Isabel Garrett, who was in head of creating the Clue VCR games, has sent some stories on the creation and making of the Clue VCR games. This will be updated at uneven intervals.
Part 1: The BeginningHow the whole VCR game thing started was that Parker Brothers wanted to
do something that would replace the business that was falling off in
Atari game cartridges. They asked my group to come up with something and I suggested games on
video tape. Over the next week the process went something like
this.......PB - Video tape isn't interactive.
Me - Give me a week and I'll figure out how it can be.
PB - Why don't you base it on Clue. We already own it and mysteries are
in this year.
Me - Great - But could we set up the board for a game of Clue now ? -
I've never actually played it.
And would someone please explain to me how a VCR works - I've
never had one.
(I swear this is true!).............
PB - It needs to be a game that could not be played without a tape. No
board.
Me - It needs to be a game that everyone can play without leaving their
cozy couch potato seats.So after we played the game my first thought as I'm walking back to my
cubicle is that whatever this game is going to be, the final scene's
gotta be all the wacky suspects brandishing weapons and chasing each
other around the mansion to rinky-tink music. Then.....
Hmm... with a tape we can explain the rules right on screen so we need
a narrator - can't be one of the suspects............. A BUTLER! Perfect!
Now what do we call him...love to name him "Didit" but that's soo
obvious...It must have been done before. (I stand up on my desk so my
head is above the walls of all the 30 or so cubicles on the floor - its
the "creative floor of the company so such behavior is cool)
"Hey everybody... has there ever been a butler named Didit in a movie
or book or TV show?" Like "Murder by Death"? Is that where I got it from?
It 's been done, right?" Nope, it hadn't been done and we had our narrator.Side note: the actor that played Didit passed away a year after the first game, which is why Inspector Pry came into the second game.
The first job was to work out how the game could play - how to make
videotape interactive and indispensable to the game. I had 2 weeks to
put together a presentation for the corporate bigwigs. (Remember the
movie "Big" with the toy executives reviewing concepts?) About 9 days
into it I had it kinda worked out and was drawing up a presentation
when I remembered some very important facts:1) Executives in suits have no imagination.
2) Executives in suits cannot visualize.
3) Executives in suits want to avoid spending money on anything risky
that they're not really excited and sure about.
4) Executives in suits have no imagination.They 'de never get excited over a description. Or flat pictures.
They had to have the actual experience of playing a game with no board
- just a tape that they had to watch closely -
a game they'd never leave their seats around the room to play.We needed a tape. A mystery with suspects and clues.
So (after getting the company tech to set up 2 VCRs and show me how
they worked) I put together a short demo using scenes from “Murder on the
Orient Express” (10 suspects on a train - perfect!) one of my favorite
movies. Wrote clues for it and dubbed my own voice over the music to
guide the play. Had fun. Loved editing.And it worked! All the 'suits' got how really different this game could be and they
liked it. The next step of course would be to make a demo tape that actually was -Clue....