Clue is a direct conversion of the board game as a video game. As such, it takes place in the same mansion and features the same goal of the board game.
In addition to play by the original rules, Clue has an additional mode that allows movement via "points." Each turn begins with nine points and every action the player takes costs points. The player can only do as many things as he has points. For example, moving from square to square costs one point, making a suggestion costs three points. Many players prefer this mode of play as it makes the game more balanced since each player gets the same number of "moves" each turn.
A few of Clues features:
Clue has enjoyed an unusually long shelf life for a video game. It went on sale late in 1998 and, as of this writing, 2003, is still on sale, available at many retail stores and via the Internet. The orginal game came in a box with holographic images. Now the game comes in a less expensive jewel case[?].
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Development of Clue took approxiamately one year. Hasbro Interactive, the game's publisher, funded the project.
The game does not include credits, however dozens of people were involved in Clue's development. Some of the more notable contributors:
The AI used by Clue's computer-controlled opponents was very advanced for a digital board game conversion. The AI was so good at deriving solutions that many customers complained that the computer cheated. In fact, this was not the case: the computer-controlled characters were just much better than the average human player.
The AI worked by keeping track of all players' suggestions. It even kept track of information which most human players ignored. For example, if Player A suggested that Mr. Green did it with the rope in the lounge and Player B could not disprove it, most players would ignore this fact. But the computer kept track of the fact that Player B did not have Mr. Green, the rope or the lounge cards. Thus, if on a subsequent turn, Player A made the suggestion of Mr. Green, the pipe in the lounge and Player B could disprove it, the AI knew that Player B had to have the pipe. In this manner the AI was able to determine which players had which cards without ever having to ask about them.
The game allowed three difficulty levels for the AI. The easier AI's used a shorter history of game turns and the hardest one used the entire game history. The AI was programmed by Mike Reed based on a design by Bob Pennington, who left EAI early in the project.
wikipedia.org dumped 2003-03-17 with terodump