As classic as they come.

Have you ever played Cluedo? I bet you have, but you might have just called it Clue. Surprised to learn that Clue isn’t originally from the US? Yup, first came from the UK and was called Cluedo, (pronounced like Clu Du). The classic murder mystery game is always a smart and sophisticated option for individuals looking for a game to play as a group. Also, it works wonders to reveal which of your friends are actually idiots.

The Original Murder

Anthony E. Pratt, (a right good Englishman), filed a patent for a murder/mystery board game called “Murder!” This took place in 1944. Pratt and his wife went ahead and had the game purchased and trademarked as “Cluedo” in 1947 but wouldn’t make it to the public until 1949 due to the war and the shortages that came along with said war. Parker Brothers distributed the game as “Clue” in the US and since then people have been investigating the murder of a one Dr. Black (Mr. Boddy for you Yanks), for years to come.

As we know it now, the game involves up to six players assuming the roles of Miss Scarlet, Colonel Mustard, Mrs. White, Mrs. Peacock, Professor Plum, and Reverend Green (or Mr. Green in some editions), and searching a mansion for clues regarding the murder. The original concept for the game involved 10 characters, one of which was the victim of the murder (which probably wouldn’t be a very fun piece to play, really), but the number was cut back to the standard six that we’ve all come to know and love and suspect (it’s always that lying Miss Scarlet though, as if you couldn’t tell by the way she acts). There were also more rooms and more weapons in the concept version but as things stand today we have just enough to be manageable.

I Suspect Everyone

So much mystery, so little time.

The average game consists of first having the evidence cards shuffled and a suspect card, location card, and weapon card placed in the envelope. This combination is the solution that all players are trying to figure out. They do this by keeping track of clues they find or have been given since at the beginning of the game the remaining cards are dealt to the players. You would be wise to write down all this information on your little notepad as it’ll come in handy. This is the first sign that one of your friends is an idiot, assuming they don’t properly keep track of anything.

As the game goes on, players move into a room and then make the claim that “someone did something in this room!” Since there are six characters, six weapons, and nine rooms, there are 324 possible solutions to the murder. Once a claim is made, let’s say I accused Miss Scarlet of murdering Dr. Black in the library with the dagger (because she totally would, that liar). Players would go around the table clockwise to disprove my claim by showing me a card that contains one of the elements I menti...

Oh come on, you've played this game already, right?

Sitting down with people is difficult to do. Who likes to talk anymore? Too hard. In today’s world people need something to ease the awkwardness of social interaction, and while there are many options both legal and otherwise, I’d say the smartest comes down to a party game. You may have read my previous review of Scattergories , but there is another game that gets the job done just as well: Cranium.

Cranium is the answer to the unanswerable question of “Hey, what game do we play?” where everyone has a different answer. Cranium is what happens when Hasbro sneezes and all sorts of games come out in a spray of randomness. You have some Pictionary, some Charades, some Trivial Pursuit, and some word puzzles to appeal to just about any and all skill groups.

I Know This Game, Right?

The basis of Cranium revolves around teams of players taking turns rolling the die, moving around the board, and completing challenges based on four different categories which are: Creative Cat (drawing or sculpting), Data Head (trivia and fact-based questions), Word Worm (word puzzles), and Star Performer (performance-based). A good team obviously needs to have people adept in at least one of the four categories, if not more.

That looks like oodles of fun. Yes, I said "oodles."

Richard Tait created the game in 1992 (oh by the way, history time), when he played some games with another family and decided there needed to be a game that appealed to multiple player-types. He pulled in Whit Alexander, a friend of his, to join in on creating what we now know as Cranium. A few deals with Hasbro later and you can pick up Cranium for $24.99 wherever board games are sold.

Basically what you have here is a way to please everyone at a social gathering. While some people would be embarrassed to pantomime a famous actor, others would be more than willing. The same goes for individuals bett...

I’ll be downright honest here and let you in on a little secret: Before I got The Game Of Things for Christmas I had never heard of it before. Does that make me a bad person? Probably not. What it did manage to do is make me feel kind of stupid since there’s a pretty decent game here for parties with the right group of people. Let’s get into this review then.

Playing With Things


So how do you play this game? It’s actually rather simple. You’ll need at least four players (though I can see it working with a few as three, but honestly you want half a dozen or more, preferably). Everyone gets a slip of paper and someone reads a card that contains a thing, such as “Things you wouldn’t want to do in a cemetery” or “Things that annoy you.”

The players then scribble their response and pass them to the reader who in turn waits for all the slips to come in before reading them aloud, saying that the responses for “Things not to do in a hospital” are “Smoke,” “Hold up,” “Have an operation,” or “Look for dates.” It doesn’t matter the answer or how true it is because the next part is where the actual game comes into play.

The person to the left of the reader is the first to guess. They may say that “Chris said ‘Look for dates’ in a hospital,” and the reader would either confirm or deny this. If the person was right, they get a point and get to go again. However, Chris (that’d be me for this example) is out for the rest of that turn since he made it too simple for people to guess his answer. Play continues until all the slips are guessed, though you aren’t allowed to guess the reader’s answer since they don’t get a chance to get points in that round anyway. And basically that’s the game. Copy/paste, lather-rinse-repeat.

It's a Party Game for a Reason

This is where I’m saying that more people are better. If you have a group of four playing, one person is automatically excluded from getting points that round since they are the reader. The person to their left has all the advantages in the world as long as they know the rest of the players really well. But even if they do, they can only get a total of two points that round since they can’t guess the reader’s response and it’d be counter-productive to guess their own. I played with a group of five people and the final score after ten rounds was ten to nine to eight to six to one. I…I had the one point for the following reason: I played the game like Scattergories and that’s a mistake.



See, you don’t want to play this one like you would a lot of creative games where the most creative answers are the best. That actually works against you since you’ll give yourself away every time as it becomes pretty obvious who among your group is most likely to think of hilarious responses and who is most likely to be your father and trick everyone into believing down and out lies. Yeah, he won the game, but only because he cheated like every game he ever plays (except TrueQuest , because ...