Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective

(The case of who stole this title's missing punctuation?)

I have mentioned before (possibly several times) that I dislike puzzles. I prefer a game where — even if you win — there might have been a better way to play. “The mistakes are out there, waiting to be made” is a quote by Savielly Tartakower, but also somewhat of a mantra. Nobody plays Tic-Tac-Toe after a certain age. A common problem with trivia games is that they are boring if one person knows all the answers (and frustrating for those who don’t). No, I prefer games without correct answers.

Partially because part of the joy of game is the post-mortem argument. That could be discussing the Schlieffen Plan in Paths of Glory, or whether you just got lucky when you didn’t stop, or the meta game in your favorite CCG.

And it’s the most fun when the decision is close, a knife’s edge, where even the Grand Masters (of that particular game) rub their chins and think instead of giving a definitive answer. For me, that’s catnip.

After all, it’d be a bit of a let down if he just said “You are wrong, here’s the answer, dummy.”

Sherlock Holmes, Original Killjoy. Photo by BGG User “Kevin C”

Raymond Edwards, Suzenne Goldberg and Gary Grady’s Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: The Thames Murder and Other Cases isn’t a board game. (It says so right on the BGG page). Sure, it has the trappings of a board game, there can be winners and losers and there’s a scoring system, but basically it’s a bunch of clues. (For more than one case). But these are cases that Holmes can’t be bothered with solving¹ and has left to you ….

You get the original facts and than can go off the various places to find clues, which can be buried in the day’s newspaper (along with a bunch of random noise) or by talking to people.

Some of the clues in a more recent edition of the game. Image by the aptly named BGG User “Puzzle Meeple.”

Of course gathering the clues takes time “in the game” (a few hours or days walking around and chatting) although you are free to take as long as you want to consider the information. Consulting Detective works equally well as a solitaire puzzle, cooperative affair, or competitive “who can figure it out fastest?” Depending on your taste.

When you’ve finally got the solution, you “Go to Holmes” who asks you a few questions and then rattles off the solution and assigns you a score.

Now … as I’ve mentioned, this is a decidedly not-for-me thing. There are multiple escape rooms around my town. The only time I ever set foot in one was in a “forced fun” work team-builder. But … there are multiple escape rooms around my town. Lots of people love them.

So despite my decided non-interest, Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective became a hit, translated into a dozen-plus languages, won the “Fantasy” category of the Charles S. Roberts award² and the Spiel des Jahres³ (when it was translated into German) and spawned a bunch of supplemental cases (and a videogame). Reviewers often simply said “ignore the scoring, who cares about that, the point is that this is an excellent puzzle.”

That is a sentiment I completely agree with. I’ve played many games (often simulations) where the “losers” have had an excellent time because the game is reasonably modeling something, and the points are simply tacked on. Do what you enjoy. If that includes Escape Rooms, simply ignore the snobs who don’t enjoy them.

And Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective is one of the grandfathers of those Escape Rooms and mysteries where you actually have to work things out. In an hour! Possibly with a team! I’m not be interested, but its hard to argue against including Sherlock Holmes, Consulting Detective⁴ in The 100 Most Influential Games of the 20th Century.

1. I dislike solving puzzles, but I’m as keen on mystery entertainment as the next guy. I’ve watched the entire ITV adaptation as well as many, many others. It’s great to see a complex puzzle solved, but many of the original stories are Rube Goldberg devices. And can we all agree that we’d like to see the occasional non-jerk detective? Great! Moving on….

2. From the Wikipedia page — Critic Dana Lombardy explained, "While not technically a 'fantasy' game, it was thought so highly of as to be voted onto the final awards ballot in the category because it features a fictional character."

3. Actually won the award and not just in my imagination, unlike some other game I could name.

4. That lack of punctuation in the printed title (when it is so clearly implied by the box) has been bugging me this entire time. So I added it.