Stokvel: The December Payout

It's 16 December, payout day for the twelve members of the Masakhane Savings Club. At 10:30 Gogo opens the cashbox to count the R96,000 one last time, and it's empty. The gate was locked all night and the dogs were loose, so the money is still on the property. Somewhere among the six people who slept over after last night's braai is a thief.

Crack the treasurer's late-payment ledger to earn her trust, then split up across the Lounge, Kitchen, Yard and Taxi. Decode Gogo's beadwork, work out which ice-cream tub doesn't hold ice cream, separate real Big Five banknotes from the grandkids' play money, retrace a route around the dogs, decode an old button phone and settle a taxi fare dispute. Two of the rooms need something from another room, so talk to each other.

When you've found all four bundles, put together a load-shedding schedule, a braai photo, a family WhatsApp group and four overnight clues to name the thief. Every suspect is ruled out by a different clue. It's fair-play from start to finish, and no outside knowledge is needed. It's set in a South African home that could be anywhere from Polokwane to Gqeberha.

What you get

• File 1 · Start Here (11 pages): Rules, story, LOCK 1, last night's evidence, the load-shedding schedule, the progress sheet and the final lock
• File 2 · Envelopes (sealed) (22 pages): Eight room envelopes: Lounge, Kitchen, Yard and Taxi, including a how-to-solve guide for the bead chart
• File 3 · Response Cards (sealed) (18 pages): 33 cards, two per sheet
• File 4 · Hint Book (2 pages): Three hints per lock
• File 5 · Walkthrough (sealed) (3 pages): Every puzzle explained, a step-by-step bead chart solution, and what really happened
• Screen Edition · Play on screen (134 pages): Everything in one clickable PDF: envelope and card indexes, one hint per page, and a QR code for the screen companion

Highlights

• 10 locks: an opening puzzle, 4 rooms played in parallel and a six-suspect final
• Varied puzzles: a nonogram, a logic grid, banknote forensics, route-finding, predictive-text decoding, taxi-fare maths and a family-tree riddle
• Cross-room clues, so teams have to share what they find
• 33 folded Response Cards, with a NOPE card for every likely wrong answer
• 3-tier Hint Book, time penalties and ranks from Treasurer of the Year to Mashonisa Material
• No cutting needed, plus a spoiler-proof setup and a full walkthrough
• Includes a Screen Edition and an optional online companion with a tappable bead chart, stone tracer and phone keypad

Players: 2–6 · Time: 90–120 min · Ages: 12+

Instant PDF download. Best printed, but fully playable on a tablet or laptop. Licensed for personal household use only.