My son read The Westing Game for school, and I read it too. It was recommended to me, plus I like reading some of the same things as him so we can talk about them. And, most importantly for this book at least, so we could play a game together!
For extra credit, he could choose from several different project options. He chose to make a game. Initially, he wanted to create a Dungeons & Dragons campaign, which I think would work really well with this story! But with the deadline looming, he decided to make a board game instead.
It's a combination of chess (with the board and the moves), Clue (with the murder and clues) and Monopoly (with the money and stocks). It also has a hint of D&D in that Barney Northrup is the game runner. He picks what character the murderer is (whether it's a person playing the game or not) and pulls out those clues to use in the game.
Players start with $5,000 - their share of the check from Sam Westing. They move two spots per turn and can head toward Clue ? spaces or Stock $ spaces. Clues cost $500 and stocks can increase or decrease your funds. Once you have three clues, you can try to guess the killer - but if you're wrong, you're fined $1,000.
Even after someone correctly guesses the killer, the game continues because everyone is trying to make it to the end of the board - the Westing Mansion. That's after starting at Sunset Towers, of course.
He designed campaigns for eight of the sixteen heirs with the goal of completing the rest for we can keep playing! We did two test runs before he turned it in, and it was so much fun!
There's more to it, but it's hard to explain in a post - maybe you should just come over for game night and play it with us!
