The Clue!

1994, it's raining outside, a 486 is humming in the closet, and I'm thinking about how to rob a bank without leaving my desk. Der Clou! — released here as The Clue! — made it possible with an elegance that had few rivals in the gaming world back then.

The game from Vienna studio neo Software takes you to 1950s England. You play as an aspiring thief who gradually works his way up from petty burglaries to bigger, bolder heists. The atmosphere is thick — black and white aesthetics, jazz in the background, cars with angular fenders. Genre-wise, it's a mix of adventure and strategy, with the latter taking the lead.

The heart of the game is planning. Before each heist, you carefully study the building's layout, choose your route, time the guards' movements, and decide who you'll bring along. Specialists — the driver, security expert, strongman — each have different abilities and different costs. Then you launch the action and watch as your plan either elegantly unfolds or falls apart because you forgot about the night guard on the ground floor. The game doesn't push you toward direct confrontation; it's about precision and preparation, not reflexes.

What set The Clue! apart from the crowd was precisely that sense of authorship. When a heist went smoothly, it was your work. When it didn't, that was your work too — just different. The planning system was unusually sophisticated for its time, and the game reveled in details that other titles ignored. At the same time, it's fair to say the controls were a bit clunky back then, and the interface might take a while to get into today. But the graphics hold up surprisingly well — stylized, intentionally retro.

Today, The Clue! will appeal to anyone who loves slow, thoughtful games — feel free to call it puzzle-strategy with a story. If you enjoy Ocean's Eleven more than Call of Duty, this is your genre. You can fire it up in your browser without much fuss, and an hour spent planning the perfect jewelry store heist is time well spent. At least nobody calls the cops at your desk.