Holmes Alone

There's no regular Tuesday night games this week, since we're all exhausted from Stabcon but I do have some gaming related news of sorts.

One of the stranger things to happen at Stabcon was that I bought a game. Although it's not really a board game, more like one of those Fighting Fantasy books where you make a choice and turn to the required paragraph.

Except the choices aren't listed for you. You have to decide where to go, and then find that address (street number and postcode) and that'll tell you which page to turn to. Sometimes these aren't easy to find, and you have to do a little lateral thinking to find it in the game's directory or on one of the fairly convincing faux Times newspapers that come with it.

The Times from the game, dated 12 March 1888

And the real Times from the same day

Or you can do as I did when you get stuck: look up the street on Google Maps, find it on the game map, and then find the page that way. I don't think that's cheating. It's what Sherlock would've done.

You are Wiggins, leader of the band of ruffians that Sherlock occasionally called up for information. And you have to solve each crime thoroughly enough that you're able to answer eight questions, and then you can score your performance against that of Sherlock Holmes himself.

There are ten cases to solve and each one has red herrings and false leads, so as you can imagine, it must have been a nightmare to put this package together. And there are still a few mistakes here and there, such as a wrong address in the directory or a typo in the text. Actually, there are quite a few of these, and there's at least one example where it looks like some proof reading notes have been left in.

I've done two cases so far, and it's been enjoyable. I struggled with the first, having got distracted by a wrong lead. But I solved the second case much quicker, and when I checked my findings against Sherlock Holmes, I discovered I was supposed to solve a second case, too, which I hadn't realised so I quickly went back and tried again.

On the up side, it's well written and offers a nice suspension of disbelief. On the down side, each witness offers only one statement and if you find something new, you can't go back and question them again. This can be a little frustrating if you're used to video games like Broken Sword.

I'm not at all convinced by the multi-player aspect. Like cricket can be described as a game for two players, played by thirteen, this is certainly a one-player game that can be played by up to eight. Or more. But preferably one. You can put it down and come back to it the next day, and it doesn't take up an entire table top in the meantime.

It's certainly a nice way to spend an hour or so: in the company of a glass of wine and a dead Victorian gentleman.