Cluedo - How to Play the Clue Board Game

Cluedo or Clue is a game of deduction for 2/3 to 6 players, and is suitable for ages 8 years and up. It takes just 5 minutes to set up and the usual playing time is about 15 to 45 minutes.

Though it is a dice rolling game it's not just a game of chance as it does involve your skills of elimination and a certain amount of bluffing. This is why this game is fun for kids and adults!

The classic clue board game is essentially a detective game, which starts with the murder of Mr. Boddy and involves the 9 rooms of Mr. Boddy's mansion, the 6 guests at Mr. Boddy's dinner party and 6 possible weapons.

At the beginning of the game the Clue cards are separated into categories i.e. rooms, suspects and weapons. And one card of from each of these 3 categories is selected at random and placed in the envelope, so that no-one can see what those 3 cards are - these 3 cards are of the murderer, the room the murder was committed and which weapon was used to kill Mr. Boddy. The rest of the cards are shuffled together and dealt out between the players.

Now, the aim of the Clue game is to work out which cards are in the envelope and so with the process of deduction - you can make a definite call or at least a good guess at which 3 cards had been removed from the game. To be the winner of the game you have to be the first one to guess these 3 cards correctly. In other words you have to say who you think is the murderer, where they done the crime and with what!

Now that everyone has their cards, without anyone else seeing them, tick them off the Clue checklist (a list of all the cards in the game). Then place all six character playing pieces on their corresponding start position around the board.

After choosing the nearest playing piece as your character, you take it in turns (going round clockwise) to roll the dice and move your character piece around the board accordingly. You manoeuvre around the board with the aim of getting to a particular room.

When you have managed to get into a room you've a chance to have a go at eliminating cards off your checklist, so make a suggestion. You do this by bringing into the room the character piece and weapon you want to put forward as your suggestion along with the room that you think are in the envelope.
For example: "I suggest it was Mrs. Peacock, in the conservatory, with the rope". You put your suggestion to the person to your right and if they have any of the cards in their hand they have to show you just one of them.

You can then tick that card off your checklist. If that person doesn't have any then you ask the person next to them etc. Once you have an answer to your accusation it's the next person's go to move and suggest. And so you continue eliminating items off the list until you know or have a very good idea of the who, where and how of the mystery. Whoever solves the crime first is the winner!

This is just a quick summary of the Clue game play. As there are many versions of Clue there are also many versions of the Clue game rules. But the above summary is the basis for all the variations.

You can also play the Classic Clue board game against the computer on your Mac or PC. This is a great adaptation of the detective board game. So if you are feeling nostalgic and want to play Clue but you've got no-one to play with, you can now play a computer version of classic Clue game.

For details of this Mac/PC game, visit my lens: Clue Classic for Computer.