by Nathan Stout (of AccordingToWhim.com)
Welcome to this latest game review (video included).
Today I am checking out Clue Suspects. This is an off-shoot of the Clue series of games by Parker Brothers. It is not manufactured by Parker Brothers but licensed out to Winning Moves. I think they did a great job bringing a twist on a familiar game series.
OBJECTIVE
Read the game card and place the dead body somewhere in the mansion. Read through the clues on the card and place characters around the mansion to eventually discover who killed did the murder (the character that winds up in the room with the dead body).
GAMEPLAY
Clue Suspects comes with a molded plastic mansion with 6 rooms. The murder will take place in one of the rooms. The card you use for the game you are playing (there are 60 different games to be played) to place the body and remove all characters NOT involved in this particular case of murder. You then read the clues, one at a time and deduct where to put each character. The cards will say something like ‘Lady Lavender was alone in the East wing of the house’. This tells you that that character will be by themselves in one of the room on the left side of the mansion game board. Now, it is up to you working out the other clues to discover if she was on the 1st or 2nd floor. You move move down the list and work out where everyone else was and hopefully you will discover that one character is in the room with the body.
The game play is engaging and really gets you working on each clue and how it affects where you put your characters inside the mansion. If it gets too easy for you there is a more complex set of puzzles you can work on as well. You flip the cardboard room card over (in the plastic mansion) and use the Red cards instead of the blue ones. There are 30 of each type of card for up to 60 games.
This is a one player game and that is something that gets high marks from me. I don’t have a lot of friends and even less time to organize game nights so a game I can play alone is a bonus!
PRODUCTION
The plastic mansion doubles as a carrying case for all the characters and cards (there are even slots for the character pieces to neatly fit into). It is well made and was a pretty good deal (if my memory serves me correctly). I bougth this at Toys R Us several years ago and it has held up fine through moves and friends borrowing it.
TIPS
My only real tip here is to take it slow and don’t be afraid to move your characters around if you feel you are not getting the results you want.
Thank you.