Although Corruption and Cluedo are deduction games, Cluedo has several mechanics that could improve my team’s game. However, there are still some aspects that are different and therefore worth learning from, especially the ones that have made this game so popular throughout the world. Both games are deduction games, and this core mechanic often causes conflict within a group, which means they could both be for friends or family who already know each other. This is backed up by Cluedo which is a tabletop board game which is aimed primarily at families and groups of friends. Therefore, Cluedo is a good game to analyse for that reason, as well as because it addresses the same issue of boredom within a social group. Lastly, Corruption and Cluedo have the same solution they are trying to solve: social cohesion and bringing people together to enjoy themselves.
- Type of game
Both of the game’s mechanics involve trying to find out who the ‘murderer’ or the ‘corrupt’ is. Furthermore, while analysing and playing Cluedo, I realised that it includes both luck, with its dice, and skill in figuring out who the killer is. This means that Cluedo’s mechanics of hidden information and dice roll produce dynamics of deduction and uncertainty, producing the aesthetic experience of mystery and suspense. However, corruption replaces Cluedo’s movement mechanic with persuasion, which in turn creates stronger social negotiation, which therefore could make Corruption a game that encourages more direct discussion, and therefore it places a greater emphasis on social interaction than Cluedo.
However, in our game, there is almost no luck involved; instead, its key principles are persuasion, of where to assign the money, but also to complete your tasks tactically. Also, as they are both deduction games, they share the same end goal for the players: to uncover which character murdered Mr Black/which players are corrupt, even if the way the players arrive at this ending is different.
2. Gameplay
Corruption and Cluedo both have similar gameplay and general rules in which it goes in rounds, and the players decide who they think the ‘bad team is and try to vote them out or stop them from winning. In Corruption, that looks like when the players get to vote who they believe the corrupt person is, and in Cluedo, when it is somebody’s turn, and they decide who they think killed Mr Black. The core mechanics of the game, as mentioned above, are similar; however, there are still some fundamental differences. These differences include the fact that in Corruption there is a feel of fellowship and teamwork as the corrupt know each other; however, in Cluedo it is more similar to a player vs player structure. An example of a difference between Corruption and Cluedo is that during one round, I suspected Professor Plum because he was repeatedly suggested by other players, but after eliminating several rooms using my notebook, I realised another player had intentionally misled me. This demonstrated how Cluedo creates tension through incomplete information. However, Corruption creates this tension when the Vigil is debating whether someone has completed their task.
3. Aesthetics of the game
I thought that the aesthetics of Cluedo and Corruption were similar in the way that there is secrecy, deception and mystery in their visual design. What I mean by this is that when the consumers buy this product, they know it is a mystery/uncovering game, unlike other games such as Monopoly, in which there is no secrecy. But in a way, this is what makes Cluedo and Corruption fun. In terms of aesthetics, I think that it comes in the way that the boards/games look, particularly in Cluedo, the dark-themed board gives the gothic theme of the game, and in Corruption, the corrupt cards and scoreboard have the same theme in the first iteration of the game. Cluedo’s gothic mansion and dark palette and murder narrative may be slightly darker than Corruption’s colour palette, but if my group wanted to make our game more gothic, Cluedo’s theme could be a good inspiration. However, I think that the contrasting type of play that the games have causes the aesthetics to change in the way that there are more role cards in Cluedo and therefore has an extra level of complexity compared to Corruption.
Overall, I believe that corruption is a close game to Cluedo for the reasons above and also because of its target customers and its emotional objective of causing friendly conflict in a social setting to bring people together within the magic circle that is created by the game’s rules. Furthermore, they both provide a common solution for the problem, which, in my opinion, is a group’s desire for bonding or a way to pass the time. After analysing Cluedo, I think that Corruption could benefit from some randomness in order to make the deduction part of the game harder.
