Two years ago here at borg, we talked about Hasbro′s turn at offering its classic games in mash-up form, with Monopoly, Clue, Taboo, Scrabble, and Speak Out colliding with former Milton Bradley games Candy Land, Connect 4, Guess Who?, Jenga, and Twister. Hasbro’s next line of classic games takes your favorite board games outside. They’re in the form of beach towel backpacks that transform into a giant board to stretch out on the beach or at a park, at last giving you something to do when you’re enjoying this summer. We tried out Beach Towel BackpackClue and found lots of reasons why this could be your new version of choice (check out our review below), Connect 4, Candy Land, Chutes & Ladders, and a new take on one you’ve probably seen in a giant towel version before: Twister.
If you ever needed a big, fun, family game, it’s probably now, right? We’ve just previewed Avalon Hill’s forthcoming summer release Scooby-Doo! Betrayal at Mystery Mansion, arriving in stores later this month, and it’s a winner–no doubt it will go down as the season’s best tabletop game. With dozens of throwbacks to the classic animated series featuring Scooby-Doo and the Gang, it mixes elements of Clue,Monopoly-like strategy levels, and staples of the roleplay game genre including its own Monster’s Tome game book. Twenty-five impressive mysteries and dozens of possible outcomes for each will keep your family busy this summer with your favorite sleuths: Velma, Fred, Daphne, Shaggy, and, of course, Scooby-Doo.
You won’t play this game without piping in with your own ruh roh and jinkies along the way. Clues, objects, and events all point back to elements of the TV show. Colorful tokens (like Scooby snacks, pizza, flashlights, and treasure) are provided specific to each of the 25 mysteries that work together with clue cards (like a painting with eyes following you, a mysterious letter, and a locked box), layout tiles to build 28 rooms inside the haunted mansion and spooky areas outside, along with 8 dice and three guide books, all to set 3 to 5 players on their way to sleuthing out a mystery, Mystery, Inc. style. Everyone plays one of those famous “meddling kids,” then one player steps out to play the monster, ghost pirate (or is that pirate ghost?), masked neighbor, werebeast, alien, witch, henchman… you’ll have plenty of familiar baddies to take on, challenging each other in the style of previous roleplay games like Magic the Gathering with upgradable strengths and dice roll battles.
Ok, I confess: I’ve never been a big fan of the movie Clue. It took the smart, suspenseful, iconic game of my childhood and turned it into a silly farce, disregarding the beautiful conventions of the color-coded characters, and making the measured, thoughtful play a frantic slapstick comedy. Clue (originally called Cluedo in Britain) is about mystery and deduction and the Golden Age of British country house mysteries. Well, Diana Peterfreund has restored my faith in the franchise, and channeled a bit of classic Christopher Pike in the mix! Her new release In the Hall with the Knife: A Clue Mystery, the first novel from the Clue franchise (Hasbro and IDW introduced comic book versions in 2017 and 2019), reimagines the characters and game play in a contemporary New England boarding school. Six students are stranded in a spooky Victorian mansion-turned-dorm when their remote, coastal village is besieged by a freak winter ice storm. The campus is flooded, power, phones, and internet are down—and somebody has it in for Headmaster Boddy, the school’s beloved principal.
Is it blue-haired Beth “Peacock” Picach, the school’s perpetually angry tennis star? Or maybe brooding townie Vaughn Green? What about the school’s “power couple,” ambitious geniuses Scarlett Mistry and Phineas Plum? New kid Mustard, just transferred in from a military academy? Even sweet, bookish Orchid McKee has her secrets… and Peterfreund slowly doles them out, keeping the pacing taut and the plot clipping along until the Big Reveal.
Like the classic gameplay, each character takes a turn, in alternating, third person point-of-view chapters. Like the game, they all suspect each other, pointing their fingers as the story goes on. Rooms are explored, secret passages revealed, familiar weapons appear in characters’ hands… and the ultimate culprit is finally exposed. Peterfreund gives the reader enough clues to play along and solve the mystery with (or slightly before) the characters. And just like the game itself, the worldbuilding, scene setting, and backstory leave you wishing for more of this world and its secrets.
As we inch closer to Christmas, Hasbro Gaming is making its latest effort to breathe new life into its classic board games. The new idea is mash-ups of classics, combining two games into one, which should tap into the nostalgia of long-time players. The game company is taking its recently developed game Speak Out and its famous acquired Parker Brothers inventory Monopoly, Clue, Taboo, and Scrabble, and combining them with its celebrated former Milton Bradley games Candy Land, Connect Four, Guess Who?, Jenga, and Twister. The result: Hasbro Mash-Ups, some strange combinations, but new twists for family game night, all at less than $21 each retail price.
The best bet looks to be Monopoly Jenga. This game adds some additional strategy to the wooden block game where players remove a piece of the tower one by one until the tower collapses. The Monopoly twist is adding color-coded Monopoly properties as blocks: Railroads, Free Parking, Chance and Community Chest cards, and a Go to Jail block. The goal? Collect the most properties, property sets, and railroad blocks without making the tower fall.
The strangest is Hasbro’s Taboo Speak Out. There’s something really creepy about a family game with mouthpieces, and the box cover art doesn’t help much.
Perfect for ventriloquists, but a problem for everyone else, the speaking barriers are the key twist to the fun classic Taboo game. The rules are simple: Give clues to get teammates to say the Taboo word on the card, without using any of the five forbidden words, all while wearing a Speak Out game mouthpiece. Easy peasy, right? Maybe not.
The detective strategy game Clue is making another comeback. Today IDW Publishing is releasing the first issue of a three-issue comic book miniseries called Clue: Candlestick. Writer-artist Dash Shaw is also serving as series letterer, bringing his stylized look to the usual suspects: Colonel Mustard, Professor Plum, Mrs. Peacock, Mr. Green, Mrs. White, and Miss Scarlet. Hasbro’s game turns 70 this year, so Shaw has compiled a new crime wrapped in secrets, lies, and puzzles, including a maze and coded message. The puzzles can be unraveled by readers as they make their way through the mystery.
The best feature is Shaw’s incorporation of all the elements of the board game, including the familiar map of the house with connecting floor tiles, stone game pieces that serve as useful art on the grounds of Mr. Boddy’s estate, and, of course, the familiar weapons of choice. To find out who is searching what rooms and when, you’ll need to solve a logic puzzle. As with the expanded Master Detective version of the game, you may have more than you bargain for in the story’s first issue, including a focus on Professor Plum, Colonel Mustard, and Mrs. White. It turns out those weapons might have had some history.
In addition to Shaw’s main cover art, variant editions of each issue will form a triptych of the classic Clue suspects and their legendary weapons of choice. Illustrator Jed McGowan (Time in Nature) designed a third variant cover for the first issue. Each issue features additional story content and will feature new, removable Clue game cards on the back cover, based on the comic art in the series.
Here’s a preview of the first issue of Clue: Candlestick, courtesy of IDW Publishing:
