CLUEDO - THE GREAT VIDEO DETECTIVE GAME (1986)

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Well, I have had this game a while now and finally given it a brief workout.

The video starts with an introduction from the Butler, Didit!!  (Yes! I Know). There are three stories (referred to as Chapters) on the video tape supplied with the game. Each chapter is separated into five scenes and you can play each chapter three times with different sets of cards except for the blue set as the first game on the blue cards is an introductory game to get you in the swing of it all.   Yea. sounds confusing but all will be revealed.

First things first - The CLUE Facts Cards.

There are three decks of cards with either, Blue, Green or Red backing. Whichever case you decide to solve, the instruction booklet will state which deck of cards is used for that round. As stated earlier, the Blue deck is used for the introduction round which is case number 1 and only the facts from line 1 will pertain to that case. The opening case has only one scene. So, for example, if you were playing game 4 with the green deck you would only read facts with the number 4 next to them.

The fact could be along the lines of "The man who handled the Candlestick was murdered in the room with the yellow wallpaper". You need to watch the action on screen carefully as you may have three facts during the course of a game pertaining to the same scene, but this will not happen in the opening game. All facts relate to the one scene only.

The next set of cards are the Grey backed Investigation Cards.

These cards are shuffled together with the relevant deck of Facts cards and five are dealt to each player at the start of the game. You may only play these cards on your turn and use one of the options they give you. If you have no Investigation cards in your hand at your turn you must take a card from the pack. If it is an investigation card you must play it immediately. If it is a Fact card you note the fact on your detective note sheet and play passes to the next person. You are normally given two or three options on each Investigation card. You can ask a player to read out a fact. In all games but the introduction game, the scene number (1-5) which is printed on the card is also read out so players know which scene to check. After this is done, the card is placed face up in a discard pile and becomes a common fact known by all players. You may also be told to read out a fact to the other players. You may be asked to bury facts. This means only you know the facts and you discard the relevant cards in the discard pile and those facts remain known only to you until the deck is exhausted and reshuffled. You can also steal facts, replay any scene or ask another player for a "Personal Identity Fact". Personal identities are not used in the introduction game and will be explained later.

In order to replay a scene you have to index your video so that you know where to run the tape back to. Obviously, a DVD version of this game would speed up the action. The Detective Casebook has a list of all the chapters and scenes and all you need to do is write in the index points as you go along.

Personal Identities are used after the introduction game. There are ten Black backed Suspect cards.

At the start of the game each player is dealt one of these and keeps it secret. They are that character for the duration of that game. Players not only need to discover Murderers (there is normally more than one murder in each game - sometimes as many as five), Weapons and Rooms but also have to work out which player is which character. This is done by playing a round of personal identity facts.

After each scene is watched, the video is stopped and each player gives out a fact about themselves. For example - The scene could show Plum, Scarlet, Mustard, White and Peach in the Library. The player who is Mrs. White could say "I was in the Library" or maybe the scene showed all ten suspects and six were wearing watches so you could say "I was wearing a watch". This will lead to replaying of scenes to discover your identity.

So, to sum up, after a scene is watched, the video is stopped and there is a round of Personal Identity facts and then a round of card playing with the Investigation and Fact cards. Then the second scene is shown and play continues in the same way for all five scenes and then it is all card playing until a player thinks he knows all the murder solutions AND the identity of all the other players.

All facts are recorded on the Detective Notes sheet.

The players section on the left enables you to keep track of all the other players identities. You list the names of the other players in the top column and use ticks and crosses to eliminate possibilities until you discover their identity.

In this game there are ten suspects but only five weapons and rooms. Each time a room is entered in the video clips, the name appears at the bottom of the screen so you always know which room the action is taking place in. The weapons are the Knife, Candlestick, Gun, Poison & Rope. The rooms are the Hall, Dining Room, Conservatory, Kitchen and the Library.

So all in all, a very good and imaginative game but how much better it would be on DVD

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