And I decided that I have absolutely no interest in the 2002 – 2008 era, with the possible exception of Cluedo Live. And of course I have absolutely no interest in the post 2008 era of Clue/do so far, except for certain licensed "themed" editions. So basically Clue/do is dead to me. R.I.P.
But as I was looking over the offerings of the last decade, I realized the mistake that Hasbro made: they used the same artwork for everything. Slightly different play rules, but all the same artwork. This seems to have started in 1996 when Hasbro licensed out the Drew Struzan artwork (no doubt in an effort to recoup their costs), which resulted in half-a-dozen editions which are essentially identical with subtle changes. Part of my problem with the new Winning Moves card game and Classic edition too.
I was debating whether to get a copy of the 1996 edition for my collection since I already have the LGE, both the Clue & Cluedo 50th, the International 50th Travel, and the tiny wooden box Collectors edition – All the same artwork!! But I don't have that great box cover vignette.
That's when I realized I had Michael-itus (addiction to Clue/do box covers).
So for me, not only do the post 2002 spin-off games not particularly appeal to me, but the artwork is all the same and the box art is not particularly inspiring. Not sure if anyone else feels this way, but it's just too much of the same thing. I guess I understand the idea behind unifying the spin-off games, but seriously, part of what makes the spinoff games interesting is the new artwork. Adding banal new characters which don't even seem to make sense is just more of the same and not much of an inducement. Would MD have been as big a hit if it used the same dull artwork from the 1986 edition? Then there's The Great Museum caper – yet a fresh new depiction of the characters (on the box at least). I'm still debating whether to get it for my collection simply for the box art. Followed by a fresh artwork in 1992.
So between the 1985 VCR edition, the movie, the standard editions and the spinoffs, there were 6 new different designs in the span of 8 years, not counting the Cluedo offerings, puzzles, books, TV series and video games. Compare that to the same design for 1996 to 2002, and 2002-2008. At least Cluedo offered some alternatives to collect during the same 1996 to 2003 period, but then after that it was the same unified artwork worldwide, just repackaged. BORING!
I bought the Clue/Monopoly wooden box multi-game edition, which has the 2002 artwork – and that's a great edition by the way, well made and beautifully done. But, I'll probably give it away as a gift to someone in my family with kids, since I will eventually end up getting a 2002 edition for the box artwork only, and I'm not even really motivated to do that. But I just am not inspired by the other spin-off games of this era. Maybe it's just me, but I have no interest in playing these games, however if they had all used different artwork, I would buy up every last one of them.
The one hopeful trend for the reinvention is that they so-far have used different characters for every edition, whether I like the overall concept or not, at least they are giving me a reason to "collect them all"! Perhaps they learned their lesson?
