by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)
Today’s Blog WAS about a great single player game in the Clue series of games called Clue: Mysteries. As I did some research on the series as a whole I wound up writing more and more about the series so I decided to just cover the general ‘Clue universe’ instead.
I grew up in the 70’s and 80’s and quite remember the old(er) edition of Clue that was hanging around my step Grandmother’s house. The game was created in 1949 but I’m sure it was the 1963 version that she had. The characters were these 60’s esque drawings. Since then I have played the 1972 version, 1997, and 2002 versions.
The game originally had 6 suspects:
- Miss Scarlett
- Colonel Mustard
- Mrs. White
- Mr. Green
- Mrs. Peacock
- Professor Plum
In 1988 a few more characters were added for Clue: Master Detective, an expanded version of Clue with more suspects, weapons, more places for the murder to occur and some new extra rules. The added characters were:
- Madame Rose
- Mr. Bruette
- Miss Peach
- Seargeant Gray
In 2003 a few more characters were added for: Electronic Talking Clue FX:
- Rusty
- Mrs. Meadow-Brook
- Prince Azure (non-suspect)
- Lady Lavander (non-suspect)
- Lord Gray (non-suspect)
In 2005 a couple of new characters showed up in Clue Mysteries:
- Mr. Boddy (non-suspect)
- Inspector Brown (non-suspect)
The only other characters in the series are the butlers that are in various editions (like the VCR edition and such):
- Didit
- Mr. Ashe
- Hogarth
The concept has been who murdered Mr. Body (or Mr. X) or various other people (depending on the game) but a few of the games don’t use murder as the focal point. In the Jr. editions there is no murder (for obvious reasons… we don’t want little Johnny to be scarred by a game before he goes off and watches decapitations on television or drive by shootings outside). Clue Mysteries uses various crimes as the focus of the game but overall the series is about ‘who dunit’!
As the years progress and game companies try to create new stuff Clue has seemed to have lost it’s core concept with versions such as Clue: Secrets in Paris, and Suspects and Spies. You can almost always find the original themed game out there so don’t despair. You can also find it a million times over on EBay or in a thrift store.
I reviewed Clue: The Great Museum Caper last year so go check it out. I also did video reviews for a few of the Clue games including Suspects, The Great Museum Caper, and Mysteries.