Game Review

Concept:

Solve a murder mystery by sharing clues about the rooms, weapons, and suspects.

Gameplay:

Players choose their pawn by color and assume the role of the corresponding suspect. (Yellow= Col. Mustard; Red=Miss Scarlet; Blue=Mrs. Peacock; etc.) Each player is given a checklist of suspects, weapons, and rooms, and a pencil.  Players decide who will go first.

A deck of clue cards is separated into suspects, weapons and rooms.  One card from each group is selected  without looking at them and placed in a special envelope. (This is the solution to the game.)  The remaining cards are shuffled together -- and then dealt to all of the players.

On each player's turn, they roll the movement die and march their pawn around the board.  When they have reached a room, they may announce a suspicion: " I suspect it was..." and then name a suspect and weapon and the current room their pawn is in.  The pawns and weapons involved in the suspicion are moved to the room in question.  In turn, each opponent has the opportunity to disprove the suspicion by revealing a clue card that the hold.  Once shown, no other players must reveal any additional information.

If you have a clue that can disprove it, you MUST reveal it -- but if you have multiple clues to disprove it you only have to reveal one of them.

When a player believes that they know the correct suspect, weapon and room, then they may make an accusation.  Once this is done, they check the envelope set aside at the start of the game.  If correct, they win the game.  If they are wrong, they replace the envelope, and they are out of the game (except for revealing clue cards to other players.)

Winning Conditions:

• Make an accusation correctly specifying the suspect, weapon, and room.
  

Our Opinion:

This is a board game classic -- the intrigue of a murder mystery combined with the simplicity of moving a pawn around the board in any direction you wish.  It works on simple deductive reasoning, and a dash of guile to protect your knowledge from your opponents.

Most people have played Clue in their lifetime.  It has a movie based upon it, and several other game variants. (In fact, other companies have parodied it.)  Most of the reviewing team did not care to review it -- largely because they had grown up with the game and no longer cared to play it.  That being said, when we played our review round, everyone still enjoyed it.

Strategically, your best bet is to only reveal specific clues to your opponents whenever possible.  Additionally, listening to other player's suspicions being disproved may allow you to eliminate other possibilities that you have not necessarily been shown as false.  We also found that when one player seemed to be well on the way to winning, continually accusing their pawn as a suspect kept them from gaining additional room information -- they became restricted to the wrong sections of the board.  (Aggressive players make this game much more entertaining.)

This game requires more than three players to be effectively fun.  The more players, the less information everyone has, and thus makes the mystery more difficult to solve.  It's a good game to use when you are mixing adult players with younger children who aren't as strategically sophisticated.  Most of our reviewers admitted playing it with their children, until the novelty wore off of the kids.  It is a solid game, well known, and since the solution changes every game it it very replayable.  It is well worth the typical $12-15 price that is commonly associated with it.

Where to buy:

Any local toy store -- Our copy was from a Target and cost about $15.