Clue

Caitrin is obsessed with Clue. We play it all the time. Then
yesterday she decided she wanted to make her own version of the game
complete with characters who were actually silly versions of her friends.

I thought it would be a terrific creative project so we dove in. And
then I was pleasantly surprised to discover that creating a board game
is highly mathematical!

For instance, she wanted to have more characters than the original
Clue game. Well, that makes the game *longer* because the work of
deducting is slower with more choices meaning that the odds of
figuring out the murderer are longer.

When we set up the board, we quickly discovered that it mattered how
far apart the rooms were, how big the spaces were and where the doors
went. If we put the doors too near to the original positions of the
playing pieces, some pieces had an unfair first turn advantage. So we
had to count out the spaces and make sure that the doors were all
about seven spaces away from the original starting spots to ensure
that it takes two rolls to get into a room.

We discovered that it matters how big the center of the board was so
that the players didn't have to cover too many steps to get to rooms.
We figured out why some of the rooms on the original clue have double
doors (not just single).

In other words, we had never considered the structure of that game
mathematically. In fact, I had never thought about the fact that all
those calculations needed to be made in order to make Clue the great
entertaining, not too frustrating game that it is!

So we have completed our version complete with photos of her friends
on each of the cards and rooms on the board that feature catalog
photos: an entertainment room, a romatnic room, a doggy room and even
a sunroom! She made weapons out of sculpey clay (a pillow, knitting
needles, a fire poker, a plastic bag, a frying pan and a pair of
sewing scissors) as well as a die and little cubes to be each of the
characters.

And we've played. I am one of her eight characters (named Mrs.
Goodington) and as it turned out, for the first game I played with
her, "I" did it with the knitting needles in the sun room. :)