An aristocrat mansion, a murdered host and one of the guests has to be the murderer. Each player takes over the role of one of those guests / suspects / detectives trying to find out the truth. Of course, this is the classic boardgame in the mystery genre: Cluedo.

The rules are simple. Each player gets three cards, one showing a character, one a room and one a weapon. Possession of such a card means the pictured piece can't have been involved in the murder (take it as a piece of negative proof). The goal is to find out the correct combination of murderer, location and weapon.

Everyone is walking around the house. Entering a room, the player can make a suggestion. If any of the other players has one of the cards contained in that suggestion, they have to show it to the player having done the suggestion, thus proving it wrong. None of the other players can see the actual cards, but it can still be an invaluable piece of information...

Of course, solving a Cluedo case is nothing but a simple piece of logic. This makes it very accessable which is perfect for a board game you want to enjoy in company (not just the company of master matematicians). Which leads us right to the big problem of this computer game. If you have a few other people with you to play, you might as well play the board game. In spite of decent graphics, automatic card management and some AI-controlled players to fill up the board, it's just not the same as sitting around a table with a real board.

Like pretty much any board game conversion, Cluedo loses its attraction almost completely when played alone. Yet, they couldn't have done much better. It's a flaw of the medium, not the game.

Anyway, here's an important hint from my personal experience with Cluedo: The murderer is always Colonel Mustard. It's a given fact. However, if you play with newcomers, you can greatly confuse them by suggesting other characters...


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