Do you need to be part of a group to play in the Detective Lounge?

You can create your own group and make it public. So you can compete in the lounge competition. I just joined a group. It was an open group so I did not have to apply. We have 12 members and everyone is super nice and exchanges coffee, gifts each other plants, and plays in competitions together. We don’t really chat or anything, but we do help each other out. Anyway, long story short, you can create your own club and do the challenges alone.

Depends what you want to achieve. If you want to just want to get the minimum prize in the competition, you can do that yourself. If you want to get more energy to play, better to share coffee with a group that can coordinate meeting at the specified time. If you want to compete and win the top prizes, you will need a full or nearly full team.