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Mystery Fun and Games
181 Plays8 months ago
Games have long been a way for armchair sleuths to prove their deductive skills. In today's episode, Brook and Sarah discuss the origins of mystery games, the different types of games mystery fans play, and their enduring popularity.
Discussed
Clue Boardgame (1949) Hasbro
Clue: Harry Potter Edition (2008)
Clue: Brooklyn 99 Edition (2021)
Clue: Downton Abbey Edition (2019)
Jury Box (1937) Parker Brothers
Mafia
Mystery House (1980) On-Line Systems
The Traitors (2022-present) BBC
Murdle (2023) G.T. Garber
Agatha Christie: And Then There Were None Game (2005) Big Fish Games
Cherry Ames' Nursing Game (1959) Parker Brothers
The Great Charlie Chan Mystery Game (1938) Milton Bradley
Cain's Jawbone (1934) Edward Powys Mathers
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Music: Signs To Nowhere by Shane Ivers – www.silvermansound.com
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Transcript
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Transcript
Podcast Introduction and Community Engagement
00:00:10
Speaker
Welcome to Clued in Mystery. I'm Sarah. And I'm Brooke, and we both love mystery.
00:00:17
Speaker
Hi, Brooke. Hi, Sarah. It's time for some fun and games today. Totally. Before we get to those, let me just mention for our Clued in Cartel paid subscription, our write-along is beginning soon and members will have an opportunity to provide feedback, read what we write as we write it, and help shape the story.
00:00:45
Speaker
That's right, it's going to be a lot of fun. You're going to have input on what type of story we begin and then get to see it as it unfolds.
Clue Game and Cultural Impact
00:00:54
Speaker
Okay, so Brooke, when I say mystery game, what do you think of? Clue. I think you're like most people who would name Clue or Cluedo depending on where you live in the world.
00:01:06
Speaker
It was first released in 1949 and there have been several iterations since then, as well as different tie-ins to popular TV shows and movies. There's Harry Potter version, Brooklyn Nine-Nine version, Downton Abbey version.
00:01:22
Speaker
According to one reference I found, more than 150 million copies of the game have been sold, and it is one of the five most popular board games. But Clue is just one of many mystery-themed board games, and board games are one category under the broader umbrella of mystery games, and today we're going to dig a little deeper into that umbrella.
00:01:43
Speaker
So while researching this topic categorized what we think of as games into several different categories. So there's parlor or party games, which we could probably break down a little further into board and non board games.
Evolution of Mystery Games
00:01:59
Speaker
There's video games and there's puzzle games.
00:02:03
Speaker
So in terms of parlor games, these are games that are played with multiple people. The game Wink Murder, or Wink, and there may be some other regional variations on the name, is thought to have originated in early 20th century.
00:02:20
Speaker
Jury Box is an American game from 1937 and players act as a jury writing down their solution after evidence is presented by another player, the district attorney. Players earn points for the right answer and the game includes several cases for players to review.
00:02:38
Speaker
This game is considered a precursor to Mafia, which emerged in the mid 1980s and is now available via a free online version to play with friends over Zoom or FaceTime. There are also more participatory parlor games like Murder Mystery Nights, where everyone arrives at the party as a character with a backstory and new information is revealed throughout the night until the mystery is solved.
00:03:07
Speaker
An early example of mystery-themed video games is Mystery House, which was launched in 1980. Players are locked in a house and have to explore it to find clues to find jewelry to get out. Along the way, they discover bodies and have to avoid dying themselves. The game was developed by husband and wife, who initially sold 10,000 copies before a larger release of ultimately 80,000 copies.
00:03:33
Speaker
Until Mystery House, most games were text only, but this game featured visuals, though we would consider them quite primitive compared to what's available today. Since Mystery House, mystery-themed video games have advanced, they typically involve interacting with characters to learn information and gather clues. And like board games, there are several that draw on characters that readers are familiar with, Sherlock Holmes, Nancy Drew, and so on.
00:03:59
Speaker
Last year, I'm sure you saw several references to Myrtle. So originally it was an online game and there are three volumes of logic puzzle books. And last month its creator, Greg Carver, announced that there will be a board game version released later this year. With Myrtle, you really need to use those little gray cells. So it will be neat to see what the board game is like.
Significance of Themed Board Games
00:04:25
Speaker
Mystery fans can also immerse themselves in monthly subscription boxes that contain evidence and clues. In one version, mystery is revealed through six boxes, so over a six month period of time. And then there's also actual puzzles which reveals clues as the pieces are fit together. So Brooke, those are just a few examples of different games that mystery lovers can play.
00:04:51
Speaker
It's so great, Sarah. And okay, I have to admit I did not know that there was a Downton Abbey version of Clue. I might have to go online and shop for that. As soon as this episode is over, that sounds like so much fun because I am one of the people who that's my favorite board game. I love Clue and I have a very old version of it. I acquired through like an antique sale or a store and I love it so much.
00:05:20
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I have a few versions of Clue as well, but I didn't know about the Downton Abbey version either. But it totally makes sense, right? To play in that setting. It's perfect.
00:05:35
Speaker
I thought it was really interesting, this kind of overlap between mystery books, shows and movies and games, because there was a film based on Clue. It was inspired by the game, released in 1985, and I didn't realize this, but the VHS version has three possible endings.
00:05:57
Speaker
Wow, I didn't know that either, but what a genius thing to do for mystery lovers that you have a little bit of choose your own adventure. That's really clever.
Mystery Games Across Media
00:06:10
Speaker
Yeah. And there's a stage version of it as well. There's lots of, there's lots of overlap. Um, in 2022, BBC aired a version of mafia. So it's called the traders where players compete for money to identify who like the culprit is. And it's been renewed for a third season. It just goes to show, you know, we've talked about the Renaissance of a mystery movies and
00:06:39
Speaker
it's, you know, going to show up in the games and the other entertainment as well. So that's really exciting. Yeah. And there's, you know, I think there's lots of examples of board games that are developed, were inspired by popular shows. So there's like a CSI board game and that game that I described the jury box, it kind of sounds like what I would imagine a CSI board game to be like.
00:07:06
Speaker
Uh-huh. Or law and order or something. Exactly. Yeah. I just, I think it's fascinating. And there was, so in 1904, there was a Sherlock Holmes board game that was, um, that was launched. So this is not a new phenomenon. Oh, that's fascinating. Well, I feel like that, you know, aha feeling that we get when we read a mystery is
00:07:31
Speaker
You definitely can experience that when playing a game, especially when you, you mentioned that, you know, some of those parlor games include multiple people. Um, you become like the detectives and, and you know, you have that aha moment. Um, so it makes sense why we would enjoy experiencing it on this level as well.
00:07:53
Speaker
Well, exactly. And I think it's a way, you know, we all kind of fancy ourselves to be sleuths and it's a way to really demonstrate our detective skills when we're when we're playing in a game like that. There were a couple of other really interesting things that I discovered while I was researching for today's conversation. There was a board game released in 1968 based on and then there were none.
00:08:22
Speaker
Oh, yeah, yeah, which, you know, probably was similar to Clue in terms
Historical Mystery Board Games
00:08:30
Speaker
of the gameplay, but there would be, I think there were like nine bodies.
00:08:37
Speaker
And maybe as your character goes away, you're out of the game. And then who is the winner at the end? Very fun. The other thing that I thought was really interesting that I came across is there were a few other sleuths and book series that I wasn't familiar with that had games based on them. So one was Cherry Ames.
00:09:05
Speaker
and Cherry was a nurse, and so there was a series of books released between 1943 and 1968 with a board game in 1959.
00:09:18
Speaker
How interesting, a medical mystery series that we weren't aware of, Sarah. I know, I know. And so now I want to see if I can track down some of those books. The sense that I got is that they're a little bit more targeted at a younger audience. But yeah, definitely another, as you say, another medical mystery that we weren't aware of when we were talking about that earlier.
00:09:43
Speaker
That's fascinating. And then another sleuth was Charlie Chan. So this is a Chinese Hawaiian detective who was created in 1925. And there was a series of books released featuring this detective and a board game featuring the same detective was released in 1937 and a card game in 1939.
00:10:10
Speaker
How fun. I had no idea that there were this many tie-ins and so early to specific sleuths and specific series. Well, I think board games were a very popular pastime in the early 20th century. The Sherlock Holmes game was released in 1904, which is around the same time that the precursor to what we know as Monopoly was released.
00:10:35
Speaker
So, you know, I think they were a very popular way for people to spend an evening, you know, invite some people over, have a meal, play a
Global Popularity of Clue
00:10:45
Speaker
board game. And I mean, that still happens today, right? For sure. Where friends gather for a game night. Yes. And in those days, you weren't gathering around the television set with your family to watch a show. You were looking for, you know, another kind of diversion. So it makes sense.
00:11:05
Speaker
Yeah. I think I said that Clue has sold more than 150 million copies. And I'm assuming that that includes all of the different variations. And there's probably a lot of households like ours that have multiple copies of the game. But still that's, you know, 150 million is pretty good coverage. Absolutely. And there's lots of language editions of it as well. So it's not just an English speaking game.
00:11:34
Speaker
You mentioned the murder mystery night, Sarah, and have you done those before? I have, yeah, where someone else has organized this whole elaborate game. They're lots of fun.
00:11:48
Speaker
They are fun. I have one set and it is a Western game. I think I got it as a gift when I was, you know, a very young adult and played it with a set of friends. And then enough years went by that I completely forgot what happens in the game. And so we were able to play it again, but it was a challenge because
00:12:12
Speaker
It's cassette tapes to like hear the clues and the information. And so we had to scrounge around to find a cassette tape player. Well, I think nowadays you can probably find online versions.
00:12:27
Speaker
I haven't done the mystery box kind of games where, you know, it's delivered to your home on a monthly basis, but that sounds like it would be kind of fun. I know there are some that are kind of targeted at children. And so that sounds like it would be a kind of a fun thing to do with a child is investigate the clues. And I'm sure there's some, some science involved in that to teach some lessons in a really fun setting.
00:12:55
Speaker
Yes, the ones that are geared towards kids. And then there's also a brand that is geared towards like a date night thing to be able to coordinate with your spouse and have a different kind of date night. So I think that would be fun as well.
00:13:09
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So one of the game box companies that I looked up while I was researching for today's conversation, Brooke says that they ship 150,000 episodic and complete mystery game boxes to consumers each month. Oh my goodness. Yeah. If that doesn't speak to the popularity of mystery, I don't know what does.
00:13:36
Speaker
That's a much higher number than I would have guessed, but what a fantastic idea.
00:13:43
Speaker
Absolutely. And one thing I've seen is also authors themselves kind of creating these different experiences that you can have that coordinate with their stories. So maybe if you follow their newsletter or you visit their website that they have some games that coordinate with their series in a very grassroots way. These authors are like participating in this idea of expanding their mystery world with, you know, games and extras.
00:14:13
Speaker
Well, and that sounds to me like a really great way to just interact with your readers and build a very strong fan base. Yeah, because people obviously like it, right? 150,000 of this one brand of mystery box. So it's something that fans of mystery are interested in having. Yeah, totally. And what about Myrtle Brook? Are you a daily Myrtle player?
00:14:42
Speaker
I'm not. I am going to admit something. I'm terrible at Myrtle. I can't get into it. It's not my thing. I think I need to have a Myrtle coach. Is there such a thing? I don't know. There's probably opportunity there for someone.
00:14:59
Speaker
I mean, I like doing the logic games. I don't do them every day, but my son and I have sat down and kind of tried to work them out. What I like about Myrtle, particularly the online version, is that there's a lot of variation from day to day in terms of the number of
00:15:20
Speaker
clues that you get and how complex the puzzle
Netflix's Interactive Mystery Games
00:15:24
Speaker
is. Some are much easier to solve than others. But my hat's off to the creator of Myrtle because he's just done a phenomenal job of creating something.
00:15:38
Speaker
Definitely. It reminds me a lot of the lateral thinking puzzles. Do you remember those books that you could get? They're great fun. They're wonderful for a car ride. There's a lot of similarity there. I am really curious to see what the board game ends up looking like. I'm excited about that when you mentioned it. I thought that seems like it would be a lot of fun.
00:16:05
Speaker
What about the video game, Sarah? I know the Nancy Drew video games, for instance, have just a cult following. Is that anything that you've played before?
00:16:15
Speaker
So I don't think I've played the Nancy Drew game. If you have a Netflix subscription, Netflix also has games, which a lot of people probably don't realize they have a couple of mystery games where, you know, you can just do it on your phone. You get presented with some clues. You get to decide. I think you're the detective, the police detective.
00:16:38
Speaker
And so you get to decide, do you interview this suspect next, or do you pursue this lead that this piece of evidence is directing you towards? Which of these things do you do next?
00:16:54
Speaker
I think they're well put together and fun to do. So I've done those. And I've also, I think it was like $3 or something on the Nintendo store. So we bought a detective game and, or a mystery game rather. And I had to get my son to show me how to,
00:17:21
Speaker
how to do it because I'm not, you know, it's on the Nintendo Switch and I just couldn't figure it out. So it's something that he and I will do. And it's very much a kind of a, I think they're described as a point and click game. So you, you know, hover the
00:17:39
Speaker
If we were playing it on a computer, you would hover the mouse over a piece of evidence to learn something new about what's happening. But it's this, you know, definitely there's this narrative arc that is written into the game and, you know, yeah, you feel like a little detective trying to figure out what's happening.
00:18:01
Speaker
I love that. We also have a Nintendo system at our house, so that's something that I could check out and probably get help from the younger generation, as you say. And what about the Nancy Drew game? I know that there are people who played that growing up and who absolutely loved it. Are you amongst that group?
00:18:27
Speaker
No, I think that they sound really fun, but I haven't ever dabbled in those.
00:18:34
Speaker
Well, maybe we should try and track one down and see if we can play. But I do know, like I searched, if you just enter mystery video game into a search engine, you'll get a list. And there are some very immersive looking games. And I think it's quite neat that kind of historically it was a mystery game that was one of the firsts to have images.
00:19:03
Speaker
Yes, absolutely. It's not surprising to me because the clues and the setting and everything is so important in a mystery story, but that's really fun. I loved that you said, if you look at it now, it's going to look a little bit dated, but it was probably fantastic back then.
00:19:25
Speaker
Well, and I just like the story that it was this husband and wife side hustle that they did. They wrote the programming and were just sending out at the time it would have been discs. Like in 1980, not a lot of people had computers, right? No. So I think they sold 10,000 kind of in their first little bit, which must have been everybody who owned a computer at the time.
00:19:52
Speaker
They had to wait for more people to buy personal computers before they could do their second round. Yeah, yeah. Well, as somebody who really loves jigsaw puzzles, the game you mentioned where the pieces put the clues together, that seems like a really fun thing. And actually, I remember that I think that was on one of my Christmas wish lists one year. So I need to reinstall that on the list and maybe I can play this winter.
Innovative Publishing Strategies in Mystery Books
00:20:21
Speaker
Before we go, we should probably mention Cain's Jobome. So it was a book that was intentionally published with the pages out of order. Originally it was published in 1934 and then it was re-released in 2019 and both times with the prize associated with it. So the first person who could solve the mystery of not only putting the pages in the right order, but then figuring out the mystery that the
00:20:48
Speaker
the book tells, received a prize. And I think the timing of COVID really helped with the popularity of the, I think it was the 2019 release. It was just like the universe all aligning. Yes.
00:21:10
Speaker
because people had time to sit down and really puzzle out how this book was meant to go together. And so I actually haven't seen a copy of it because I am a little bit afraid that if I did, I would end up quitting my job and abandoning my family until I solved it.
00:21:33
Speaker
Well, yeah, and some of those TikTok accounts where people were working on it really, I think helped increase the popularity as well because you could visually see what people were doing to put this together. They coated their walls. It looks like a murder board. They have their walls.
00:21:50
Speaker
with all the different, uh, pages taped up to try to get them in the right order. Um, it's really fun to see the links that people went to, to, uh, to work on it. And as you say, it was the perfect storm because of, uh, people being cooped up and needing something to do. Um, but you know, if I struggle with a Myrtle, Sarah Kane's job is way out of my league.
00:22:17
Speaker
Well, Brooke, thanks for today's conversation. I think it was really fun to talk about games and mystery. It was great, Sarah. And one of these days when we're together, we will play a game of Clue, maybe down to Nabi Clue. I would love that. Well, thank you. And thank you listeners for joining us today on Clued in Mystery. I'm Brooke. And I'm Sarah, and we both love mystery.
00:22:44
Speaker
Clued In Mystery is written and produced by Brooke Peterson and Sarah M. Stephen. Music is by Shane Ivers. If you liked what you heard, please consider telling a friend, leaving a review, or subscribing with your favorite podcast listening app. Visit our website at cluedinmystery.com to sign up for our newsletter, The Clued In Chronicle, or to join our paid membership, The Clued In Cartel. We're on social media at Clued In Mystery.