Clue

Overview

Sold as Cluedo outside North America and Clue in it. Dr Black has been murdered at Tudor Mansion. Work out who did it, with what, and where, before anyone else.

This entry is checked against Hasbro's current Cluedo instructions, item 38712 (the Australian and UK "classic refresh", ©2020). This edition changed several things from the Cluedo many people grew up with. Those differences are flagged below, because a table playing an older set will disagree with this page in places, and both can be right for their own box.

1. The cast, weapons and rooms

Suspects	Weapons	Rooms
Miss Scarlett	Candlestick	Kitchen
Colonel Mustard	Dagger	Ballroom
Dr Orchid	Lead Pipe	Conservatory
Reverend Green	Revolver	Dining Room
Mrs Peacock	Rope	Billiard Room
Professor Plum	Wrench	Library
		Lounge, Study, Bathroom

Changed in this edition: Dr Orchid replaces Mrs White, the wrench is the spanner, and the Bathroom replaces the Hall.

Contents: a board, six character tokens, six miniature weapons, 50 cards (6 character, 6 weapon, 9 room and 29 clue cards), a case file envelope, detective notebook sheets and two dice. Two to six players.

2. Setup

1. Put all six tokens on their starting spaces, even with fewer than six players, and choose your character.
2. Put each weapon in a different room, at random.
3. Set the 29 clue cards aside as their own face-down deck.
4. Shuffle the character, weapon and room cards as three separate decks and put the top card of each into the envelope unseen. That's the solution.
5. Shuffle the rest together and deal them all out. It doesn't matter if some players get more cards than others.
6. Look at your cards and cross them off your notebook sheet. They can't be in the envelope.

To play the traditional game, simply leave out the 29 clue cards.

3. A turn

Miss Scarlett always starts, and play goes clockwise. If nobody is Scarlett, the next character clockwise starts.

Move

Choose one:

• Roll both dice and move that many squares. If you rolled a magnifying glass, first draw a clue card, read it out and do what it says (two magnifying glasses means two cards). The magnifying glass counts as 1 for movement.
• Use a secret passage. Kitchen and Study are linked, and so are Conservatory and Lounge. Taking a passage replaces your roll.
• Stay in the room you're in.

When moving:

• no diagonal moves;
• no square twice in the same turn;
• no landing on or passing through another token, and no passing through a doorway blocked by one;
• enter rooms through a doorway. You don't need the exact number. Stop once you're inside.

Any number of tokens can share a room.

Suggest

If you reach a room or are already in one, you may make a suggestion: a character, a weapon, and the room you're in.

"I suggest it was the Reverend Green, with the rope, in the lounge."

Move the named character and weapon into the room. They aren't returned afterwards.

Then, starting with the player on your left:

• if they hold one of the three cards, they must show it to you only;
• if they hold more than one, they choose which to show;
• if they hold none, they say so and the next player checks.

As soon as one card is shown, that's the end of your turn. If nobody can show a card, mark that too. It's a big clue.

If your token was moved

If someone else's suggestion drags your token into a room, you stay there. On your next turn you may move as normal or make a suggestion in that room.

4. The accusation

When you think you know the answer, on your turn:

• You must be in a room, but any room; it needn't be the one you name.
• You can accuse straight after making a suggestion, without rolling again.
• You get one accusation per game.

Say "I accuse [character], with [weapon], in [room]", then look in the envelope secretly.

• All three right — show everyone. You win.
• Any one wrong — put the cards back unseen. You take no more turns and make no more suggestions, but you must still show cards when asked, and other players can still move your token.

If nobody ever accuses correctly, the murderer gets away with it and nobody wins.

5. Two-player (or team) game

Set up as normal, but after shuffling the remaining cards together, place the top four face down in four different rooms before dealing the rest. When you enter a room holding a card, look at it secretly and mark your sheet, then suggest as usual. For a quicker game, put the four cards in the corner rooms.

6. Strategy

Being dragged into a room by someone else's suggestion is a gift. You're already somewhere you can suggest from, at no movement cost.

Track who showed you what, and who couldn't. The sheet's own tip: note "who showed you which card", and which cards you have shown to whom, so you don't give more away than you must.

Suggest cards from your own hand deliberately. If you name a weapon you hold, anything shown must be the character or the room, which narrows it down.

Commonly argued

• You must be in the room you suggest.
• You can stay in a room and suggest again on your next turn.
• Only one card is shown per suggestion: by the first player on your left who has one.
• You must be in a room to accuse, though not the one you name.
• A wrong accusation puts you out, but you keep showing cards.
• Tokens and weapons that are called into a room stay there.
• No exact roll is needed to enter a room. You can't move diagonally.
• The current edition has a Bathroom, not a Hall, and Dr Orchid, not Mrs White.
• Remove the clue cards to play the traditional game.

Where this comes from

Hasbro's Cluedo instructions, item 38712, ©2020, from Hasbro's Australian instructions site. The North American Clue has been published in several editions with differences of its own, which haven't been compared with this one.

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