Game: Clue Jr. - The Case of the Hidden Toys

Thread: An intro to deduction and private information for young ones.

MCTMike — 2008-05-01T15:39:07+00:00

This was a thrift store find for me - 75 cents - whoohoo!

A four player game for ages 5-8, I was thinking of this mostly as fun for my 6 year old eldest daughter. But I certainly couldn't leave her younger sister out of the fun, so my almost-4-year-old teamed up with Mom while I teamed up with her big sister.

Clue Jr. is played on a map of a house - white circles connected by lines present a series of possible paths through the four rooms of the house. Each room contains a piece of furniture, under which (on the bottom of the stand-up base) is a picture of one of the 5 pets that live in the house, including a bunny, a cat, a goldfish, and others. On the bottoms of the bases for the four characters (childhood versions of four of the well-known sleuths in the original Clue board game) are found pictures representing toys that the children enjoy - a ball, a roller skate, a teddy bear, etc. The bases are interchangable with the stand-up figures, so in any game, the possession of toys and the location of the hiding pets are randomized.

Quick math tells you that we've got one extra base for a piece of furniture, and for a character. The randomly selected extras are hidden in a Tab-A-Goes-In-Slot-B doghouse that gets set up beside the board, providing the theme of the game - a pet has hidden one of the toys in the doghouse!

What follows is a quicker, less macabre version of Clue. Players move their character around the board looking for clues, which are recorded on a simplified detective notebook sheet akin to the one for the original game. Move adjacent to a piece of furniture, and learn which pet hides beneath. Move onto a space for another character, and learn which toy he/she carries.

The travel mechanism is mostly basic roll-and-move. The movement die, in addition to numbers 1 through 4, has a star which lets you move anywhere on the board free, and a magnifying glass, letting you take a free peek under another character.

At the end of any turn, a player can attempt to solve the mystery by guessing which pet has which toy hidden in the doghouse. The lid is dramatically lifted off the doghouse, and the contents inspected. If both guesses are right, it's a win for the guesser - or else instant loss of the game for an incorrect guess, and the game continues with the remaining players.

Key to these games for me is what lessons about gaming my little ones will take away from it. The ones I immediately identifed were as follows:

Secret information: My littlest one finally learned to stop shouting the name of the picture under the stand when she got to see one - "A BUNNY! A BUNNY, MOM!" - giving away the answer to the other players.

Deduction: This was the big thrill of the original Clue game of course - once you've eliminated the impossible, and all that. I found even my six year old didn't grasp this right away, despite dad's prompting. "So these four toys are all in the house - and there's only four toys in the house, so where's that one, do you think?"

Path finding: Choosing the shortest route to the objectives is an important skill here, as the winning team in this game (mom and the young one) was only a single turn ahead of the losers in gathering the last piece of data to clinch the solution.

Record keeping: The detective's notebook has room for marking which toys you found, which kids you met, which pets you located, and which pieces of furniture you checked under. Failing to check where you've been could result in wasting time later.

Counting: Mostly this was important for my youngest. Roll a four, and move four.

Completion of the game immediately brought a request for a second game from the 6-year old - it was a hit! The three year old enjoyed the surprises of finding the toys and pets under the bases. Mom and Dad could enjoy the kids' enjoyment of the game, with a little quiet competition between them to bring their teammate across the finish line first. This one will definitely be hitting the game table again sometime soon.

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jupiterchild — 2007-11-25T23:23:26+00:00

Household items with Pet bases

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jupiterchild — 2007-11-25T23:22:11+00:00

Complete game setup

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jupiterchild — 2007-11-25T23:20:45+00:00

Mystery Pet and Toy inside the Doghouse

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jupiterchild — 2007-11-25T23:18:24+00:00

Detective Notepad

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fehrmeister — 2007-06-04T00:44:32+00:00

The Pets and Toys are Hidden Under the Furniture and the Detectives

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fehrmeister — 2007-06-04T00:42:28+00:00

So the Bunny Took the Roller Skates and Hid Them in the Dog House!

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fehrmeister — 2007-06-04T00:41:44+00:00

The Game Board

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fehrmeister — 2007-05-21T02:15:34+00:00

The 4 Detective Pieces

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fehrmeister — 2007-05-21T02:14:04+00:00

The Initial Board Set Up

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fehrmeister — 2007-05-20T07:05:31+00:00

Scan of the Box Back

Thread: Re: What are the differences (if any) between the three Clue Jr games?

mjwills — 2005-08-23T04:39:45+00:00

Spielguy wrote:
That's brilliant, Matt. Sometimes the answers are obvious. After the answer is given. I don't have any clues but I can print out two or three pages of rules.

Hasbro have an excellent selection of rules on their site. I have now requested both sets of rules for this game to be added as links to BGG - they usually take a month or so to appear.

Thread: Re: What are the differences (if any) between the three Clue Jr games?

Spielguy — 2005-08-23T04:00:24+00:00

That's brilliant, Matt. Sometimes the answers are obvious. After the answer is given. I don't have any clues but I can print out two or three pages of rules.

Thread: Re: What are the differences (if any) between the three Clue Jr games?

mjwills — 2005-08-22T23:49:36+00:00

Check out:

http://www.hasbro.com/pl/page.game_and_toy_instructions/lett...

Thread: Re: What are the differences (if any) between the three Clue Jr games?

sedjtroll — 2005-08-22T21:56:57+00:00

I'm afraid I'm not familiar with the Clue Jr. series. I haven't even played Clue (Clue Sr?) in YEARS... I'm not sure I remember how. I'd have to read the rules again - how embarassing!

Sorry I couldn't help with your question.

- Seth

Thread: What are the differences (if any) between the three Clue Jr games?

Spielguy — 2005-05-09T21:02:54+00:00

Besides theme, are there any differences in gameplay for the three Clue Jr. games? Hidden Toys, Missing Cake, Missing Pet.

Thanks!