Clue Party

Still playing hardcore catch-up over here....[Actual Date: October-ish 2013]

This past Halloween, Daniel and I threw a really fun Clue party with a few friends. It was super fun! When I first came up with the idea, I figured I could get on Pinterest really quick and find someone who had already pre-made all of the stuff, and all we'd have to do is get dressed up!

Boy, was I wrong. I couldn't find much of anything! We ended up coming up with the gameplay, invitations, place cards, instructions, and all of the other materials ourselves. Totally worth it, as you will see below. We had a blast! 

DISCLAIMER: all apparent abuse pictured below is completely fake :)

Miss Scarlet and Colonel Mustard

Colonel Mustard actually does have real army ties, so I think we get bonus points for that.

This is Professor Plum FULLY committing to his character by shaving a very realistic looking cul-de-sac in his hair. Also, Mrs. Peacock's fur coat was incredible.

I laugh SO hard every time I see this photo!!

Mrs. White and Mr. Green

Professor Plum and Mrs. Peacock

The whole gang - which one of us is guilty?!

If you are interested in throwing your own clue party, here is a rundown of how we ran ours. (If you don't care, you can stop reading here. I will love you anyway! :) 

We pulled a lot of the party elements from the movie Clue, and some of them from the board game. First, we created invitations. I made one invitation per person in order to assign them their character.

Download our invitation wording here.
Download character assignments here.

We ended up having the party at my parents house so that there were enough rooms. I made labels for each room in the house and printed them on old fashioned paper. I set the table, complete with a clue-themed centerpiece that contained all of the weapons and a bunch of vintage cards from the game. I also made place cards for each guest.

Download room labels here.
Download place cards here.

When the guests arrived, we welcomed them into the "study" for "drinks" a.k.a. cream soda. Daniel and I thrifted an excellent decanter and some tumblers which we washed out and put the cream soda in. When all the guests had arrived, we adjourned to the dining room for dinner. I served 2 kinds of soup (a throwback to the movie) along with a salad, Lion House rolls, etc, and pumpkin roll for dessert. One of the soups I made was this Lemon Chicken Stew. It was to die for!! We stayed in character during dinner and after we ate, the party was on.

We went back to the study to debrief. I explained the gameplay we invented, which went like this:

The first part of the game was set up exactly like the board game. We used the Clue cards from the board game, and selected one room, one weapon, and one person at random, and secretly put them in the "confidential" envelope. Then, we divided the rest of the cards up evenly among the six of us.

Here's where the gameplay changed. We each went to a random room in the house so that we could put all of the secret information we just received on our scorecards. Then, we hid the cards we got around the room.

Download the scorecards here (the original is from karencookiejar.com).

Afterward, we all met again in the lounge. It was time to "search the house" like they did in the movie. To find our partner who would search the house with us, we drew straws. Then, we went with our randomly assigned partner to a room of our choice to search for the clues. When we went into the rooms, we both looked for the clues and shared them with each other when we found them. Some people tried to be a little more sneaky than others...

We did this a few times. Between each of these searching rounds, we met back in the lounge for a guessing round. The guessing rounds were exactly like the board game - we took turns saying a scenario we thought might be true, and asked if anyone could prove us wrong. If no one guessed it right, we picked a new partner and repeated another searching round. 

Since we were good guessers, I think the game lasted only 3 rounds, which was perfect. We finally determined that the murderer was Miss Scarlet, with the rope, in the study. 

After the game, we all went down to the "ballroom" to watch the movie clue, complete with popcorn, drinks, and snacks. It was a super fun night!

I wish I had taken a million more pictures. Some of the most fun touches were in the details of the rooms, and I never took photos of them! I hope you still get the idea, and feel free to ask if you have any questions.

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