CLUE: MURDER AT BODDY MANSION (aka CLUEDO: MURDER AT BLACKWELL GRANGE)

Poor Mr. Boddy's Dead... Again!

Clue, the classic family detective game, comes to life with Murder at Boddy Mansion. Mr. Boddy has been murdered, and it's up to you to crack the cruel case! Whodunnit? Where? And with what? All of the colorful characters from the board game are here, and each is a prime suspect. You'll need your best sleuthing skills to correctly answer the key questions that will solve the crime. Beware!

Key Game Features

• Same colorful characters from the classic board game.
• Stunning 3-D graphics take you inside Boddy Mansion.
• Play with or without computerized dice.
• Adjustable challenge levels let the whole family play.
• Multi-player over LAN and Internet.
• One to six players.

~ from the back of the box

Out of all the classic board games, Cluedo bar far holds up the best. The murder mystery concept, the iconic characters, the process of elimination gameplay; it can easily sit alongside the more modern boxes in today's tabletop resurgence. Cluedo: Murder at Blackwell Grange (or Clue: Muder at Boddy Mansion) is a straight-up adaptation of that board game, but it remains one of the best.

Coming to digital PCs almost 50 after the original physical release, Cluedo was mostly met with positivity, getting respectable scores among the gaming press. The biggest gripe most had with it was it being little more than a straight adaptation. It is indeed that, but I believe it injects personality, character and drama elevating it from most of the previous, dryer versions.

A comprehensive player's guide is found included. Useful nor newbie sleuths (left).
There is a robust selection of options. I recommend turning on Auto Notes to begin with (right).

Picture it; a stormy night. Thunder claps and lightning strobes the sky. Somewhere inside an imposing mansion, a murder has taken place and one of the guests is responsible. Narrated by the droll butler (who didn't do it), in all his received pronunciation, players take turns to visit rooms where the murder might have taken place. Each player has bit and pieces of information at their disposal by way of cards. These contain rooms, suspects and murder weapons dealt to each player. One of each has been set aside, hidden from players. This is how the deceased met his end and you are to guess its contents by a process of elimination.

By entering a room, you have selected it as the location of his death. You now add a suspect and a murder weapon to make up your hypothesis and if another player can refute it, they will prove it by showing you a card. Eventually, you will have deduced enough information to make an accusation and if right, you've won the game.

Other than nice pre-rendered 3D graphics and a fully-realised ground floor of the premises, there isn't much to add to this game. It plays exactly the same as the tabletop version. You do have one variant that limits the roll of the dice, giving each player 9 spaces each turn to speed things up. This makes it play more like the Junior version of Cluedo than the original, with each enough moves to have a guess each turn. In this instance, deduction is everything losing the traditional roll-and-move randomness that can make or break your run in another playthrough.

Cards in your hand will be face down in hot seat multiplayer. Just trust your opponents to look away (left).
Keeping tabs of your tick sheet is a must. There are a few options to take notes as you please (right).

Everything else is cosmetic. The FMV sequences are a nice touch - even a tad frightening at times. They're necessary here too, as guesses aren't spoken aloud at all, requiring you to pay attention the actions on screen to see who they think did it and with what. Each of the rooms are fully explorable, with a couple of interactive hotspots in each. You can turn on a flickering light, straighten a picture frame or hit some snooker balls should you so choose. They mean nothing, instead only there to make a player's turn longer as they meander the room looking for as many as they can. An extra mechanic - like an Adventure Mode - that fully uses them would've been nice, but as it is it's simply superfluous.

Cluedo: Murder at Blackwell Grove is a decent digital board game that is worth it if you don't want to go digging in the loft for the dusty boxed version. It is no more than that. For those looking for something the tabletop cannot offer, stick to the FMV version from 1996. It plays with the IP in a much more satisfying way.

To download the PC game, follow the link below. This custom installer exclusive to The Collection Chamber uses dgVoodoo, CD Audio Proxy (CDAEmu) and IMG Drive Portable to run on modern systems. UK (Cluedo) and US (Clue) versions and US manual included. Read the ChamberNotes.txt for more detailed information. Tested on Windows 10.
  15.07.2023 - Ver.2 - Replaced the NoCD cracked .exe with the official Version 2.2 .exe.
                                  No uses IMG Drive Portable with modified game ISO to bypass CD check.
                                  Added MSVCP50.dll taken from Microsoft Visual C++.

                                  Hopefully this will fix some of those reported errors.

File Size: 130 Mb.  Install Size: 209 Mb.  Need help? Consult the Collection Chamber FAQ

Download


Clue: Murder at Boddy Mansion (aka Clue: Murder at Blackwell Grange) is © Hasbro Interactive
Review, Cover Design and Installer created by me

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