by Guy
Belleranti
Perhaps my favorite game as a boy was the crime solving board
game CLUE. I spent many hours in the 1960’s playing CLUE with friends
and family members.
Invented in 1944 by an Englishman named Anthony Pratt, the game
was officially launched in 1949 by Waddington Games in Great Britain
under the name CLUEDO. Parker Brothers then obtained U.S. rights and
renamed it CLUE.
The game quickly became popular, and that popularity has
continued to the present day. My children, nephews and nieces have all
grown up playing it, and on a number of occasions I played the game
with them and found I still enjoyed it. Indeed, CLUE is a game that
spans generations, for who doesn’t like solving a mystery?
The premise of CLUE is simple: A man has been murdered in his
large mansion by one of six guests. It is up to the game players to
find out which of the six guests, i.e. suspects, did it, which of the
six weapons was used, and in which of nine possible rooms it was done.
Each suspect, weapon and room is represented by a playing card.
Before the game begins one suspect card, one weapon card and one room
card is placed in a special envelope. The envelope is then placed in
the center of the board. The 18 remaining cards are then dealt among
the players.
All players check the cards they receive and then mark these
cards off their detective notebook sheets, for cards they are dealt
cannot be in the envelope and, thus, cannot be “guilty”. However,
players cannot eliminate cards they don’t receive, and, thus, most
guests, weapons and rooms are still suspect.
Each player takes a colored playing piece representing one of
the six suspect guests: Mr. Green (green game piece), Professor Plum
(purple game piece), Miss Scarlet (red game piece), Mrs. White (white
game piece), Colonel Mustard (yellow game piece) or Mrs. Peacock (blue
game piece). When I played as a child I always favored Mr. Green.
Play then begins with players moving around the mansion by one
of three methods: by throwing a die (the most common method), secret
passage travel, or by being pulled into a room when another player
suggests their character is guilty.
While everyone wants to discover who is guilty, it is just as
important to find out which weapon was used. The six possibilities
here are: the rope, candlestick, revolver, knife, wrench and lead
pipe.
Finally, there are the nine rooms in which the murder might
have occurred: the study, kitchen, dining room, ballroom, library,
billiard room, conservatory, lounge and hall.
As the players move around the board their goal is to reach
different rooms where they can then make suggestions of guilt. Once in
a room a player suggests that room, one of the suspects and one of the
weapons as the “guilty” trio.
The first player to the left who has a card representing one of
the suggestions has to show it, but only to the suggesting player. If
he/she has more than one of the suggested cards he/she shows only one.
The suggesting player crosses the card off his/her detective notebook
sheet, and the next player then takes a turn. Play proceeds this way
until someone can correctly name the suspect, weapon and room cards
hidden in the envelope.
CLUE became such a popular game that it spawned a theatrical
movie (with several different endings), a number of mystery jigsaw
puzzles, a series of children’s mystery books and many spin-off games.
Indeed, CLUE has become a part of the culture.
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