Half heist-simulator, half adventure game, The Clue! was an unusual crime game even for its time

From 2010 to 2014 Richard Cobbett (opens in new tab) wrote Crapshoot, a column about rolling the dice to bring random games back into the light. This week, GTA is far from the only way to experience a life of crime. You could rob a bank in real life! Or, alternatively…

As credos go, a thief’s is pretty simple: What’s yours is mine. Why, it’s so fundamental to the job, games about them may even pinch it from each othe (opens in new tab)r. Before Garrett though, and certainly before… uh… The Yellow Guy, the art of thievery was a little more of an adventure. A not very well translated one, admittedly, but still. The time is the 1950s. The place, London. The goal, to master the art of theft.

I hope it’s fingerpainting. I was always best at fingerpainting.

So there I was, pretending to be in the middle of an anecdote, when I found myself on the platforms at Victoria Station. Three pounds in my pocket, a perpetual cigarette between my lips. No friends, no contacts, and only at 82% health. Probably something to do with the cigarette. This of course will not be allowed to stand. By the end of the week, I fully intend to be the Moriarty to this city’s Sherlock, the Lupin III to its Zenigata, the Hamburglar to its Mayor McCheese. All I need to accomplish this is everything. Conveniently, that’s also what I intend to steal.