Deduction board game are drawn at random. Notable members of this category include "Black Box" and "Master Mind". Investigation games are board games in which the players generally play as police, detectives or other investigators. The best known game of this type is "Cluedo". In fact, many of games in this category utilize a mechanic known as "The Missing Card," which was developed by Anthony E. Pratt for "Cluedo" ("Clue" in the United States). "The Missing Card" takes a known set of cards (or other token) and removes one or more of them. By gathering information and using deduction and logic, the players
Anthony E. Pratt Anthony and his wife Elva (1913-1990) began designing a murder mystery board game. The original game was called "Murder!", with the artwork for the board itself designed by Elva. Pratt filed his original patent application on 1 December 1944. He had spoken to a close friend, Geoffrey Bull (who had invented the board game Buccaneer), and it was Bull who introduced him to Norman Watson, managing director of games manufacturer Waddingtons. In February 1945, Pratt demonstrated the game to Watson, who immediately saw the winning formula of the game and, after a few minor modifications, decided to go ahead and