The Classic Whodunit Since 1949
Cluedo board game
Deduce the killer. Identify the weapon. Name the room. Cluedo is the original murder mystery board game for three to six players, invented by Anthony E. Pratt in 1943 and enjoyed by millions ever since.
Cluedo characters
Cluedo places six colourful suspects inside a grand mansion on the night of the murder. Each character carries a distinct personality and a token of their colour on the board. Every player takes on the role of one suspect, yet any character could be the killer.
Miss Scarlett
Scarlet red
Miss Scarlett is the classic femme fatale of Cluedo, charming and cunning in equal measure. She begins the game first, placed adjacent to the Hall, giving her an early-move advantage. In most editions she is depicted as glamorous and sharp-witted, with motives rooted in jealousy or financial gain.
Colonel Mustard
Mustard yellow
Colonel Mustard is a retired military officer, pompous and hot-tempered but undeniably distinguished. His yellow token starts near the Lounge. Mustard is frequently suspected for his combative nature and access to the mansion's more secluded rooms, making him a firm fan favourite villain.
Mrs. Peacock
Peacock blue
Mrs. Peacock is a composed, aristocratic woman with impeccable manners and a suspicious tendency to appear wherever the action is. Her blue token starts near the Study. She is often presented as prim and politically connected, with secrets she guards behind a polished veneer of respectability.
Reverend Green
Forest green
Known as Mr. Green in the North American edition, Reverend Green is a clergyman with a slippery moral compass. His green token begins near the Conservatory. Green is a paradox: outwardly pious, inwardly calculating. His proximity to the victim in many game scenarios makes him a perennial suspect.
Mrs. White
White / ivory
Mrs. White is the mansion's longtime housekeeper, seemingly invisible yet omnipresent. Her white token starts near the Kitchen. In many redesigns she has been replaced by Dr. Orchid, but Mrs. White remains iconic: the quiet, overlooked servant who knows precisely where every weapon is kept.
Professor Plum
Deep plum
Professor Plum is the absent-minded academic, a learned man whose intelligence masks a turbulent private life. His plum token starts near the Study. Plum has appeared in numerous films and adaptations as a lovably dishevelled intellectual whose brilliant mind is equally capable of crime as it is of solving one.
Some modern editions of Cluedo replace Mrs. White with Dr. Orchid, a biochemist with a history connected to the mansion's owner. The core cast of six suspects remains the heart of every version of the game.
How to play Cluedo
Cluedo rewards logical deduction, careful observation, and a sharp memory. The goal is simple: before your opponents do, determine who committed the murder, with which weapon, and in which room. Here is a step-by-step guide to getting started.
Set up the board
Unfold the Cluedo board and place it on a flat surface. Each player selects a character token and places it on that character's starting square. Place all six weapon tokens in separate rooms as indicated in the rulebook.
Prepare the murder envelope
Separate the cards into three groups: suspects, weapons, and rooms. Shuffle each group face-down, draw one card from each group without looking, and seal all three inside the confidential envelope. This is the solution no player may view until the end.
Deal the remaining cards
Shuffle the remaining cards together and deal them face-down as evenly as possible among all players. Players look at their own cards privately. These cards are clues: if you hold a card, it cannot be in the envelope.
Move and make suggestions
On your turn, roll the dice and move your token through the corridors and into rooms. Once inside a room, make a suggestion: name a suspect, a weapon, and the current room. Move that suspect's token and the named weapon token into the room as you speak your suggestion.
Disprove suggestions
Starting with the player to your left and going clockwise, each player must privately show you ONE card from their hand that matches any element of your suggestion, if they hold one. If they hold multiple matching cards, they choose which one to reveal. Other players must not see the shown card.
Make an accusation to win
When you are confident you know the solution, make a formal accusation: state the suspect, weapon, and room, then check the envelope in secret. If you are correct, reveal the cards and claim victory. If you are wrong, replace the cards, reveal nothing, and you are out of the game, though you must still disprove others' suggestions.
Use your detective sheet
Cluedo includes a notepad for tracking which cards have been seen or shown. Mark off each clue systematically. Players who write nothing down almost always lose.
Watch what others ask
Pay close attention to your opponents' suggestions. If a player repeatedly asks about the same suspect, they likely do not hold that suspect card. Opponent patterns are clues.
Use secret passages
Corner rooms are connected by secret passages. Using them lets you travel across the board in one move, reaching distant rooms without rolling the dice and giving up your position.
Cluedo board
The Cluedo board depicts the floor plan of a grand Tudor-style mansion. The layout has remained broadly consistent since the game's first publication in 1949, though artwork and room names have evolved across editions. Understanding the board's geography is essential to efficient play.
The nine rooms
The mansion contains nine rooms, each accessible by doorways and two by secret passages that connect diagonally opposite corners. Weapons are placed across rooms at the start and moved as players make suggestions.
- Kitchen
- Ballroom
- Conservatory
- Billiard Room
- Library
- Study
- Hall
- Lounge
- Dining Room
The six weapons
- ⚔ Candlestick
- 🔨 Knife
- 🏭 Lead Pipe
- 🔎 Revolver
- ⛓ Rope
- 🔨 Spanner (Wrench)
Secret passages connect the Kitchen to the Study, and the Conservatory to the Lounge. A player in a corner room may use the passage instead of rolling, moving instantly to the opposite corner.
Cluedo rules
Cluedo's rules are elegant in their simplicity but reward players who master the finer details. Below are the key rules that govern every standard game of Cluedo.
Starting the game
Miss Scarlett always takes the first turn. Play then proceeds clockwise. Each player rolls both dice and moves their token the exact number of squares shown, travelling through corridors. Players cannot move diagonally or pass through walls.
Entering rooms
A player enters a room by moving their token through a doorway. The number of squares to reach a doorway is counted, and the player stops at the entrance. Rooms have one to four doorways each. A player may not pass through a room; they must stop upon entering.
Making a suggestion
A suggestion must include the room the player currently occupies. A player may make only one suggestion per turn. Once inside a room, a player does not need to roll and enter again on subsequent turns; they may stay and make suggestions from the same room each turn.
Blocking and movement
If another player's token occupies a doorway square, it blocks that entrance. Players may not move through a square occupied by another player's token. This rule adds a tactical dimension: a player may deliberately block a rival's path to a key room.
Disproving a suggestion
Only one card needs to be shown to disprove a suggestion. If a player holds two or three matching cards, they choose which single card to reveal. If no player can disprove a suggestion, the suggesting player has narrowed the solution considerably, though the suggestion is not confirmed as the accusation.
Making a false accusation
A player who makes an incorrect formal accusation must replace the envelope's contents unseen, then sit out all future turns. The eliminated player must still respond to others' suggestions by showing cards, but takes no more turns. The game ends when a correct accusation is made or all remaining players are eliminated.
Weapons move with suggestions
When a player makes a suggestion naming a weapon, that weapon token is physically moved into the current room, regardless of where it started. Weapons accumulate in heavily suggested rooms over a long game, which itself becomes a visual clue about which rooms players consider likely crime scenes.
Winning the game
Cluedo ends the moment a player makes a correct accusation and reveals the three cards inside the confidential envelope. The winning player is the one who correctly names the suspect, weapon, and room matching all three sealed cards. In a game with eliminated players, a lone remaining player wins automatically.
Cluedo beyond the mansion
Cluedo has inspired dozens of themed editions that transplant the murder mystery format into beloved fictional worlds. Three of the most celebrated special editions reimagine the game inside the wizarding world, a small American town full of supernatural secrets, and the animated world of Mystery Inc.
Harry Potter Cluedo
Harry Potter Cluedo transports the murder mystery format to Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Instead of a murder, the mystery centres on a student who has been stunned by a spell cast by one of the suspects somewhere in the castle. Players investigate the crime just as they would in the classic game, but every element is reimagined through a magical lens.
Harry Potter Cluedo replaces the six traditional suspects with characters from J.K. Rowling's series: Harry Potter, Ron Weasley, Hermione Granger, Ginny Weasley, Luna Lovegood, and Neville Longbottom appear as the playable characters in most editions. The classic rooms give way to iconic Hogwarts locations, including the Great Hall, the Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom, the Astronomy Tower, the Transfiguration classroom, Dumbledore's office, and the Library.
The weapons in Harry Potter Cluedo are replaced with magical artefacts and spells. A dark spell, a vial of potion, a magical creature, a broomstick, and a wand are typical substitutes, varying slightly between print runs. The confidential envelope still holds the solution: the suspect, the magical item, and the Hogwarts location where the deed was done.
Harry Potter Cluedo is produced under licence from Warner Bros. and Wizarding World. It is designed for the same age range as the classic game, generally eight years and above, and uses the same core deduction mechanics. The themed board artwork and card design make it a popular collector's item as well as a playable family game.
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Stranger Things Cluedo
Stranger Things Cluedo drops the murder mystery into the fictional town of Hawkins, Indiana, the setting of the hit Netflix series. The mystery in this edition involves a disappearance rather than a death, consistent with the show's central narrative: one of the characters has gone missing, taken by a creature from the Upside Down, and players must figure out which character carried them off, which supernatural weapon was used, and in which Hawkins location the abduction occurred.
Stranger Things Cluedo features the show's core cast as suspects and playable characters. Mike Wheeler, Eleven, Jim Hopper, Joyce Byers, Dustin Henderson, and Lucas Sinclair feature prominently across editions. The Hawkins locations that replace the classic rooms include Hawkins National Laboratory, the Wheeler basement, Mirkwood forest, the Byers house, the Middle School, and the Starcourt Mall, all locations iconic to the series.
The weapons in Stranger Things Cluedo are themed around the show's mythology. A slingshot, a Christmas lights string, a walkie-talkie, an axe, a bat wrapped in nails, and a hazmat suit are examples of the items that substitute for the traditional lead pipe or revolver. Each item is a recognisable prop from the show's four seasons.
Stranger Things Cluedo targets fans of the show aged ten and above. The board artwork replicates the series' distinctive 1980s aesthetic, complete with retro typography and the Upside Down's signature red vine-covered darkness creeping across the board's edges. It is produced under Netflix licence and sold alongside other Stranger Things merchandise.
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Scooby-Doo Cluedo
Scooby-Doo Cluedo combines two of the most beloved mystery franchises in entertainment. The Scooby-Doo edition keeps the deduction structure of the classic game but wraps it in the colourful, comedic world of Scooby-Doo and the Mystery Incorporated gang. In this edition, a villain in disguise is haunting a location, and the players must unmask them before they escape.
Scooby-Doo Cluedo replaces the traditional suspects with a roster of Scooby-Doo villains: the Black Knight, the Ghost Clown, the Creeper, the Snow Ghost, the Witch Doctor, and the Space Kook are common villain choices across editions, all drawn from classic episodes of the original animated series. The playable characters are Scooby-Doo, Shaggy, Fred, Daphne, and Velma, giving the game an immediate family-friendly identity.
The locations in Scooby-Doo Cluedo shift away from the Victorian mansion entirely. Players investigate rooms in a haunted venue such as a funfair, a museum, or a ghost town, depending on the specific edition. Traps, nets, and classic Scooby-Doo gadgets replace weapons in some versions, while others retain the traditional weapon set with thematic reskins.
Scooby-Doo Cluedo is aimed at a slightly younger audience than the standard game, typically from age eight upward, and its lighter tone makes it an excellent entry point for children new to deduction games. The bright board artwork, cartoonish card illustrations, and beloved characters make Scooby-Doo Cluedo a perennial favourite at family game nights. It is produced under Warner Bros. and Hanna-Barbera licensing agreements.
Find Scooby-Doo CluedoReady to solve the mystery?
Browse our selection of Cluedo editions, including the classic game and all major special editions, in the Cluedo shop.