17821

Clue Party - TheBoddy Mansion Murder

April 2008

Marcia in Wayne, NJ  USA

Runner-Up

Clue Party:

I.INVITATION:

A.Front Cover Made the invitation on Print Shop to print on notecards.  The cover used a simple deep purple border.  Inside the border, I used a black and white graphic of the card from the original game and to the right I typed in gothic letters, the tag line from the computer game Mr. Boddy is dead.  Everyone is a suspect . . . Even you. in black type. 

B.Insi had the usual information  ,  what, where , when, why.  For the where, we invited them to Boddy Mansion (also known as our house)  We added a line for the kids to dress appropriately for luncheon at the mansion so they would come dressed up. 

C.Back Cover Added directions to the house. 

D.Addressing We addressed the invitations and finished each one off with a thumbprint in purple over the sealed flap. 

II.DECORATIONS:

A.Outside Roped off the front of the house with official Police ne Do Not Cross tape which I got from a police officer.  To lessen the effect of the police tape, we added balloons in the colors from the game (red, yellow, white, green, blue, purple)  Cars still slowed down in front of the house, but that just added to the fun.  We also draped a fence leading up to the front door in black tulle. 

B.Inside 

1.Rooms I made signs for each room on the gameboard with appropriate graphics.  Then we designated a room in the house to each of the game rooms: 

a.Ballroom The living room was the ballroom because it has a piano in it.  We hung a wrench, using police tape from a hook in the ceiling.  This is where the game started since it was the biggest room. 

B.Billiard Room Half of the basement family room.  A table covered in green felt with a cutout graphic of a rack of balls and a miniature magic eight ball was our billiard room. 

C.Conservatory The bathroom was the conservatory.  We put a lot of plants in the room and, because the computer game has a monkey in the cons., we put a stuffed monkey in there.  The tub and shower were hidden by a drape of black tulle.  We hung the candlestick from the medicine cabinet handle. 

D.Dining Room Half the eat-in kitchen was designated as the dining room.  Here is where the girls had lunch before the game.  We also made drapes out of black netting that separated the ballroom from the dining room and another set that framed the french doors to the patio. 

E.Hall The actual hallway.  I made portraits of each of the game characters by enlarging the cards from the game and cutting out the oval portrait in the center.  These were very effective hung in a row in the hall.  We also had someone lay on the floor  just inside the front door and did a tape outline of him.  Looked real! 

F.Kitchen The kitchen of course.  We hung  butcher's knife from the ceiling directly above the counter. 

G.Library The girl's bedroom.  There was already a bookcase but we added an old encyclopedia set.  We put one up on a music stand and opened it.  Another was placed on a dresser and opened to the word Clue.  The revolver was hung from a hook in the corner of the room with police tape. 

H.  Lounge Half of the basement family room.  An old fashioned victrola music box was set on a table and when it played, the music was very eerie.  The rope was hung from the handle of the entertainment center cabinet. 

i.Study Another bedroom.  We put an old-fashioned globe on the bedside table and open textbooks and notebooks on the bed.  The lead pipe was hung from the ceiling lamp with police line tape. 

2.Other Decorations The dining room table was set with a gold cloth, a cream runner with gold flowers, black plates and bowls, gold plastic flatware, cups and napkins in the cream with gold flowers and plastic champagne glasses.  I made menu cards with the clue card on the back and elaborate names for each of the courses. (e.g. tender crust topped with warm marinara and delicious italian fromage - pizza).  These menus were placed in each bowl.  Gold balloons were hung in bunches above the doorway. 

III. ITINERARY

A.Arrival  - The girls were greeted by us all dressed in character.  One of us was dressed as a man in a suit, a mask, and a pipe, she was Detective Brown.  Another was in a skirt, shirt, and shawl.  She was Rose, the maid.  I was in purple and introduced myself as Periwinkle Plum, Professor Plum's sister.  As the girls arrived, if they were not dressed, they were offered a choice of dress-up dresses in the Character colors.  Several came dressed already.  One changed into a dress, two others did not want to dress and we didn't pressure them.  Everyone was offered a variety of accessories in the color of their character to add ot their outfit (purses, jewelry, fur stoles, boas, hats, etc.)  Each girl was then given a nametag with a character name based on their outfit.  The names indicated that they were relatives of the suspects.  (e.g. Ivory White was Mrs. White's granddaughter, Esmerelda Green was Mr. Green's great-niece, Garnet Scarlet was Miss Scarlet's younger sister.) 

B.Lunch  - Once the girls were dressed and given their characters, we started with lunch.  We had vegetables and dip, pigs in a blanket, and pizza.  We started with a champagne toast to the birthday girl and the girls loved drinking sparkling apple juice out of their champagne glasses.  They even poured their soda into the glasses when the apple juice was done. 

C. Game  -  When lunch was over, we gathered the girls into the ballroom and I very dramatically told them that there had been a party the night before at Boddy Mansion.  Six guests had been in attendance (here I pointed to each portrait in turn as I introduced them) and that each one of the guests was a suspect.  I told them that I needed their help to prove my brother, Peter, innocent.   We then split the eight girls up into four teams by having them choose  straws.  We had cut straws ahead of time into four different lengths, two straws of each length.  The girls then chose straws and paired up by the length of their straw. 

Those with the shortest straws were Team 1 and so on through the longest straws (Team 4).  Each team got a clipboard with an enlarged version of the detective sheet from the game and another sheet with the Clue Card Graphic covering the detective sheet.  Earlier I had separated the cards from a game of Clue into suspects, weapons, and rooms and selected one from each pile and slipped it into the Detective's envelope.  This was given to Detective Brown to hold onto.  The remaining cards were shuffled and passed out to the four teams.  I then instructed them on the basic rules of the game, how to mark their scoresheet, how to suggest, how to disprove, etc.   

Starting with Team 1, I asked the girls a trivia question.  Each question I asked had as it's answer the name of one of the suspects (e.g. Little Jack Horner pulled this out of his Christmas pie  answer: a plum).  If the team answered their question correctly, they could choose a room to go to.  Everyone trooped to that room and when we were there, Team 1 made their suggestion of a suspect, a weapon, and the room we were in. Team 2 was then given the opportunity to show a card to the accusers to prove them wrong.  If they could not disprove the suggestion, then it moved to Team 3 to disprove, and then to Team #4.  When their turn was over, it was Team 2's chance to answer a question and pick a room.  This went on until finally Team 3 (Violetta Plum and Ruby Scarlett) had the answer  Mrs. White with the revolver in the Billiard Room. 

They each won a travel game of Clue Jr.  Note:  This works perfectly with four teams, five would be too many.  We were lucky in that each team had one girl who knew how to play Clue and one who didn't.  Also, each team had one girl who had chosen a purse as her accessory, so they used the purses to hold their team's cards.  If we did this again, we might need to narrow down the field of possibilities, because if we hadn't had one very smart cookie playing, the game could have gone on all day.  As it was the game went almost exactly one hour, which was the amount of time we had allotted for it. 

D.Gifts and Dessert After the game, we gathered in the ballroom for the birthday girl to open her gifts, then we adjourned to the dining room for cake, (ice cream cake with M&M's in the shape of a question mark), candy, and chips.  The girls were all given a goody bag not Clue themed, just stuff 10 year old girls would like - lipstick, notepad, glitter body wash, candy, etc., and by the time they had shed themselves of their dress-up clothes and accessories, their parents were beginning to arrive.  PERFECT TIMING!

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