Ornament Review: Clue - Family Game Night #4 - 2017 Hallmark Release

Stars: 4 out of 5

Pros: It’s Clue!!!!!!

Cons: Board looks weird, tilts forward

The Bottom Line:

Board game that I love

Now shrunk to ornament size

And I am so thrilled!

I Doubt You Need a Clue to Figure Out How This Mystery Lover Feels About This Ornament

When Hallmark first announced their Family Game Night series, I immediately said my number one wish for the series was a Clue ornament.  And Hallmark came through with the fourth entry in the series.

As you can imagine, I spent many happy hours playing Clue as a kid.  I even tried to come up with ways to play it by myself that sort of worked.  (Okay, not really, but it didn’t stop me.)  A mystery to solve and clues to gather?  I’ve always been a mystery reader, so this was right up my alley.

And this ornament is wonderful.  Like others in the series, we have the board sticking out of the box.  The game and the game box has gone through many versions over the years, but they went with the one from the 80’s.  Sitting on the board are the six weapons, and two of the tokens, Miss Scarlet and Colonel Mustard.  They even include the confidential case file folder that holds the solution to the mystery.  It looks more like a traditional file folder than the envelope that was really in the game, but it’s still a wonderful touch.

Being a child of the 80’s, this is the version of the box cover I still have, so I am absolutely thrilled to see it here.  Since I love green, I always played as Mr. Green.  Yes, I would have preferred if he had been one of the tokens chosen, but that’s being nitpicky.

However, I do have some critiques.  The rope is more of a yellow plastic than the white used in the game.  And yes, I pulled out my game to double check on this.  This is especially obvious since it is sitting next to the yellow Colonel Mustard token.  In the earlier entries in this series, they just tried to include a portion of the game board.  This time, they tried to include all of it, but the result looks distorted.  They should have just used half the board.

And the biggest issue?  It tilts forward quite noticeably.  Of course, this is an issue the series has as a whole since the loop for hanging the ornament is on the top of the lid, and most of the ornament sticks out in front.  There’s no real way to balance it well.

The game board does provide a nice flat surface, so you can easily set it out to be displayed year-round if you want.  And you’ll find the series marker on the bottom of the board.

No, the ornament isn’t perfect.  However, I still absolutely love it.  Clue will bring smiles to my face for years to come.

It’s your turn to find more ornaments in the Family Game Night series.

Original Price: $15.95