I've been perplexed as to why so many folks call this game Cluedo. Turns out that Cluedo came first in the UK. The name is intended to be some kind of pun on Ludo, which is what our British friends call Parchisi. Which really begs the question; what exactly does Parchisi have to do with a game like Clue, other than one rolls dice to move pawns? It strikes me as convoluted logic, like comparing a Radio Flyer wagon to a 65' Mustang (hey, they both roll and move on land). But I will digress and leave this naming argument up to someone who is better able to explain it.
Image courtesy of jbd001/BGG
Clue is a venerable classic which pits players against each other (in a benign fashion) to discover the great "whodunnit", namely to figure out who put Mr. Boddy on ice. The game is set in a mansion, Mr. Boddy's mansion to be exact, and the players are one of several suspects with probable motive to put Boddy 6 feet under. The goal of each player is to figure out who committed the murder, in what room, and with what weapon. Whoever does so first wins the game.
The Gameboard
Boddy Mansion is broken up into 9 separate rooms and the halls which connect them. In addition to this are two secret passages, the first which connects the Lounge to the Conservatory and the other which joins the Kitchen to the Study. The purpose of these is to shorten travel time around the board as using the dice to make one's way to a target room on the other corner of the board might take close to 3-4 turns.
Image courtesy of MeYesMe/BGG
The Pieces
Most modern incarnations of Clue use little plastic figurines to represent each of the players. There are a total of 6 players in the game:
Colonel Mustard - yellow Professor Plum - purple Mrs. Peacock - blue Mr. Green - green (in some iterations he is "Reverend Green") Ms. Scarlett - red Mrs. White - white
Image courtesy of Ryan Maesen/BGG. The guy wanting to play "pull my finger" is Col. Mustard, while Professor Plum on the right is trying his best not to look like Waldo. Jessica Rabbit in the background is Ms. Scarlett.
There are also the weapon pieces. These iconic little items are probably the niftiest part about Clue in that they're little metallic representations of the possible murder weapons. There's the Revolver, Candlestick, Rope (the plastic one), Knife, Lead Pipe, and Wrench.
Image courtesy of Rob Robinson/BGG
In addition to this there are 21 cards, each depicting suspects, weapons, and rooms.
Image courtesy of TonyStark/BGG.
There's also a little detective notebook which players use to keep track of clues they come across and record said information.
Image courtesy of Jamie Jones/BGG. Notepads from various editions of Clue through the years.
Rounding things off are two d6 dice.
The movie Clue (1985) which was based (somewhat) on the board game. Funny stuff!
How it Plays
Each pawn is put on its own marker on the board (these spaces are clearly marked) and a single weapon will go into various rooms. The deck of cards is split up into its base 3 categories; suspects, weapons, and rooms. Each is then shuffled and a single card drawn from each stack and placed into the manilla "Confidential" folder which comes with the game. This little case file is then placed in the center of the board and in it is the identify of the suspect, what weapon they used, and where they did the deed.
Players are dealt the remaining cards and proceed to move around the board visiting rooms as they go. Using the cards in their hand players will then try to deduce the identity of the killer, their weapon, and what room the murder took place in. To do this players, upon entering a room, make a "suggestion", which usually goes something akin to "I suggest Mr. Green did it in the Ballroom with the Knife". The player to the immediate left must secretly show the person making the suggestion one of the three cards being suggested if they have them (Mr. Green, Ballroom, or Knife). If they do not have any the player next in line must show them said cards. If cards being suggested are displayed to the player making the suggestion they then write this information down on their detective notepad. Any suggestion must be made in the room being suggested (ie; one cannot suggest "Ms. Scarlett with the Lead Pipe in the Lounge" if the suggesting player's piece is sitting in the Conservatory). Eventually, after enough questioning, players will be able to narrow it all down to the person/weapon/room and at that point can make an Accusation. A player is only allowed to make an Accusation once and checks their results against the contents of the case file in the center of the board. If they're right they win the game. If they're wrong then they're out of the game.
Image courtesy of Quinn Munnerlyn/BGG. A game of Clue just getting started.
Example of Gameplay
Joe (as Professor Plum) has his suspects narrowed down to either Mr. Green or Mrs. White and is pretty sure the suspect committed the crime with either the Wrench or the Revolver in the Ballroom. Joe moves his piece into the Ballroom and makes a suggestion. "I suggest that Mrs. White did it in the Ballroom with the Wrench". Both Mrs. White's pawn and the Wrench are both moved to the Ballroom. The player to Joe's immediate left shows Joe the Wrench card, which Joe quickly scratches off on his notepad. Joe now knows that the murder was committed in the Ballroom with the Revolver (as all other weapon possibilities have been eliminated) and now only needs to narrow down who committed the murder.
Conclusions
I won't lie about it...I really like Clue. I find it to be fun and relaxing and it makes for fun conversations around the gameboard. With decent players involved most folks will typically start to make their conclusion around the same time, which often prompts some players to make a premature Accusation, which gets them booted out of the game. The little weapon pieces are icing on the cake. Clue is not everyone's cup of tea, of course, but I think for the average person this will scratch that murder mystery itch that a most other accessible board games just don't provide. It's fun, easily taught, and is a staple of my family's game night, and there's absolutely nothing wrong with that.
As a warning, there is a system that players can use to deduce the end of the game faster than everyone else. I know of this system although I do not know how it works. And I don't care to know how it works . I have a family member who uses this system, wins the game on rounds 3 or 4, and everyone else is bummed out for the rest of the night. The end result is no one wants to play with her. That's a terrible fate for any board game fan, so if you know how this works please keep it to yourself.
Image courtesy of Wenas Irawan/BGG. Professor Plum, in the Dining Room, with the Chicken McNugget.
Pros
- Easy to learn - Fun - Undeniably charming if you're playing with the right people - Relatively short game, usually clocking in at less than an hour - Nifty bits - Nice and themey
Cons
- You need a minimum of 3 players - It's not particularly deep - One of your opponents may be using that goofy quick deduction system and will solve the case 10 turns ahead of you, ruining the rest of your evening and sucking the fun out of life.
Introduced it to the kids last night. Everyone enjoyed it until me seven yr old decided to trick dad and not reveal a card and I made a false accusation. We might try sgain today.
This is not the cat you're looking for - some other cat maybe?
tout passe, tout lasse, tout casse
I won't give away the full secret of how to win games much more quickly, but I will give a slight hint
Spoiler (mouseover to reveal):
It is far more important to note which cards a player doesn't have than which ones they do.
That's not enough to win in 3-4 turns unless exceptionally lucky (after all, nobody can get into a room on the first turn. Even Mrs Peacock who has the shortest route still fails to get into a room on the second turn 5/12 of the time; the others fail 7/12 of the time). It is unlikely that 10 questions (total, by all the players) will identify everything so that is 2-3 more turns. However, by another 2-3 turns after that at least one player should know the solution and the others should be "almost there" (perhaps longer if the room is one of the ones that are difficult to get to or someone is always dragging someone back to the Lounge as much to stop them traveling as to gain information themselves (incidentally, that is the strategy for dealing with a player who always wins quickly ... especially if the player to her left has the card for that room!).
Well, given that the game was published in England first and was named in reference to another name (Cluedo to Ludo), and given that Ludo is not called Ludo in the US (it's Parchisi here), I'm guessing Parker Brothers figured no one in the US would get the pun, so they opted to give it an all new name. The simplest way to do it was to name it simply Clue. This was a perfect fit as players spend the entire game gathering clues, and the name itself evokes thoughts of murder/mysteries, etc.
Ludo is the Latin for "I play" - that's where the name most probably comes from. (I am pretty sure that Mr Pratt knew Latin; pretty much every English schoolboy learned Latin until about the 1960s.)
So it's not a pun based on the game of the same name, but it's a Latin pun from which I imagine both game names are derived, rather than there being any direct connection between the games.
Nice review of a terrific game even if you are technically right about the fatal flaw. What's interesting is how tough it has been for people to try and fix that flaw - they either get too complex (Black Vienna) or too chaotic (Mystery of the Abbey.)
. I have a family member who uses this system, wins the game on rounds 3 or 4, and everyone else is bummed out for the rest of the night. The end result is no one wants to play with her. That's a terrible fate for any board game fan, so if you know how this works please keep it to yourself. 
