The goal
A murder has happened in a country house. There are six suspects, six possible weapons and nine rooms. One of each is the true answer.
You find it by elimination. Every card you see in another player's hand is a card that cannot be in the envelope. Cross off enough, and the three that are left are the answer.
Six suspects, six weapons and nine rooms make 6 × 6 × 9 = 324 possible answers.
The cards and the envelope
The game has 21 cards. At the start, one suspect card, one weapon card and one room card are taken at random and sealed in the envelope without anyone looking. The remaining 18 are dealt round the table.
With six players everyone gets three cards. With fewer players the hands are bigger, and some players may hold one more card than others.
Each player also gets a detective's notepad: a grid of every suspect, weapon and room, used to keep track of what you have seen.
A turn
On your turn you roll the dice and move your token along the corridors of the board, towards a room. Two shortcuts help: secret passages link opposite corners of the house, and you can use one instead of rolling if you start your turn in a corner room.
When you enter a room, you can make a suggestion.
Suggestions
A suggestion is a guess you test on the other players. You name a suspect and a weapon, and the room you are in is the third part. The named suspect and weapon are moved into that room.
Then the player on your left checks their hand. If they hold any of the three cards, they show you one, privately. If they hold none, the next player checks, and so on round the table, until someone shows a card or nobody can.
The player who shows a card tells you something. So does every player who could not. And the rest of the table learns a little too, because they see who answered, though not with what.
Accusations
When you believe you know the answer, you make an accusation: you name a suspect, a weapon and a room, then look in the envelope without showing anyone.
- If you are right, you reveal the cards and win.
- If you are wrong, you put the cards back and are out. You stop moving and guessing, but you keep showing cards to the others when you can.
You get one accusation per game. That single rule is what makes Cluedo tense: guess too early and you are out; wait too long and someone else wins.
Why it still works
Cluedo was first published in 1949, and the core has hardly changed. Three things keep it fresh:
- Private information. Everyone sees a different part of the puzzle, so no two players are solving the same problem.
- Public behaviour. You cannot see others' cards, but you can see who answers whom. Good players learn as much from other people's turns as from their own.
- One shot. The single accusation turns a logic puzzle into a game of nerve.
For the history behind the box, read Cluedo: A Chronological History. For the questions that start arguments at the table, read Settling the Rules of Cluedo.
The official rules
This is a summary in our own words. For the full official rules, see the publisher's rules page: [Link: official Hasbro rules page]. Editions differ in small ways, so check the rules that came with your box.
A Cluedo-inspired game you can play now
NoHonor uses the same deduction with a new crime: six crew members, six methods and nine locations, and a stash of stolen loot instead of a sealed envelope. It is free, runs in a browser, and seats three to six players, with bots for the empty seats.
