So. Let me tell you about the coolest thing I've discovered in a long time.
There was this video game in the early 90s called Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective. It was one of those full motion video, point and click style adventure games that everyone was going crazy over back then. (Remember when Myst was a big deal?) I thought it was interesting but also clumsy and awkward and the video always looked like it was compressed within an inch of its life. Check out this video (skip to 1:00) to see what I'm talking about:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Jl2lKle1HQ[/youtube]
Little did I know that it was actually based on a... well, not exactly a board game, per se, but a game that comes in a box with papers and guides and you can actually hold the clues in your hand and it doesn't involve electronics. (Wikipedia calls it a gamebook, but that's not really accurate either.) There's no board or dice or moving figurines around on little shapes meant to designate places or "go back three spaces" or any of that. It comes with a map of London, a city directory, fake newspapers, and casebooks for the mysteries to be solved. As an example of how the puzzle solving works, you can use the map to see if a suspect could have actually been in a certain place at a certain time by estimating traveling time, or pick out clues from the newspapers that may seem like irrelevant details at first. It's made for one to eight players, though I'll be playing it alone.
The version being sold in North America right now is a 2012 updated version of the 1981 original. (Or 1982. Or 1985. Wikipedia and BoardGameGeek are sketchy on the details. It seems to have gone through several versions.) Apparently the newest version was translated into French and back into English, resulting in some typos in the material, but otherwise it's quite handsome and well-designed. (Simply opening the box and going through everything was a joy for me.) It has a list price of $39.99, though you can naturally find copies cheaper if you shop around. Most of the reviews on YouTube are in French, but I managed to find a good one in English (albeit with a heavy accent) so you can see for yourself instead of having to rely on my poor description:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zP6A2YTbxRY[/youtube]
Also, here's the game's entry on BoardGameGeek, with further info including user reviews.
13 Jun 2013, 1:40 pm
