The current Cluedo and Clue logos, introduced in 2015.
Clue or Cluedo is a franchise that began as a Board Game in 1949 by the British gaming company Waddingtons. It has since enjoyed enormous worldwide success, spawning imitations and adaptations that involve the original premise and the original gameplay, but completely different premise.Clue has appeared in the following mediums:
- Clue: The original Board Game.
- Clue: A live-action film with Multiple Endings.
- Clue: A book series.
- Clue: A Comic Book series.
- Clue: A live-action Mini Series.
- Clue VCR Mystery Game: A VHS game.
- Clue The Musical: A musical
Compare Ten Little Murder Victims, And Then There Were None.
This multimedia franchise contains examples of:
- Designated Victim: Dr. Black / Mr. Boddy / Mr. Black / Dr. Boddy (his name changes depending on where the edition you're playing was published).
- Gameplay and Story Segregation: It is possible for a player to accuse themself; this is obviously to prevent the game from becoming unwinnable for that player. This is lampshaded rather humorously in the Sega Genesis version.Miss Scarlett: I win! I win! I'm going to jail... but I won!
- Gender-Equal Ensemble: Three men (Green, Mustard, and Plum) and three women (White, Peacock, and Scarlet).
- Market-Based Title: Clue in North America, Cluedo everywhere else.
- Meaningful Name: The six suspects have their last names associated with the color they're wearing (peacocks are blue, scarlet is a shade of red, and so on). And of course, there's Mr. Boddy. The British victim, Dr. Black, is sometimes illustrated as wearing black. Depending on what version you're playing, there may be various characters added in besides the main six, such as Emily Peach or Graham Slate-Grey.
- Novelization: There's a series of books based on the game. All of them give clues in the story and invite the reader to try to guess who did whatever crime occurred in the story. The crimes ranged from figuring out who stole something, to figuring out who ate a piece of pie, to (at least once per book as the Grand Finale) trying to find out who murdered Mr. Boddy. Status Quo Is God in these stories, so Mr. Boddy would always somehow survive and the criminal would either be forgiven or undiscovered entirely.
- Old, Dark House: Mr. Boddy's mansion.
- Pun-Based Title: "Cluedo" is a pun on "Ludo" (an abbreviation of the Latin for "game"), the British name for the game known to most of the rest of the world as Pachisi (or Parcheesi, or Sorry!).
