always the corner booth.
A powerful figure in his industry. The kind of man who has quiet enemies. He has eaten alone at Ford & Shep every Friday at 9pm for two years. Same booth. Same drink to start.
His tree nut allergy is logged in the reservation system. Every staff member was briefed when he became a regular.
His booth was given away that night.
When he arrived, the new hostess apologized. She had logged a reservation for the corner booth earlier in the week and forgotten to flag the conflict. He was visibly annoyed. She re-seated him at a smaller table near the back, out of the line of sight from the dining room.
Whoever made that conflicting reservation booked it under a name no one can identify.
Note: the victim's identity stays generic in this document. We can tailor the details once we know whether a real Ford & Shep regular is willing to play the part. The puzzle works either way.
Everyone has a motive. Everyone has an alibi.
Each suspect gets one motive line and one alibi on the carousel. Roles only for now. We'll layer in personality once we know who from your staff is willing to play themselves and who we're casting from the outside.
The bartender called in sick. And then she snuck in anyway.
She told ownership she was sick and wouldn't make it in. She wasn't supposed to be in the building. Two staff members saw her come through the back at 11:30pm. She left at 11:50pm with a bag.
The surface read: she's faking the illness to give herself an alibi, she's the killer, the bag held the weapon. Comments will pile on her. Everyone wants it to be her.
The truth: she has been quietly stealing high-end bottles from the bar inventory for months and reselling them on the side. She came in that night specifically because she knew the place would be understaffed and no one would notice her grab a $400 bottle. Bad timing. She left with the bottle in her bag, completely unaware that a man was dying twenty feet away.
She is guilty. Of theft. Not of murder.
The argument everyone saw.
A second patron was at Ford & Shep that night. Earlier in the evening, multiple staff members watched a heated argument break out between this guest and the victim. The guest's voice was raised. The victim was visibly shaken.
The guest paid their check at 11:42pm and walked out the front door. The receipt timestamp is on the carousel. So is a still from the security feed showing the argument.
The surface read: obvious motive, obvious opportunity, suspicious exit. Players will hammer on this guest in the comments. The voicemail in the carousel makes it worse: a threatening message left for the victim earlier that day from the same guest.
The truth: they were gone. The receipt and the security still are an airtight alibi. They wanted the victim to suffer. Someone else did the work.
Five obvious choices. One unspoken truth.
Five everyday restaurant items players can pick from on the carousel. The sixth weapon is hidden behind the share gate. Players who only watch the carousel almost certainly guess wrong. Players who share unlock the truth.
The most important slide.
A redacted preliminary report appears in the carousel. To a casual reader it looks like the victim was strangled and clubbed in a struggle. Every finding has an innocent explanation. The report is honest. It is also designed to mislead.
Preliminary Report
- Subject
- ████████████████████████
- Time of Death
- 11:55 PM (Approx.)
- Location
- 718 Dickinson Avenue. Found face-down in the threshold between the corridor and the restroom.
- Investigating
- Det. S. Sleuth
- Significant facial edema, lips and tongue
- Ligature-pattern contusion, anterior neck
- Blunt force trauma, right temporal region
- Trace blood and tissue, edge of restroom sink
- No defensive wounds present
- Personal effects: ██████████████████
Casual viewers split between twine (matches the ligature) and frying pan (matches the trauma). Both are wrong. The smart play is to wonder why the report shows two different methods at two different locations, and conclude something else is going on.
For your eyes only.
This is the actual answer. Internal only. Not visible to players until the reveal video.
The Killer Is The Hostess. The Weapon Is A Dessert.
(three weeks on the job)
almond flour and marzipan
followed by a fall
The hostess took the job at Ford & Shep three weeks ago specifically because she knew the victim dined there every Friday. Years ago, he wronged her in a way that defined the rest of her life. He doesn't remember her. She has spent every day since deciding what to do about it. Three weeks ago she made her move.
She kept her head down on the job. Quiet. Polite. Forgettable. Specifically, never mentioned.
The SetupEarlier that week, she called the restaurant on her own phone, posed as a stranger, and booked the corner booth for the same Friday night the victim always took it. She logged the conflicting reservation in her own handwriting under a name no one would recognize. To everyone else it looked like a scheduling oversight by the new hire.
When the victim arrived, she apologized profusely. The booth was already held. Could she seat him at a smaller table near the back? He was annoyed but agreed. The new table sat outside the line of sight from most of the dining room. Exactly where she wanted him.
The KillShe baked the dessert at home that afternoon. It looks like a flourless chocolate torte. Almond flour throughout. A marzipan center. Both invisible. She brought it from her car at the start of service and kept it in the host stand mini-fridge.
After the victim's entree, she walked the dessert to his table herself. "Compliments of the chef. He saw what happened with the booth and wanted to make it right." The chef knew nothing about it. The victim trusted her. He ate it.
Within minutes the reaction started. His tongue began to swell. Throat closing. He felt sick and excused himself toward the restroom. He intended to splash water on his face and figure out what was happening. He clawed at his own collar trying to breathe (the source of the "ligature contusion" in the report, self-inflicted). By the time he reached the sink, he was disoriented. He braced himself. He missed. His right temple struck the corner of the sink on the way down (the "blunt force trauma" in the report).
He fell forward, half in the bathroom and half in the corridor. He was found face-down in the doorway minutes later by a staff member.
How Players Land On HerThe reservation slip on the carousel is in the hostess's handwriting (because she logged it). The recipe card unlocked on @happyhunting.tv is in the same handwriting. Players who notice the match connect her to the dessert. A second piece of evidence on @happyhunting.tv connects her to the victim through the historical wronging. Players who do the detective work get the full picture.
The case opens.
a death at
Ford & Shep."
The case opens. Stay close.
30-second teaser. Steven introduces the case.
- Cold open: black and white shot of the empty dining room. Slow push toward the bathroom doorway.
- A single warm light spills from the corridor. A tipped chair near a back table. A half-finished plate.
- Cut to Steven Sleuth in full costume in the blue hallway, addressing camera.
- He sets the case in two or three sentences and asks for help.
- End card: THE CASE OPENS. Date, time the carousel drops.
"Dickinson Avenue. Eleven fifty-five on a Friday. The lights were still on at Ford and Shep. Five people in the building. One of them did this. I don't know which one yet. That's where you come in."
Camera holds on his face. He raises a magnifying glass to the lens. Cut to title card.
The case file.
Eleven to thirteen carousel slides. Players swipe through evidence, suspects, weapons, and a CTA to share for the unlock. The whole game lives here.
Carousel can flex from 11 to 13 slides depending on how much evidence we surface. The structure above is the working draft.
The unlock that drives the engagement.
Players can guess from the carousel alone, but they will almost certainly pick the wrong weapon and the wrong suspect. The real method and a critical clue toward the killer live behind a single share-and-tag action.
@happyhunting.tv
A separate Instagram account stood up the day of the announcement. Designed to look like Detective Sleuth's working case file. Players who share the carousel and tag three friends are directed to follow @happyhunting.tv and find the pinned post.
What sharers unlock on @happyhunting.tv:
01. Back-door security loop. Reflection puts the chef outside on his smoke break exactly when he claimed. Caption: "Ruled out: the chef." One down. Four to go.
02. A handwritten recipe card photographed in the host stand mini-fridge. "Chocolate torte." Two ingredients circled in red pen by Detective Sleuth: almond flour and marzipan center. The dessert is the murder weapon. The sixth weapon is anaphylaxis.
03. A piece of historical evidence: a redacted document, photo, or article that reveals the hostess has a hidden history with the victim. Players who connect the recipe handwriting to the reservation slip handwriting from the carousel land on her.
Case closed.
who did it."
60 to 90-second reveal. Steven walks back through the evidence.
- Eliminate the knife and the ice pick (no stab wounds in the report).
- Build the case for twine and the frying pan, then dismantle both by re-reading the report as anaphylaxis.
- Reveal the dessert. Show the recipe.
- Walk through the hostess's three-week setup. Reveal the historical motive.
- Reveal the bartender's actual secret (theft). Comedic relief beat.
- Steven names the killer, names the weapon, announces the winner.
Steven sits at the small back table where the victim was re-seated. The lights are on. The plate is gone.
"It wasn't the knife. It wasn't the pick. It wasn't even the bartender, though God knows she had reasons. The thing that killed our man was sitting on the table the whole time. Brought to him by the one person nobody suspected. The dessert. The hostess. The end."
He closes his notepad. Tips his hat to the camera. Cigarette smoke drifts across the lens.
The asks.
The puzzle is built. Production is built around what's already at the restaurant. These are the green-lights and access we need to pull it off.
Access for two evening shoots
Ideally on closed days or after-hours. We shoot the announcement, the carousel evidence, the reveal, and any necessary suspect footage in two evenings total. Catch handles all production.
Suspect casting from your staff
Five suspect roles. Staff who are willing play themselves. Roles where staff aren't interested get cast from outside. The puzzle structure works either way. Final casting confirms motive details.
Optional: a real regular as the victim
If you have a regular who would be game to play it, the buy-in is significant and the storytelling lands harder. If not, we art-direct around an absence. Both work.
Use of the bathroom doorway and corridor as the death scene
Photographed at low angle, dim lighting, the suggestion of a body half in, half out. No mess. The blue hallway is the most iconic visual moment Ford & Shep has and we want to use it.
One physical clue planted at the restaurant during the game
Recommended. The reservation slip taped to the corner booth, free for any visitor to photograph. Adds zero to production workload, creates a foot-traffic incentive, and turns into UGC when players come in to investigate.
Sign-off on the prize
To be discussed. Should be significant. A private dinner, a chef's table experience, a "restaurant closed for you and your friends" night. The prize sets the gravity of the game and the appetite for shares.
Two to three weeks from green-light to launch.
Lock the cast. Lock the prize. Final scripts.
Confirm which staff are playing themselves. Lock the victim. Source props. Scripts polished and approved.
Two evenings of production. Edit. Build @happyhunting.tv.
Shoot all video and photo. Edit announcement, carousel assets, voicemail, reveal. Stand up the secret account and seed it with case-file content.
Launch.
Day 01: Announcement post. Day 03: Carousel drops, share gate opens. Day 06: Reveal post and winner announcement.
Ford & Shep is File 001.
This is built to be a repeatable Catch property. Detective Steven Sleuth takes a new case for a new business each time. Same character. Same look. New victim. New restaurant or bar or shop. New audience watching to see who he hangs the next murder on.
Future installments inherit the audience, the format, and the engagement equity. Each new business doesn't just buy a one-off social campaign. They buy a slot in an ongoing series with a built-in following.
Ford & Shep gets the first one because Ford & Shep has the right room for it: a winding blue hallway, a chef with real pedigree, an eclectic kitchen, and the kind of dinner-and-drinks atmosphere that makes a noir mystery feel inevitable.