Clue Card Game Review
If you’ve ever played Clue and were bored to tears by the pacing, then you have to check out the Clue Card Game. The Clue Card game takes everything great from the original Clue game and eliminates everything bad about it. Clue has been around for decades and is probably one of the best known board games ever made. The Clue Card game is simply Clue using cards.
It has the same premise of solving a crime using the same characters, items, and rooms. Only there’s no board, dice, or clue sheets. It’s all done with a deck of cards. You still eliminate the suspects, narrow down the rooms, and discover the weapon by asking questions.
This game is so much faster paced and has a more level playing field. No more getting the short end of the stick with low dice rolls or having to eliminate rooms located on opposite ends of the board. Every turn allows you to ask whatever you want since there’s no need to be in the room.
In my opinion, Clue the Card game boils it down to the essence of what makes Clue so fun. The process of elimination to correctly guess the person, place, and weapon involved in the crime.
Why Clue Card Game?
Anyone who enjoys playing games with friends or family will enjoy this game. Board games and card games go hand in hand during any gaming session. The Clue Card game isn’t a board game but plays like one. While it is a card game, it isn’t anything like Rummy, Poker, Euchre, Hearts, or many other traditional card games.
Anyone who enjoys the classic Clue board game should try out this game. As mentioned before, it uses the same characters, rooms, and weapons. So it plays similar to the board game.
How We tested Clue Card Game
We tested this game with 3, 4, and 5 players at a table (although it’s only 4 players we still managed to do 5). There are a lot of cards you have to hold at first, so a couple players used card holders.
Comparable Games
Clue Card game is almost identical to the Clue board game. Which are also similar to Exit the game, the Nancy Drew games, and many other mystery games.
The main difference is you ask about any two items during your turn. Instead of being required to ask about one person, one weapon, and one room, you can ask about two rooms for example. You aren’t stuck asking about a person or weapon if you already know who and what. Also, you aren’t required to be in a room since there is no board.
In both Clue games, you’re dealt out evidence cards at the beginning. Instead of a pencil and clue sheet to keep track of clues, the Clue Card games uses 15 cards. As clues are gathered, you discard the correlating card (face down) from your deck. Once you have only one room, one person, and one weapon in your hand you’ll know the solution!
The card game is much faster paced since nobody loses out on an accusation by being stuck outside a room. Since people can ask about only two items, you can eliminate clues faster. For example, say someone asks about Mr Green and the revolver. If one of your evidence cards is the revolver, and another player passes a card to the accuser, you’ll know they passed Mr Green.
This situation is possible in the board game, but much more difficult since you have to know who has two out of three cards being guessed. Reducing the guesses from three down to two makes this situation more likely to happen.
Pros and Cons
Eliminating an item based solely on the result of someone else’s guess definitely is a pro of the card game. It happens during the board game, but it’s exceedingly rare.
The card game goes faster since it isn’t bogged down by rolling dice and deciding where to move. The card game is just making an accusation, finding out if anyone can prove you wrong, and then keep going. It’s a much faster pace overall.
The game is entirely cards. No pencils, paper, items, or board to keep track of or setup. Just distribute the cards, and let the accusations start!
The only con is there are a lot of cards to keep track of. You don’t want to mix your clue cards with your evidence cards. The backs are the same but the evidence cards have a bright evidence banner through the front. Still, keeping track of 15-19 cards isn’t easy.
We did have one round where a card was mixed. It was hilarious. In that case, only one person could actually know the true solution since the other players couldn’t truly narrow it down to one weapon.
Review Summary
Our Clue Card game review gives it 9 out of 10 stars. We really enjoyed this game. Everyone had fun, even the time we mixed a clue card with an evidence card. The rounds were fast paced and everyone won a round or two.
The Clue Card game takes the best of Clue the board game, eliminates the downsides, and adds some new quarks into the game. It truly is everything fun about the classic board game and more!
Clue Card Game Review
brought to you by: David M.
I’m David M. I’ve been playing video games a long time, my pong game was fire. Now, my kids run circles around me but we always have a good time. We mostly play party and family games. Strategy and battle games are still among my favorites. I like writing about games almost as much as I do playing them. My favorite games are: Moving Out 2, Out of Space and Overcooked All You Can Eat.
