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Cluedo / Clue (US)

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Who invented Cluedo? It was Reverend Green, in the Library with the lead piping.

No, actually, it was a Mr Antony Pratt, in Leeds in 1949.

Cluedo, is quite literally a board game phenomenon. It couldn’t be more successful if it could dance and make you coco.

Originally published by Waddingtons (the same manufacturer that brought you Monopoly, Risk and Subbuteo it was the brain child of a solicitors clerk called Mr Pratt.

The game is all about strategy. You move about the board using counters that represent different characters collecting clues as you try to deduce who murdered who, where and with what weapon.

It is tremendous fun to play, as you look suspiciously at your friends, trying desperately to use your long defunct brain to deduce who actually killed who and with what. I always feel so close to winning, but am usually completely wrong.

Mr Pratt originally called the game “Murder!” But it was changed by Waddington’s to “Cluedo” which is a merging of the words Clue and Ludo (another board game which has a similar way that the counters move around the board)

Amazingly there have been over 40 official versions of the game produced including Harry Potter and James Bond themed manifestations. There have been many computer versions as well, for most consoles - including Commodore 64, Atari ST, PC, Game Boy Advance, ZX Spectrum, Nintendo DS, Super Nintendo Entertainment System, CD-i, Sega Genesis,

In 1985 there was even a comedy film “Clue” released. In this version, the person murdered was Mr. Boddy. The film, which featured different endings released to different theatres, failed at the box office, but they never found out who murdered the plot.

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Do You Remember Cluedo / Clue (US)?

Do You Remember Cluedo / Clue (US)?

  • Anonymous user
    on
    We enjoyed Cluedo so probably in the late 1980's we bought the updated version Super Cluedo. It was a great disappointment and got played only about three times.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    I used to hate it when your character ended up as chief suspect as you were forever being picked up and taken to another room. I don't think I ever won. Our Dagger card had a severely bent corner and was thus easily identifiable. If it was picked to slip in to the envelope we would replace it to ensure a different unidentified one was chosen. Somehow one day it slipped through and as we had blithely ticked it off as usual no-one called it as the murder implement until after an extraordinarily long game the truth finally came out. Muddled cards were a bit of a feature of this game in our house - on one occasion The Ballroom actually committed the murder in the Billiard Room which was something of an achievement. Once stayed at The Fox and Goose in Armscote, Warwickshire which had four Cluedo character-themed rooms. It was Miss Peacock for us I seem to recall. The Inn has now be re-branded; I guess the Cluedo theme was a little old hat much like the game itself.
  • Anonymous user
    on
    The victim in Cluedo was Dr Black. You had to work out which of the playable characters - Reverend Green, Colonel Mustard, Mrs Peacock, Professor Plum, Miss Scarlett and Mrs White - had killed him, where (10 possible rooms) and with which of the 6 possible murder weapons. In America, they changed Reverend Green to Mr Green, because they couldn't have a priest as a possible murderer.

Do you remember these?