Customer Reviews

Clue Secrets and Spies

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(16)

 

 

Clue Secrets and Spies is unrecognizable as a Clue game - the only thing it has in common is the name of the characters, who are now all "agents." Each player randomly draws a card at the start to determine their agent for the game, which is kept secret from all other players.

The object of this game is to score the most points, and this is done in one of two ways: getting any agent to hold two items at the same time and getting an agent to meet a certain agent in a prescribed location on the board. This is done by playing action cards for any available agent, which allows for one movement and one item donation/swap/theft. Anyone can move any agent when he/she is available, and you don't have to score points for your agent. At the time that a mission is completed, you receive the card (worth one point at the end of the game), and the agent(s) who completed the mission each move one point up the score track on the side of the board - or, if "Agent Black" finishes a mission, he moves one point down the track, starting from the top. The game is over when Agent Black meets any other agent on the scoreboard. At the game's end, all players reveal their identities and add the number of cards they're holding to their agent's score.

The scoring of the game is a little strange - no two agents may have the same number of points. So if four agents already have one, two, three, and four points, then the next agent to score a point moves up to five points, regardless of where they were before. It's an interesting but sometimes frustrating mechanism.

There is also one final addition to this game - the option of receiving text messages on a cell phone during the game, which feels a little bit like the interruptions in Clue DVD Game. This adds some randomness to the game, such as closing down locations on the board, or forcing players to discard action cards. In the few times we've tried it, we forgot about the cell phone, or the messages didn't add a whole lot to the game, or the game was completed before we get more than two messages from the phone.

Overall this game is unlike any Clue game ever, but the idea is straightforward enough. It takes a little bit to sort out the exact rules (and strategy!) for scoring, but the game moves pretty quickly. The cell phone gimmick is entirely optional. This game may not be for people who love Clue and no other board game, but if you're up for a different style of game, this one is okay.

The game is completely different from Clue, not a translation of that game to cloak and dagger spy game. The winning and scoring conditions are interesting, but required constant checks back to the instructions. We found that the text message aspect added little (or nothing) to the game. It's just a gimmick. You'll try it once or twice, but if the game catches your fancy it's likely you won't use the text message part any longer. As for us, the game did't catch our attention. It's been set aside to come back to in the winter perhaps.

My 10 year old daughter LOVES Clue. We've played a few different variations of the game and this was by far the worst! It took about 1-2 hours just to get started and is extremely complicated. Like the other reviews point out, you have to constantly check the rules for scoring tips and other info. This game is being returned! There is really nothing fun about the game.

We bought this game at Christmas and settled in one night to play it for the first time. It's unbelieveably complicated, the instructions are poorly written, it's boring and the texting (which drew us in) is just a gimmick. I feel completely ripped off. We won't even donate it to Goodwill because we don't want to frustrate anyone else.

I picked this game up on impulse for our family game night. If I had thought it was just a variation on Clue original I wouldn't have gotten it. Clue is too easy for my teenagers and my husband to be much interested in.
After reading through the rules, which were a little confusing, we started playing. A lot of that confusion was cleared up in game play. Game play goes very fast. You get a random secret agent that you keep secret, a mission card which has 2 items to collect, and a 3 activity cards. During game play you can play any agent that hasn't been played yet, after they've all been played, they all go back to un-play. You're trying to collect completed mission cards which are tallied up at the end of the game to see who wins. There are two kinds of missions, personal missions which are 2 items one agent has to collect, and group missions which you see the city the mission is in, but not who you're supposed to meet in that city until you land in the city and look at the card with a UV light.
Yes, it's complicated, but not by a long shot the most complicated game we've played on family game night. It was a lot of fun and moved quickly once we knew the rules.
My children are teens though, and we've been playing board and card games for years at least one night a month. I think I'd recommend this game to 12 and up. A good combination of strategy and luck to make it random enough that anyone can win.
We didn't do the texting option.

I ordered this game from amazon.com got it and we sat down to play it tonight. It took a lot of looking back at the directions and trying to figure things out but by the end of the first game we had it down. We are all in our twenties so it may be really hard for younger kids, but I really think it was a fun game! The scoring is a little hard to get used to since during the real play of the game anyone can score for other people but it does kinda even out in the end. We tried the texting which wasn't a feature that I would buy the game for; however it did add to the game. The texts were a little slow coming in but we learned to start the texts before we started the game and the game itself is a little slow going so it evened things out. The game takes about half an hour after you figure out how to actually play! Over all a great game, slow getting used to at first but definitely worth it.Clue Secrets and Spies

i dont really understand the low scores given this game. it has a lot of strategy, plays quickly and holds your interest even when it is not your turn. i will admit that at first the rules are confusing and you need everyones attention to make sure they get the turn elements down. each turn consists of 5 elements that when taken in an orderly manner work quite well. it is strictly a card based game, there are no dice and movement on the board itself is limited to one or two moves a turn. every player has a secret identity and on a given turn you may be controlling an agent that is possibly yours, another players or an agent that is unattached to a human player at all. you basically solve missions based on controlling 2 of 7 items that are on your mission card or by solving secret missions based on having 2 of 7 agents together in the same city. each mission or secret mission scores one point for whichever agent you happen to be controlling on each turn. so on each turn you may be helping or hurting yourself or others and not know until the end of the game. i have two kids 12 and 9 who absolutely love this game. takes about an hour or less to complete and moves quickly once all players know what to do on their turn (took two games to get it down). if you are patient and have kids who can concentrate for more than 5-10 minutes you should find this game to be quite enjoyable with the winner often coming out of nowhere to steal the game.

Somewhere beneath the confusing rule book, it seems as though there might be an interesting game. But figuring out the basic rules takes quite a bit of patience. Surely Hasbro could have hired a better writer to write the rules in a way that makes sense.

The text message gizmo did not work when we tried it on Christmas -- maybe their servers were overloaded? and then several days later started sending us a gazillion messages, which of course count towards our text message count. Hasbro will be hearing from us.

We took the game out one afternoon during the blizzard and after a few hours, gave up! The instructions were not clear and it was just too frustrating.

We just finished playing this game as a family and it was so much fun! Our 6 year old needed a little help, but our 8 year old did great on his own. We loved reading secret messages with the light that's included. There's also a way to play where you receive text messages. My husband and I also had a blast! Definately worth the money. We'll be playing this game a lot!!!