Category: Games

Clue – My First Video Game

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Quite a few games I like to cover on this website are games from my late childhood to early teenage years.

When covering games like Tomb Raider, Assassin’s Creed, or even several James Bond titles, I come to them with nostalgia and child-like fondness, and am sometimes rudely awakened upon replaying when games don’t match the power they once did.

But today, I wanted to go back to another childhood favourite, and possibly one of the first games I ever played, and one I still play to this day. Because this is not just any old game I remember. 

I can tie this game to me falling in love with art deco, dark jazz, noir inspiration…and giving me nightmares of being murdered by a psychopathic cook or a disgruntled WW1 veteran.

Let’s dive in to the 1998 adaptation of Clue.

Means, Motive, Opportunity – My Weird Obsession with Clue

Now, just to cover all the bases, I’ll briefly explain Clue (or Cluedo for non-Americans, or me, not realising the difference when installing it as a child and growing up with Clue).

Clue revolves around the murder of a Dr. Black (or Mr. Boddy in the US) at his mansion. In attendance are six other people; Miss Scarlett, Colonel Mustard, Mrs. White, Reverend Green (or Mr. Green, as the Yanks don’t like thinking a member of the Church could murder someone), Mrs. Peacock, and finally Professor Plum.

Player take turns going around the rooms in the mansion and throwing out baseless accusations at anyone they like. Using cards that show who, what, or where were NOT the murderer/weapon/location, the player has to deduce the correct answers.

First made in 1949, Clue has been re-released again and again, with themed variations that, and I’m not making any of these up, include; Harry Potter (three times!), Bridgerton, Alien vs. Predator, RuPauls’s Drag Race, One Piece, and…FC Barcelona.

And like many classic board games it has also been translated to the digital realm, which gets us right back to 1998 and my edition of Clue. It wasn’t the first version, with the earliest apparently from 1984 for the Commodore 64, but it’s the one I grew up with.

And surprisingly, came out of a cereal box.

So, setting the scene of 1998, graphics have come a long way since the invention of 3D. Straining at the computer specs (a whopping 1.33 CPU, 16MB of RAM, and a 1MB graphics card required), we are treated to a stunning and moody opening.

Despite its…blocky features, it’s a great opening cutscene, automatically starting as soon the disc has booted up, not even getting to the main menu yet.

The dark hallway, the lightning outside framing out killer in shadow, the music…my lord the musical stings, it’s all perfectly setting up the mood and tone. This game is going to be dark.

The main menu pops up, and the game treats it as the guests arriving to the mansion. We can see them standing at the door, waiting for their host, as each click is punctuated by lighting and rolling thunder.

Even when everyone has been chosen and the game starts, the loading bar is visualised as vines growing across the mansion’s front gate. It’s these little details that make it so charming.

(Source: myabandonware.com)

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So from the six characters to choose from, their have to be three “players”, meaning at least two computer characters.

I’ve played against the computer at their different levels of difficulty (Novice, Normal, and Expert), who do actually play differently. Novice can be a cake-walk, whereas Expert play so quickly you’ll sometimes lose track of the accusation. Not to mention, as the rules dictate, characters warp to whatever room their are accused in, meaning the computer will tactically warp you backwards to try and beat you to the final accusation.

On the character select screen, the characters “react” when you scroll your mouse over them, and then when chosen, the screen gives you the full body model, with Art Deco fans and linework framing them. It’s all good stuff.

So once we’ve chosen our players and enter the mansion, another cutscene plays of Mr. Boddy’s ghost dealing the cards and hiding the cards of the killer, weapon, and location in a briefcase in the basement. Again, dark, but a little extra flavour of what we are about to experience.

Then, it’s time to play.

Choose your character… (Source: myabandonware.com)

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The mansion is fully rendered, with semi-transparent walls to aid movement between each room. These rooms are fully exportable too, so once inside say, the Billiard Room, you can click on the fireplace or the pool table and items will actually interact with the player.

Sometime you might be stuck at a certain angle and not be able to click on the next step forward, but for those that want it, there is a more classic overhead point of view, and can be switched at any point in gameplay.

Once you’ve made it to the first room, then the suggestions start, and here is where the other MAJOR point about this game starts up.

Whenever someone makes a suggestion, (say, Miss Scarlett, in the Dining Room, with the lead pipe), you will see Miss Scarlett with a lead pipe, murdering Mr Boddy, played out from the victim’s point-of-view.

The first time you see this, it’s shocking. The lighting strikes outside, the killer attacks, and Mr. Boddy’s vision cuts to black as the thunder and music sting hit. Every time someone makes an accusation, an animation will play of the suspect and the victim.

The suggestion cards are excellently designed, and heighten the game’s presentation. (Source: myabandonware.com)

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There are six weapons; Rope, Dagger, Lead Pipe, Candlestick, Wrench (or Spanner) and Revolver, and each one is unique, not just to the weapon, but to the character.

Miss Scarlett kills quickly, smouldering and smirking as she does so. Colonel Mustard hits with military efficiency, aiming the pistol over his arm or throwing the knife with precision.

Mrs White dusts off the candlestick before she attacks, looking on with disdain. Mr Green pulls Mr. Boddy closer as he plunges and twists the dagger in, staring into his eyes.

Mrs Peacock is frightened and hesitant, her arms physically shaking when holding the revolver or the dagger, but she pulls through. And Professor Plum indirectly kills Mr. Boddy or has a dash of theatrics about him, such as accidentally firing the revolver or indicating Mr Boddy to wait, heading off screen, before jumping back with the Wrench.

And since we are at the dawn of 3D graphics, each one of these characters, who look fine from afar or in their character selection screen, turn into rubbery skin monsters, with wide staring eyes and misshapen foreheads. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who got spooked out as a child.

And if you’re in the mood for some Windows 95-esque horror, here’s a supercut of them all stacked one after another down below. My favourites are probably Mr. Green with the dagger (at 1:54) and Mrs. Peacock with the Rope (at 2:51), but special mention should be made to Mrs. White, whose creativity and style points are the most terrifying murders of the whole game.

This game was rated as “E for Everyone” (but eventually edited to E 10+). Even still, those murder scenes have stayed with me for nearly thirty years.

Developer EAI Interactive continued on for a few more years until 2000, releasing other licensed titles like Scooby Doo, a few Disney games, graphics for National Geographic, and oddly enough, animations that were used for court cases to illustrate crime scenes and support witness testimony.

But their adaptation of Clue was hailed by critics upon its release, with solid 3/5s and 7/10s across the board. Computer Gaming World called it “stunning” and the feature-film worthy soundtrack being “sexy [and] mysterious.”

I already highlighted the music, but the full soundtrack is available on YouTube and I still listen to it regularly as a background music while working.

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Clue has continued on with several other digital adaptations, with the most recent release in 2023, which interestingly uses the moment just before the murder as part of it’s “suggestion” phase.

But this Clue…might be lost to the digital wasteland. You can still buy the disc and jewel case, but it takes a lot of tinkering to get it working on modern hardware. And there are obviously other ways to obtain it.

While I was waiting for my new copy to be delivered, I was watching Let’s Plays’ and seeing everyone else freak out over the murder scenes. It felt great to see this game of my childhood be played and experienced by new audiences. I then looked at all other media based on it, including the several posters for the different European markets.

Look at these beauties. Each one uses pretty much the same copy text, but they all have different visuals. Some are more focus on the characters, or the weapons, different poses and scenarios. Some look like film posters, others are closer to book covers, but all are excellent. They completely sell that 40s Noir vibe.

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Even with all new versions and easier systems to work with, this is my Clue. I’ll always treasure this version, and will continue to play it to this day.


Banner Photo Source: gamesdb.launchbox-app

Tomb Raider’s St Francis’ Folly and Intention in Level Design

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Level design is one of the fundamental building blocks of creating a game; it is the world that we inhabit. We can all think of great games with some excellent level design and all in different ways.

Some games use their design to aid you with traversal through a single path; Faith’s “Runner’s Vision” in Mirror’s Edge guiding the way through colour, or scratched/worn down walls in Prince Of Persia showing you can wall run are two that come to mind.

In a similar vein, other games allow a wide range of possibilities from a single starting point. Metroid and Castlevania have an almost exclusive hold over this type of design (so much that “Metroidvania” is a portmanteau in gaming culture). Newer titles such as Hitman and Ratchet And Clank also deliver this type of world. You may not be able to reach all the nooks and crannies until you have gone away and learnt new skills.

Other games use their level design to bring their worlds to life. Bioshock’s flooded and rusting hallways, blossoming gardens and…everything about Fort Frolic perfectly paints the dying embers of a Galtian wonderland. Remember Me’s narrative snakes around its levels, with the Bastille Lake and St. Michel Rotunda amplifying the narrative beats that occur in those levels. The hidden tombstones in Modern Warfare 2’s “Contingency” highlight a possible cultural heritage of the area.

Today I wanted to write about a level that encompasses all three types of design, to varying degrees. That level is “St Francis’ Folly” from the Tomb Raider series. “St Francis’ Folly” is a level in the first TR game, meaning that it was remade in Crystal Dynamics’ Tomb Raider Anniversary. So I wanted to talk about the two in tandem, because even though they are the same level, the way they differ gives a different tone to each level.

How “St Francis’ Folly”’s Meaning Changes Through Different Level Design

“St Francis’ Folly” is probably one of the most recognisable and memorable of the original Tomb Raider levels. Jason Botta, creative director for Tomb Raider Anniversary ranked the level second only to the “Lost Valley”, (mainly because the latter had a T-Rex) (2:14).

“St Francis’ Folly” is a really good example of a jump in a difficulty spike. The first four levels of TR1 are spent getting you used to the controls. You’ve done a bit of swimming, a bit of climbing, running, jumping, and most of it is forgiving. If you miss a jump, you just climb back to the spot and try again. “St Francis’ Folly” does not give you that privilege. If you mess up, you will most likely die. It’s really easy to die because the whole point of the level is being REALLY HIGH UP. The structure is so tall in the original game you can’t see the bottom; the draw distance fades to black.

Toby Gard, designer for the original Tomb Raider and Anniversary, stated the goal for the area;

“…It’s quite common that game designers even when they have a 3D vertical space that they can play with, they tend to sort of end up making long, flat things anyway. So that particular area from the original game was just sort of let’s go as vertical as we possibly can…” (2:55).

The level is virtually unchanged from game to game, only with a few trickier challenge rooms for TRA’s more nimble Lara and appropriately named rooms (TR1 had “Neptune” and “Thor” in a tomb in Greece).

The major change to the level is the opening just before the vertical room, so let’s jump back a bit and discuss that section.

Let’s Rewind To The Beginning

The openings of the level are again, very similar. All the designers really had to do was update the climbing and traversal mechanics and it was pretty much set.

But the main difference is GETTING to the vertical room and where in relation it is to the rest of the level. Lets start with TR1.

The start of the level introduces the vertical aspect, in a safe-ish way. You jump from pillar to pillar, working your way around the room. You have some fun with pressure plates and open the big door at the other end of the room. However, this does not lead to the next stage. It is another room with a switch.

The door is in fact above the entrance where you came in. You have to use the previously mentioned pillars to jump up into the rafters, before sliding down into a flooded tunnel and eventually finding the way out, into the vertical room.

Now onto TRA. 

The level starts off pretty much the same. You have a pressure plate that needs to be weighted down, which opens the big door at the far side of the room. You jump between the pillars to get into the rafters to secure the weight for the pressure plate, move it to the ground floor and proceed through the big door.

Then you proceed down a long, long corridor and into the vertical room.

So What?

This is such as small change, but for me it changes the meaning behind the whole set of Greek levels.

All levels in both Tomb Raider and Anniversary are built on top of each other. It is historically accurate; invaders have built on top of previous religious sites and settlements as an attempt to exert their dominance. It’s also thematically relevant, as the “origin” tombs are supposed to be hidden away, kept secret from the world.

But the opening for the first section of the Greek levels in Tomb Raider changes this meaning. In TR1, the vertical room (and by extension, the rest of the subterranean settlements) is hidden back the way you came. It takes a little more thought to figure out where you have to go. And even if you get that far you then have to survive an underwater current and a very hungry crocodile. It feels like a secret entrance to an underground network, somewhere hidden away so that grave robbers can’t just waltz in.

Tomb Raider Anniversary by comparison doesn’t feel like the entrance to a secret tomb, hidden away beneath 4000 years of history. It’s a straight line from the start of the level, the big door beckoning you forward. It feels more like the door to a vault (which is a rather good way of keeping people out). However, a vault-type opening indicates there is something precious behind it, giving grave robbers the incentive to break through rather than giving up because the entrance is hidden away.

Conclusion

It was only recently after playing the two games in comparison that I saw this minute difference. And it only really makes much of an impact if you are interested in the lore or the narrative of the world of Tomb Raider, but that distinction was big enough for me.

In terms of the original and Anniversary, there are more changes that are made for thematic reasons. “Sanctuary Of The Scion”, the final level of the Egyptian section of the game is one that springs to mind. In the original game you come out of the side of the temple, with your prize unceremoniously placed to your left.

In Anniversary, the sanctuary is at the end of a long corridor with a large gate blocking your entrance. You have to use the other two pieces of the Scion (the artifact Lara is searching for) to open up the gate. Thematically this makes much more sense that finding it on a pedestal, as it is the final piece of the artifact that has been locked away for safety.

Another one is the very first level, “Mountain Caves”. The finale of the level is once again, a large door, but to get to it you have to “run the gauntlet” of darts being shot at you. In TR1, you appear on in the corner of the room, an unglamorous (and not death defying) entrance to a hidden civilization.

The point I’m trying to make is the subtle differences between the two games. It’s almost like a translation error; giving us the same work but just off somehow. Don’t get me wrong, I love both version of “St Francis’ Folly”, but their thematic difference makes the original feel more “believable”, even in a game about mutants from Atlantis.

It’s a small change, but it manages to change the tone of the level for me. That’s how important level design is in creating the feel of a world.

That’s not a new observation, but it was very interesting to see it in action.

 

Banner Photo Source: gametripper.co.uk.