The Clue! (released as Der Clou! in German-speaking regions) is a 1994 heist game, set in 1953 London, that combines role-playing and adventure elements between heists with tactical / strategy elements when playing them out. The player takes the role of Matt Stuvysant, starting out as a small-time crook and working their way up into bigger and better heists.
It is a remake of an 1986 game for the Amstrad CPC, Commodore 64, and ZX Spectrum, They Stole A Million.
The game has been released as open-source, and both the source code and a version compatible with modern hardware are available here
.
The Clue! provides examples of:
- The Caper: The premise of the game, of course, is that you are planning and executing a series of these.
- Caper Crew: A few very early crimes can be done solo, but eventually you're going to have to recruit one of these in the adventure segments.
- Dead All Along: At the end of the game it turns out that this story was narrated by Matt Stuvysant's ghost.
- London Gangster: The player eventually, of course, runs afoul of some of these.
