by whitescar
The Irregular Handbook: A Complete Guide to Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective(Part 1: The Base Game)
What I am presenting here is essentially an in-depth review of Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective (SHCD) to help people decide if they will like the game and get a sense of how it plays. But it is also more than that. Having had a great deal of experience playing SHCD I thought I would write something that went beyond a review and could be a guide, something that could address some of the questions that often crop up on this site: What are the differences between the old and new editions? Is it replayable? What are the expansions like and how do I get them? It seemed a useful resource to have all such information in one place. Where there are spoilers (and there aren’t many) they are in a spoiler box so you can choose to reveal them or keep them hidden. Note that links to other threads may lead to spoilers but I’ve put a clear warning in the text if this is the case.
Although I have a lot of experience of SHCD, I am sure I will have made some mistakes or have given incomplete information in places – if you notice anything, please post below and I will edit accordingly.
To enable people to quickly find the information they want, this guide is divided into the following sections:
CONTENTS
1. The Curious Incident of the Game in the Attic: My experience of SHCD
2. Overview of SHCD and its strengths and weaknesses
3. Case-by-case reviews and useful information (no spoilers unless you choose to view them)
4. Differences between Sleuth and Ystari editions
5. Advice for new investigators
6. Is there anything else like it?
I am considering creating a Part 2 of the Handbook about the expansions at some point in future, though I cannot guarantee when or if this will materialise. If I do create it I will add a link here.
1. The Curious Incident of the Game in the Attic: My experience of SHCD
Soon after I first discovered BGG I was browsing through the games and reviews when I came across Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective. I recognised the box as one I’d seen in my dad’s attic many times but had never played (it turns out we had acquired the game many years before at a jumble sale for about 20p, but because it looked too complex for me and my brother it had been put away and forgotten about). As I read the description and a few of the reviews I felt an emerging curiosity mingled with excitement – could this game really be as good as it sounded? Would we really have a chance to enter Holmes’ world and try to solve Victorian mysteries – to ponder over the truth behind curious incidents and three-pipe problems? I remember speaking to my dad on the phone at some point that day and saying “I’ve read about a game you’ve got in your attic – we need to play it!”
We did, and from that point on the game was most certainly afoot - we all loved it, and eagerly began to schedule in evenings to do the next cases. We found the game quite difficult, but we took the revelation of Holmes’ often-superhuman score with light-heartedness. We were, in fact, endlessly entertained by our own ineptitude. Oh, of course Mr Tinky Winky disguised himself as a gardener to do the murder and we should have known because he had dirt under his nails and a wheelbarrow by his door! But though solutions were often obvious in retrospect, we just didn’t see them at the time, just like with all good detective stories. And in some ways, I soon realised, SHCD is better than a good detective story, because with the good cases in SHCD you know all the clues needed to solve it are there, you just need to view it all in the right way... It manages to create that tip-of-the-brain feeling – a solution just out of reach and you feel you are edging ever closer but still it eludes you… And then, at the end, there is Holmes, smirking at you, explaining the obvious things you missed and being all smug and casual about it, like he has better things to do than solving such simple puzzles. All of which makes it all the more rewarding when you do solve a case, or even (yes it can actually happen) beat Holmes.
We continued to delve into the deep and perplexing mysteries of the base game, but realised our forays into Holmesian London would soon come to an end. Only ten cases! What would we do when they ran out? After some online searching I discovered, and eventually bought, all of the original expansions (for prices ranging from £8 to £100). The effort of acquiring each one made us really savour it – making sure we set aside enough time to do it justice. For the Queens Park Affair and Adventures by Gaslight, both of which require around 16 hours in total to complete, we made sure we had multiple sessions scheduled before we began them.
When the Ystari reprint was published I bought a copy, having read that some of the solutions were changed, and we played many of those original cases again (missing out the ones we remembered solutions for and knew hadn’t been changed). I also began to create some cases of my own.
As you can tell from the above outline of my experience with this game, I love this game. It is my only 10 rated game on BGG because I genuinely would always leap at the opportunity to play a new case. In the interests of balance, however, in the next section I will give a more objective overview of the game and summarise its strengths and weaknesses.
2. Overview of SHCD and its strengths and weaknesses
Overview
SHCD is a narrative, story-driven game that is often compared with solo game-books (such as ‘Choose your own adventure’ or Fighting Fantasy) because you decide where you want to go and then look up the relevant paragraph and read the text. What is particularly clever about SHCD is that, unlike in solo game-books, you are free to go anywhere because you have a big map of Victorian London with all the buildings numbered. Pick any place you like and you can go there – if you find no entry there is no clue at that location. You simply continue visiting locations until you think you have solved the case (or, more often than not, have a vague idea of what might have happened and no idea where else to visit), at which point you turn to the back of the case book and try to answer 4 questions – for example: Who did it? Why? Where are they? Why did they need to wear ridiculously long socks to commit the murder? You then turn to the answers and gain points based on how many you got right and how many locations you had to visit to solve the case (the fewer locations, the higher the score). This freedom is a superb feature of the game, and means sometimes an essential clue can be literally under your nose but because haven’t worked out why St James’ Park is relevant to the case you don’t realise and don’t visit it. This game is all about thinking, as a game based on Sherlock Holmes should be. And if you play cooperatively (which I recommend) it is about thinking as a group.
Now would be a good time to point out that although the rulebook makes it sound like you can equally well play co-operatively, solo, or competitively, I have never heard of anyone playing competitively (and good luck to anyone who tries – the game is hard enough already). So, in reality, consider this a solo or co-op game, and as a co-op it probably works best with 2 to 4 players, though you could play with any number.
The base game contains ten cases and each case has a newspaper associated with it with various articles and it is up to you to find the articles relevant to your case. People often ask about the replayability of the game and I should point out now that it is very low, because once you have played a case you know the solution, so only rely on getting ten plays out of the game. However, this only really matters if you also worry about the ‘re-readability’ of a book or the ‘re-viewability’ of a movie, because, as with novels and movies, the story and experience in SHCD are what matters. Having said that, I am in the unusual position of having actually played some cases twice with a gap of two years in between. The second play was still enjoyable, but my group would often think of things which we felt we were remembering rather than deducing, so it was not as good as the first time. Still, it shows the cases do have at least some replayability, if you wait long enough.
The cases are in chronological order and you should play them in order. Later cases may contain spoilers for earlier cases and/or involve newspapers from earlier cases in their solution. For each case, you can consult the day’s newspaper and all the newspapers prior to that, so by case 10 you have ten newspapers to read! Luckily, there aren’t too many clues in earlier newspapers, and often you will realise that you need to look in an old newspaper for a specific event or reference rather than just searching blindly through ten papers.
You should now have a reasonable idea of how the game works, but how good is it? Well, the simple answer is: it’s excellent. But you probably want some more detail, so what follows is a summary of its strengths and weaknesses. I would also encourage you to read other reviews on BGG and elsewhere to get some other opinions on the game.
Strengths:
Highly thematic
Creates strong stories and memorable experiences
Very simple rules
Well-written and (mostly) logical, clear solutions to cases
Can be played solo, co-operatively, or competitively
Can last as long as you want (though you should set aside at least an hour)
The newspapers look and read like authentic Victorian newspapers
As a co-op it is very social – lots of discussion and throwing round ideas, and some amazing ‘detective drama’ style moments when one players has a eureka moment that breaks open a case.
Although it is challenging it also has humour and some very funny moments
It is well-grounded in its historical era – Victorian London – and feels very authentic. Some events are actual historical occurrences and some newspaper articles are real articles from the 1800s. It is not entirely historically accurate, but it is, after all, only a game, so some leeway should be allowed!
There are some Easter Eggs hidden in the game, for examples see this thread:
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1210047/any-easter-eggs-foun...
Weaknesses:
The rules make it sound like you should try to beat Holmes, when in fact you should simply try to solve the crime while getting as high a score as possible. People are often put off the game when they see how hard it is to even equal Holmes’ score.
Solutions sometimes don’t quite make sense, or Holmes seems to cheat by making huge leaps of logic.
Lots of reading involved
The font: Ystari version – the font can be difficult to read, especially if you are not a native English speaker
Sleuth version – the font is easy to read, but this means you are more likely to accidently read something important from a different location.
Some typos and errors (depending on which version you have – there are more in the Ystari version)
Some cases are not that good (in particular case 3(2 Sleuth) and 6(5 Sleuth), see below for more details)
Difficult – if you don’t like losing or getting a low score, you won’t like this game
May not work so well with more than 3 or 4 players – I have mostly played with 3, and once with 4, and everyone has always felt involved and able to contribute. I can imagine that with more players some people may feel largely left out and it may be harder to make a significant contribution, and I’ve read some comments on BGG that support this.
3. Case-by-case reviews and useful information
What follows is a very short assessment of each case, indicating which ones I think are best and worst, and providing links to threads discussing those cases. You can read this section before playing cases – it may even benefit your gaming session to read the information here before playing a specific case. However, unless I clearly indicate otherwise only click on the thread links once you have played the case as many contain spoilers.
Cases were re-ordered for the Ystari version, and the cases are listed below in the order they appear in the Ystari version. The case number in the Sleuth version is in brackets.
Case 1 (1) The Munitions Magnate: An average case which serves as a good introduction to the game. Threads about this case (SPOILERS):
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1221332/spoilers-question-th...
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1223082/little-bit-angry-aft...
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1233372/spoilers-just-finish...
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1219776/my-only-unanswered-q...
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1155431/case-1-where-directo...
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/935248/munitions-magnate-pbe...
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1230335/errata-old-version-c...
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/815253/stuck-case-1-please-h...
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/618777/case-1-how-heck-am-i-...
Case 2 (8) The Tin Soldier: A good case that is a bit more difficult than case 1. Threads about this case (SPOILERS):
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1225572/case-2-solution-ques...
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1148539/spoilers-case-2-what...
Case 3 (2) The Mystified Murderess: The worst case in the base game, and the changes in the Ystari version unfortunately didn’t improve it. For more information (and spoilers) see this thread:
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1290251/problems-case-3-spoi...
Other threads about this case (SPOILERS):
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1243195/mystified-murderess-...
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/891470/error-second-case-spo...
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1161268/third-case-difficult...
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1103743/were-mystified-murde...
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1230335/errata-old-version-c...
Case 4 (3) The Lionized Lions: There appear to have been some small changes for the Ystari edition, but the main solution remains the same. This is one of my favourite cases, though I have read comments from some people who view it less favourably due to some incorrect/unclear wording in one of the clues. If you are about to play this case (in either version) you may enjoy it more if you are given one small piece of information which could be considered a very minor spoiler, though in my opinion it will only improve the case for you. If you want to know it, click here:
[o]Any reference to a ‘cage’ does not mean a cage with bars, it just means a container for an animal (with no bars or gaps). [/o]
Also, when you are ready for the solution in the Ystari version read this thread:
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1251118/new-edition-case-4-l...
Other threads about this case (SPOILERS):
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1234883/case-four-lionized-l...
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1178683/case-lionized-lions-...
Case 5 (4) The Cryptic Corpse: A good case, but pretty challenging.
Threads about this case (SPOILERS):
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1167667/4-case-cryptic-corps...
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1124655/case-5-aggravated-sp...
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/575042/help-case-4
Case 6 (5) The Mummy’s Curse: Another case where the solution has been changed for the Ystari version. In the Sleuth edition, this case is solvable and basically makes sense, but is one of the least interesting ones in the game. The Ystari version improves the solution in that the story behind the crime is better than the old one, but unfortunately, the changes to the clues don’t seem sufficient to make the whole thing solvable, so you will probably find this case unsatisfying. Overall, one of the weaker cases in both editions.
Threads about this case (SPOILERS):
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1169040/case-mummys-curse-no...
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1283645/old-edition-curse-mu...
Case 7 (6) The Banker’s Quietus: A good case.
Threads about this case (SPOILERS):
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1175645/case-seven-bankers-q...
Case 8 (7) The Thames Murders: A good case.
Case 9 (9) The Solicitous Solicitor: A good case, but worth reading this thread before you play:
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1211020/case-9-solicitous-so...
Case 10 (10) The Pilfered Paintings: Another good case and a strong finish to the base game.
4. Differences between Ystari and Sleuth editions
SHCD was originally published by Sleuth in the USA in 1981. The new Ystari version was released in 2012. Here is a list of the differences between the two editions:
In the Ystari version the font is different and harder to read, but this does mean you are less likely to read part of a clue by mistake.
In the Ystari version the newspapers are better: they are individual A3 sheets, so different players can look at different newspapers. In the Sleuth version they are smaller and all in one booklet.
Similarly, the Ystari version has a separate booklet for each case, whereas the Sleuth version has all the cases in one booklet.
The weakest two cases in the Sleuth edition, Case 3(2) and 6(5), are changed in the Ystari version in a way which makes the clues no longer fit the solution, but which improves the story (in case 6(5) at least). Whether you have the Sleuth or Ystari edition it is a good idea not to invest too much in case 3(2) or 6(5) as you may be disappointed.
The Ystari version has different artwork, and the map is smaller.
In the Ystari version some leads (visits to locations) are ‘free’, meaning you do not count them when working out your score. This makes it slightly easier to get a higher score in the Ystari version than the Sleuth version on some cases.
OVERALL: I recommend the Ystari edition (and it’s a lot easier to get hold of anyway). Although there are some things I prefer about the Sleuth version (we always use the Sleuth map) the Ystari version is generally a better choice because: 1. Having separate case booklets and newspapers is better and 2. You are supporting the current version of the game and making future expansions more likely. And although case 3(2) and 6(5) don’t hang together that well they aren’t very good in the Sleuth version either.
The only exception is if you are not a native English speaker and may find the flowery font of the Ystari version difficult to read (I have seen one comment to this effect on BGG).
5. Advice for new players
In my view the game works best as a co-op with 2 to 4 players, so try it like that if you can. It will also be best if you can play all the cases with the same group.
Work through the cases in order and don’t worry about trying to beat Holmes, just try to solve the mystery and get as high a score as possible. You may find it useful to read the brief review of the case (above) before attempting the case.
You may notice addresses in the directory with only one letter, e.g. 34 E. This is not a misprint but means 34 East – an area beyond the limits of the map included with the game. These addresses were to be used in an expansion for the original Sleuth version of the game which never materialised.
The way we play, and my recommended way of playing, is this:
Visit clue points until you think you have a solution, and at that point note down your solution along with how many clue points you have visited. Then continue visiting more places. Unless you find new clues that change your solution, only count the number of visits you originally noted down when calculating your score. If, on the other hand, your solution does change with more visits, note down the new number of visits and use that when calculating your score. This way of playing allows you to both get a good score (possibly) and explore the world of the case in depth – there are some excellent side-mysteries and encounters in many of the cases which you will miss if you simply play to get a high score and visit as few locations as possible.
6. Is there anything else like it?
The closest thing is the other game released by Sleuth in the 1980s, Gumshoe, which uses the same general rules but is set in 1930s San Francisco. However, it is out of print and very hard to acquire, and the first edition apparently contains some game-breaking errors, so you need to hunt out a second edition (I can’t remember where I read this – if anyone knows more details please post below).
Other than Gumshoe I have seen people draw comparisons between SHCD and:
221B Baker Street for the Holmes theme and solving mysteries. In 221B there is more luck, the cases much simpler, and it is competitive, so in my opinion it is nowhere near as good a game as SHCD. It would be more suitable for younger players though.
Tragedy Looper for thematic cooperative mystery solving. (I have not played it so cannot give my opinion)
Ambush! for a highly thematic solo experience. (have not played so cannot give my opinion)
NCIS: The Boardgame which involves visiting locations and getting clues to solve crimes, but is nowhere near as challenging or satisfying or thematic as SHCD.
Arkham Investigator uses the same map/directory/paragraph booklet system as SHCD but is set in H. P. Lovecraft’s world of arcane horror.
If it’s the Victorian crime theme that gets you going you could try Letters From Whitechapel which recreates the hunt for Jack the Ripper. The gameplay is completely different to SHCD however, and I recommend looking through some of the threads on BGG before your first play, as it can feel broken when you first try it.
For more information on similar games and other ideas see this thread:
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1226196/if-you-sherlock-holm...
And this:
http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/952125/im-madly-love-it-anyt...
And with that, my fellow street urchins, we have come to the end of Part 1 of the Irregular Handbook. Part 2: The Expansions may appear on BGG at some point in the future, and I will add a link here if and when it does, but for now, there are mysteries to be solved! Grab your cap and a copy of The Times and follow me once more into the foggy alleys of London, I hear Porky Shinwell has some vital information to impart...