Credit: Alexander Lyashkov, Unsplash
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Be it boredom or fear, when the WWII air raids hit Birmingham, Anthony E. Pratt and his wife, Elva, kept themselves busy by inventing a board game. They drew on what they knew. Agatha Christie novels, Victorian parlour games, and Moseley’s Highbury Hall. In 1944, Pratt applied for a patent for a murder mystery-themed game…
Originally named Murder, it was shortly renamed Cluedo (a play on “clue” and “ludo”, the Latin word for “I play”, although it was named Clue in the United States). Cluedo was officially released in 1949, and in the 70+ years since grown into one of the most iconic board games ever made—it’s up there with Monopoly and Scrabble.
Credit: Birmingham City Council
Hasbro, who now own the rights to Cluedo on both sides of the Atlantic, states that the classic board game Cluedo has sold well over 150 million copies, but could be even higher… This is on top of video game spin-offs, a movie adaptation starring Tim Curry, an Off-Broadway musical, children’s and comic books, and even a UK game show.
How do you play Cluedo?
Put simply, the objective of the game is to deduce the details of a murder. From six characters, six murder weapons, and nine rooms (with 324 possibilities), players roll dice and move around the board making suggestions and accusations to who it was, how it happened and where it happened—as players learn more about each other in the process.
Why is an 80-year-old board game in the news? 
Credit: Birmingham City Council
In November, the daughter of the creators of Cluedo, Marcia Davies, commemorated its invention in Birmingham by depositing items connected to the iconic murder mystery board game into the city’s collection. Items included were games, photos, letters and memorabilia.
The items are now stored in the Birmingham Archive service, but are available for the public to access by searching reference number MS 5201 in the Wolfson Centre for Archival Research on the Library of Birmingham’s 4th floor.
“I feel strongly that these items connected with the origins of Cluedo belong in Birmingham and that, for a number of reasons, Cluedo only exists because of Birmingham,” said Marcia. “After 80 years, it’s high time these documents came home.”