My favorite version of Clue growing up was not the murder mystery, but instead it was a very well designed art thief game that was branded as a Clue game with the same characters and multiple rooms, but would have fit very well with Pink Panther, Thomas Crown Affair, Italian Job, or Ocean’s Eleven. Additionally, this is not a game that will be found in stores today since it is out of print, but I would LOVE to see this game come back so others could experience the fun of trying to capture the art thief. Fortunately, there are used copies floating around online and in stores with used goods, and there are a few games that have a similar capture mechanic that would be worth looking into as well.
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Short Explanation of How to Play
The premise of Clue: the Great Museum Caper is that the characters from Clue are in an art museum at night and protecting the valuable art. It is a team game except that one of the players is the art thief, and everyone is trying to capture that person. The thief is invisible for the entire game until seen by one of the other players. The team of art protectors are tasked by placing the art pieces in the various rooms of the museum, and they are equipped with a few cameras that they can also place around the museum. The art protectors roll two different dice. One allows them to move, and the other allows them to do various actions (Find out if a camera can see the thief, motion sensors to say which room the thief is in, or seeing the thief with line of sight). The thief has a piece of paper that has a diagram of the entire museum, and they take their moves on that paper until they are seen. The goal of the thief is to steal as many pieces of art as they can and get out of the museum without getting caught. The goal of the other team is to capture the thief before they escape. The game is great fun for both sides.
Why it Works/Doesn't Work For Our Family
What Worked: The teamwork in the game is great, as the players need to coordinate and work together to find the thief. It is very satisfying for the thief to sneak around without getting caught, and it is just as satisfying for the other players to find where the thief is so that they can try to capture the thief before the escape.
What Was Challenging: Since this is a team game, it is easy for older players to support younger players as they work in a team. The only challenge that I saw arise at times is that the thief is very popular, and sometimes the kids can’t agree on who will play the thief first. The easiest way to resolve this would be to play more than one game to allow everyone who wants to play the thief to have a turn, but if there are time constraints and you can’t play multiple games, then this can be a problem. When there are time limits and meltdowns might occur because someone can’t be the thief, then perhaps playing a different game would be a better choice in that situation.
Why it Works/Doesn't Work With Friends
Clue: The Great Museum Caper works with my friends, and since it is fairly short relative to other high intensity games that we play, it can go quickly and be the first game played in the evening with other games. My biggest complaint for a gaming group would be the very wide and long box that the game is housed in. It is awkwardly shaped and isn’t the easiest to transport to alternate locations, especially if there are other games that need to be transported as well. That being said, the gameplay is very good, and the box size issue is a relatively minor one. With gameplay, some people take issue with any game that includes dice rolling, but in this game the dice rolling has a minor impact of the game, but the choices of the players are (mostly) more impactful than the numbers and actions rolled.
Teacher's Corner
This is a great game for teaching teamwork toward a common goal, as the players need to plan their moves together to try to capture the art thief. Additionally, for art aficionados, the art used on the pieces are reproductions of very real, very famous works of art. The game can be used as a springboard to conversations about art styles as well as the history of the art pieces and the artists who created them.
Overall opinion, rating, and recommendation
6 year old son - My son enjoys going around to try to catch the thief. He also enjoys playing as the thief, but I have typically worked together with him to be the thief so that he doesn’t get confused or lost as the mechanic. As he grows in his understanding, he will be able to play the thief on his own as well
9 year old daughter - My daughter is a master thief. She is very good with the strategy of maximizing the paintings stolen. While she doesn’t always win as the thief, she gives herself a great shot to steal many paintings every time.
Mine - I will rate this game Casual Family, with the caveat that young kids can play the thief jointly with an adult to make sure the game doesn’t go haywire if they don’t understand what they are doing. This has been an oft requested game in my house, and has worked well in every setting I have played it. The game is not currently being mass produced, so finding this gem will require the secondary market, but consider this my request to Hasbro to spruce up the game and re-release it. It is a great game and I would venture to say that this game could find new life with a new generation of board game players.
Games with similarities with this one at each rating level:
Casual Family: - Clue
Heavy Family: - Hunt for the Ring
Casual Adult: - Mafia
Heavy Adult: - Pandemic: On the Brink (Notes: Needs Original Pandemic, and the version of the game that is similar to Clue: The Great Museum Caper is the variation with the bioterrorist)
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