Cluedo: Treachery at Tudor Mansion reimagines the board game classic’s murder mystery as an escape room in a box
First in a planned series of home escape room games.
Classic board game Cluedo has a new spin-off that transforms its murder-mystery deduction into a puzzle-filled escape room in a box.
Cluedo Escape: Treachery at Tudor Mansion takes the tabletop whodunnit - known as Clue in the US - surrounding the untimely demise of Mr Black and its gaggle of colourful suspects, from Colonel Mustard to Miss Scarlett, and turns it into a 90-minute escape room you can play at home.
Instead of racing against each other to solve the crime first via the iconic combination of who, where and with what, players must now work together to explore the mansion’s rooms and solve puzzles to uncover the solution.
As in the board game, players are able to move their characters between rooms and draw cards, gradually eliminating people, places and would-be murder weapons. Rather than taking place on a fixed board layout, the mansion’s rooms and cards are unlocked and revealed as players move between tiles and pick up clues - such as scratch marks or ripped wires - from each location. A series of envelopes contain hidden clues and other surprises.
The players must escape from the mansion before pointing the finger at their prime suspect using the clues to hand.
As well as playing with up to six people, Cluedo Escape can be played in a single-player solo mode. While the solution remains the same in each playthrough and it's a one-and-done deal, nothing is modified or destroyed and the box can be fully reset - meaning you can pass it on to friends once you’re finished.
The Cluedo escape room in a box game is the first in a planned series of scenarios, all of which will be standalone experiences according to a Hasbro representative at Essen Spiel 2022. The series of escape room board games accompanies a relaunch of the classic crime-solving board game planned for 2023, publisher Hasbro announced during its Investor Day earlier this week.
To mark the game’s release in the UK, Hasbro is running a competition featuring three themed ‘playcations’ (groan appropriately) in mansions around England, each of which will be themed with Cluedo props ahead of the winner’s stay - if you’ve ever fancied the idea of sleeping in a real murder house.
Cluedo Escape is out now, costing £17.99 here in the UK. Release dates and details for future entries in the series are yet to be revealed.