Board Game Review: Clue – The Office Edition

Toby Flenderson, Dunder Mifflin's Scranton-based HR guru is dead.  Or, at the very least Michael Scott would have that be the case.  No one quite vexes Michael as much as Toby (something about Toby being a party-pooper). In a typically insane Michael Scott idea, he has come up with a team-building exercise for six of our favorite characters from The Office.  They have been called in on a Saturday to, individually, investigate the death of Toby – yes, they're going to act individually in a team-building exercise.   Such is the setup for the new The Office edition of Clue.

For the most part (we'll discuss the changes below), Clue – The Office plays out like the traditional Clue game, except that everything is now themed on the NBC show.  Gone are the traditional rooms, and in their place lie Michael's Office, the Parking Lot, Conference Room, Break Room, Kitchen, Annex, Accounting, Warehouse, Reception, and Sales (this last one is the room in the middle).  The characters, rather than being the traditional Clue ones are six of our Office favorites (Jim, Pam, Dwight, Angela, Stanley, and Andy).  The weapons are all slightly more creative, featuring things like a poisoned pretzel, a ream of paper, and a rabid bat.

As for the changes from the traditional Clue game, this version features "Intrigue" cards as well as "Personality" cards for each character.  The latter allows players a one-time special power during a game, including things such as an extra turn and looking at a card just shown to another player.  The Intrigue cards are slightly more complicated.  Some allow for things like extra turns, while some are designated as Clock cards, which do nothing until someone gets the eighth one.  That person is then summarily dismissed from the game (eight hours having passed, the workday is finished).

Intrigue cards are supposed to exist as a part of Michael Scott's ever-changing whims, and as such are somewhat funny.  They also add an extra – but not wholly necessary –twist to the game.   Of course, one can play without them, making gameplay a strictly pure version of Clue, but with characters who don't instantly make one think of monkey brains.

The one unquestionably negative aspect of this version is that the ID badge player pieces are slightly too large, making it somewhat difficult when players end their turns next to one another outside of a room.  As that tends to happen rarely, if ever, though, the complaint is a minor one.

Anyone with a love of The Office will enjoy this version of the game.  Should such a thing as a "Clue purist" (or perhaps they would then be a "Cluedo Purist") exist, one can imagine the scorn they would heap down on this version, but such scorn seems wholly uncalled for.  Clue – The Office is just a facelift and new theme for an old, but great, game.  As such, it easily provides hours of enjoyment for all.

That's what she said.