The Beaver Coat Clue Game-Final Draft

Throughout The Beaver Coat, multiple objects were stolen including wood and the beaver coat itself.  However, it is never explicitly stated who steals these things.  The audience can infer through context clues what happened, but one can never know for sure exactly what happened, and in the end, the thefts are never resolved.

            For our project, we plan on making a board game similar to Clue.  There will be different settings around the outside of the board including Mrs. Wolff’s house, Krueger’s house, the river, the courtroom, and the street.  The characters we chose to include are Mrs. Wolff, Leontine, Adelheid, Dr. Fleischer, Julius, Motes, and Von Weherhahn.  The potential objects that could be used to steal the wood and the beaver coat include the sled, the boat, the laundry sack, a handbag, and the ladder.  You would play almost the same way the original Clue is played but we added a dimension by using action cards.  At the beginning of your turn, you would draw an action card to tell you what you are able to do.  They are: make a guess, look to see one of your opponents’ cards, an excuse card, or a game over card.  There would be more game over cards than other cards leading it to be statistically likely that the game would end before you figured out who actually stole the objects. Numerically speaking, there will be 40 cards with ten of each of the four types. Unlike the other types, the excuse card doesn’t have to be used immediately. Players can keep this card and use it when necessary. As with regular Clue, one setting, one character, and one object will be put off to the side in an envelope that reveals the guilty party (if the game ever gets that far). 

The way we have designed our game relates to the story because the truth about who steals the objects is never revealed.  It also works because the story ends abruptly without any warning. If a player draws the “game over” card, they will get the full effect of what the story is like.  An excuse card allows one to pass on proving their innocence.  If a player is guessed as the thief and they have an excuse card, they can simply use that excuse instead of proving that they didn’t do it.  It adds a layer that further connects to The Beaver Coat because it allows characters to get away with thievery just as Mrs. Wolff gets away with stealing the beaver coat and the wood.  To put it simply, the whole point of this game is to let players jump into the world of the Wolffs. It allows players to relate to the story to help them understand how Mrs. Wolff gets away with stealing the objects.  The different manipulations she uses are shown through the various cards.  Overall, the play is described as being like a “slice of life” and that is exactly what the game will be too.

Emily²

(Emily Humphreys and Emily Reed)