One More Go

As I continue to search for games that outdo The Return of The Obra Dinn for its sleuth feel, I’ve discovered that I’m not the only one who’s been thinking about detective games lately. Mark Brown of the excellent Game Makers Toolkit has recently posted a deep dive into what he considers the three categories of detective game. GMT is an excellent channel and Mark’s understanding of game design and the way he presents his observations has certainly informed the way I think about games as I play them. If you’ve never watched any of his videos, he covers a huge range of games, genres, and mechanics, so there will definitely be something of interest to you.

In Mark’s most recent video, one of the games he mentions is Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective a game which was a translation of a 1981 board game of the same name. I’ve never played the digital version, but I have played plenty of the original and it’s many re-prints and expansions, and I wanted to talk about what makes SH:CD a uniquely fun experience.

First let me explain how it works, SH:CD is a game where you and a team of friends embody Sherlock Holmes’ Baker Street Irregulars, working together to solve the mysteries of 19th century London in fewer steps than Sherlock himself – an almost impossible feat. Within each box you’ll find a map of London, an A-Z directory containing all of the businesses and people you might want to visit, a copy of the days newspaper, and a casebook that holds the setup, resolution, and the narrative that unfolds at each location you visit.

Play usually begins with one of your players reading out the intro sequence, typically someone in distress arriving at 221b Baker Street in need of Holmes’ aid. While the stage is being set, the rest of the playgroup will be trying to parse the narrative for clues, marking interesting locations on the map, searching for character names in the directory, and scanning the day’s newspaper for anything that could be connected to the case. Then you discuss as a group how you want to proceed before finding the appropriate entry in the casebook and reading out what there is to discover there. The tension of the chase is shared, excitement buzzing around the table when you uncover a new clue, or groans of despair as you realise you’re off the mark and have wasted another round of investigation. Its the collective experience that really sets SH:CD apart from any of it’s digital equivalents, games like Disco Elysium try to capture that by giving you a partner to bounce ideas off of, but that shades in comparison to having a group of people all engaged in the mystery and proposing different avenues to investigate. Navigating the ideas put forward by the rest of the team becomes a game in itself, and it can be easy to fall into the trap of doing what you think should be done, like always visiting the crime scene, rather than taking a chance on someone’s more abstract suggestion.

When you’ve visited enough locations to get a good idea of what’s been going on, you can jump to the resolution of the case where you answer a series of questions, half of which will be the central mystery itself, ‘why was someone murdered’ or ‘who killed them’, and the other half will be more lighthearted mysteries or something loosely connected to the crime such as ‘what brand of tobacco was smoked by the landlord of the murdered person’. When everyone agrees how to answer each question, usually there a few that your confident in and others that are total fabrications, you can read out the closing summary and then score your attempt against Sherlock. I’m sure there are super sleuths out there who can beat Sherlock on the reg, but in the 30 or so cases I’ve played, our team only really came close once.

In order to beat Sherlock you need to visit as few locations as possible, so you end up in a struggle between wanting to know exactly what’s happened, and knowing when you should call it a day and make some guesses on the information your missing. In some ways that’s a bit of a shame because the interactions throughout the casebook are fun and charming, even when they’re irrelevant to the case, so by limiting the number of places you go, you see less of the story and characterisations created by the authors. On the other hand it makes every decision you make as a group feel significant, knowing that you’re one missed step away from losing the game. If, like me, you’ve failed to beat Holmes on every case there’s still enjoyment in actually figuring out what’s going on. As you would expect from Sherlock Holmes’ fiction, the mysteries are usually layered and knotty enough that figuring them out feels like a win regardless of whether Sherlock solved the case more quickly.

Much to it’s benefit SH:CD is a game with very little structure, there are no round timers, player turns, or phases of gameplay to worry about. After each new section of narrative is unveiled you can take your time cross referencing against previous clues, or searching the newspapers and directory for any names or locations that might be a shortcut to solving the mystery. Leafing through actual pages, marking the map, and making notes adds a tactility to the game that just can’t be replicated digitally. Passing items around the table until someone spots a name or a connection that every one else has missed means SH:CD is a game full of ‘Aha’ moments shared between your friends.

SH:CD has proven a popular enough game that in recent years a whole new edition of the original game has been published by Space Cowboys, and they’ve even gone so far as releasing three new boxes, each with a unique spin on the central mechanics of the game. The ‘Jack the Ripper & West End Adventures’ box gives you a more detailed map of London’s West End to explore and adds cases inspired by the true crimes of Jack the Ripper, the ‘Carlton House and Queens Park’ box stages mysteries within a stately home where you’ll be able to search for clues in each room, and ‘The Baker Street Irregulars’ box adds a time mechanic that will have you revisiting locations and chasing characters throughout London. As a collection they have accompanied me on long weekends with friends and kept me entertained on rainy afternoons and they certainly rank among some of my favourite detective games.