The murder mystery dinner party trope seems to run deep in childhood fantasy for most, so it’s no wonder millions of kids tried on their detective caps and played “Clue.” Likely more drawn to the little metal weapons than the gameplay, children rarely played correctly, but still somehow had fun. Why would such a bloody good time deserve the death sentence? Let’s take a stab at a cold-blooded classic.
It’s worth acknowledging first that Clue is simple and charming. It’s innately English and delightfully quaint. The rooms, weapons and characters are all iconic, and the overall theme purveyed pop culture for the past century. The numerous spin-off games, movies, musicals, books, etc. are evidence of Clue’s legendary status.
It’s all fun and games until you reach Nash equilibrium.
The gameplay is simple: Three cards naming a suspect, location and murder weapon, are removed at the beginning of the game and sealed in an envelope. You start a “rumor” by naming a suspect, location and murder weapon, and in clockwise order, your opponents attempt to “disprove” it, by showing you a card from their hand.
For example, You might have “White” and the “observatory” in your hand, so you say, “I think it was White in the observatory with the knife.” If someone shows you the “knife,” you know that it’s not in the envelope. Otherwise, it is. Name what’s in the envelope and you win.
The grandest strategy in Clue is simple yet still yields a “eureka” moment for newcomers. If you take note of when opponents show information to other opponents, you’ll quickly spin a web of possibilities.
For example,you are holding the “observatory” in your hand, and you know your friend is holding the “knife” in his. Your friend starts a rumor saying, “I think it was Peacock in the observatory with the knife.” A different player shows him a card. Based on the information you know, that card was “Peacock” — and another thing off the list.
If you didn’t have one of those pieces of information, you could still take note of it, and then learn from it later down the line when you know more. Depending on how you expand this simple strategy can make you killer at playing Clue.
Unfortunately, there’s the Nash equilibrium. If you take the proper notes of every rumor, you’ll know the answer at the moment it’s knowable. And if your opponents do the same, they will too. Then there’s no more game.
At least the components are fun, though, right?
This game can actually be played without the iconic board, classic weapons and elegantly colored pawns. That’s right, nearly every component of this game is absolutely mechanically unnecessary. All of the gameplay is in the cards and checklists.
If played today, you’d realize how easy it is to forget to move the weapon tokens to the room where a rumor is started. You’d be just as quick to realize how unimportant it is to do so, and as a result, you might stop doing it halfway through.
In Clue, the dice are unneeded. They merely act as a hindrance for players progressing as quickly as they’re learning, which sounds outright contradictory. A race of deduction probably shouldn’t be slowed by dice rolls.
Despite the dice, the cards are where the luck is.
Shuffling all the game’s information and distributing it evenly seems to make sense, but the different card types are not created equal. The hands-down most important cards are “rooms,” as they dictate where players repeatedly start rumors from. With a high chance of receiving no room cards from the deal, one or more players can be out of the running before the race even begins.
Maxing out at six players, with nine rooms, some players will receive more room cards than others. To be lucky enough to get two rooms next to each other is to have a nearly guaranteed victory, as the rules state you may not start a “rumor” in the same room twice. So just bounce between the rooms you have, provided the dice take pity on you.
If a player that received one or zero room cards manages to beat the odds and figure out what room is in the envelope, it won’t be long before they give it away to the others, being forced to start rumors from that room. Speaking of beating the odds, at any point, including the first rumor, a player can immediately learn parts of the answer through sheer luck.
Any player can be lucky enough to have their first rumor contain a part of the answer. The same can be said about their next two rumors. Dumb luck can reveal a lot to any player, no matter what their strategy.
Clue is dripping with theme — but it’s diluted.
How could a deduction race to track a murderer be anything but thrilling? The game’s theme falls flat on its face with a simple quirk: Any player could be the murderer and not realize it. Since all the players act as suspects, one player could be the killer.
The game reaches its climax when a player finally gets to the center room and accuses a murderer, risking elimination if they’re wrong. Turns out, they themselves committed the murder, yet they win for realizing. What?
The verdict is in…
Clue fails to deliver on its promise of a detective experience, a lie that’s force fed in a spoonful of nostalgia. Its aesthetic components are mechanically unnecessary and severely hinder the gameplay — gameplay that can be broken if played optimally. At the end of the day, it’s for kids — but if your little brother says he doesn’t have the candlestick when he does, the game’s ruined. Clue is a cluttered mess of unnecessary junk supporting an already solved puzzle. Therefore, I sentence you to death, Clue.
