The game's current equipment consists of a board which shows the rooms, corridors and secret passages of an English country house called Boddy Mansion, although previously named variously as Tudor Close or Tudor Hall, and in some editions Tudor Manor or Tudor Mansion).

There were other minor differences, all of which would be updated by the game's initial release and remain essentially unchanged in the standard classic editions of the game. Players also had to land on another player in order to make suggestions about that player's character through the use of special counter-tokens, and once exhausted, a player could no longer make suggestions. Notably, the remaining playing cards were distributed into the rooms to be retrieved, rather than dealt directly to the players. Some game-play aspects were different as well. Some of these unused weapons and characters would appear in later spin-off versions of the booty. In addition, there were nine weapons including the axe, the bomb, the syringe, the poison, the walking stick, and the fireplace poker. Originally there were eleven rooms, including the eliminated gun room and cellar. The game allowed for you to play of up to eight remaining characters, providing for nine suspects in total.

These ten suspects included the eliminated Mr. However, there were several differences between the original game concept and that initially published in 1949, In particular, Pratt's original design calls for ten characters, one of whom was to be designated the victim by random drawing prior to the start of the game. Though the patent was granted in 1947, due to post-war shortages, the game was not officially launched until 1949, at which time the game was simultaneously licensed to Parker Brothers in the United States for publication, where it was re-named 'Clue' along with other minor changes.

Shortly thereafter, Pratt and his wife presented the game to Waddingtons' executive, Norman Watson, who immediately purchased the game and provided its trademark name of 'Cluedo' (a play on 'clue' and 'Ludo', which is Latin for 'I play'). Pratt, an English Musician, filed for a patent of his invention of a murder/mystery-themed game, originally named 'Murder!' The game was originally invented as a new game to play during sometimes lengthy air raid drills in underground bunkers.

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