fen
Wales
Cardiff
The Vale of Glamorgan
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Type of Game: Card Game, Filler
Number of Players 3 - 7, Best Played with 4 -5
Length of Game: Around 30 mins, depending on player numbers
Similar Games: I Say, Holmes!
Comic Strip From 'Hark a Vagrant' (here)
Disclaimer: The images used in this review are from my remake of the game, I will review the original design for Component Quality - but be aware, there might be a little bias in this one.
Sherlock Holmes, while never far from the adoring touch of the media is once again on a rising star thanks to the combination of the BBC series and the Robert Downey Jr./Jude Law movies. However, there are not many great Sherlock based games in print right now and unfortunately this is not one of them - but fortunately, there is an alternative solution.
The Overview:
Sherlock Holmes is a lightweight card game where the players are involved in laying out the story of a case Sherlock is working on, they have him travel around and outside of London, search for clues, make accusations and ultimately aim to be the player who causes Holmes to correctly identify and arrest the villain behind it all.
There he is, get him!
The Winning Conditions:
The game takes place over a number of rounds equal to the number of players. Points are gained for having cards left in hand at the end of a round and lost for successfully arresting or 'escaping' the villain.
The winner is the player with the lowest score at the end of all the rounds.
Original Card Design
The Component Quality (Original Edition):
The cards are of simple design, echoing the time in which they were manufactured (1991), my initial warning is this, sleeve those cards up before you start playing with them - because otherwise the villain cards will become marked, they see significantly more shuffling/play time than any other card in the game.
Additionally the Villain cards contain a significant amount of black, meaning that an accidental hand flash can be a fatal mistake. It's true that any card game has this issue, but the distinctive nature of the villain cards really makes it a somewhat unforgivable error.
Honestly, I was not impressed with the component quality of the original game, it's practical, but there are flaws which become increasingly more significant as time progresses with your play experience.
I shall not review my own design, but I hope to have corrected the errors of the original without adding too many new design mistakes (I have, in my haste, marked the 'Thick Fog' cards - but they are less significant and I can correct that in the future - but I digress)
The Rules:
(If you don't require a summary of the rules, skip to the next section)
Sherlock Holmes is a simple game to get to grips with (apart from a few exceptions). The Location card is set to 'London' side, one of four villains is randomly drawn and added to a pile that includes the start card 'The Game is Afoot!' and enough cards to ensure that there will be six cards per player (6 x Number of Players - 2). These are dealt out, the remaining cards (including the other three villains) are shuffled into a draw deck and the player with 'The Game is Afoot' plonks it down, then play continues clockwise.
Each card has a number of other card names printed on it, so the following player must play one of those cards or draw a card - that's the turn. This continues until either a successful arrest is undertaken (someone plays Arrest, Watson or Holmes on the player holding a villain card). Or the Villain Escapes, which happens when a player with a Villain card
It works like this:
The Game is Afoot is Played, the next player plays a Hansom which allows a location in the same area (London in this case), the third player passes and draws a card (not illustrated above), the fourth player plays 'Scotland Yard', which allows the first player to play 'Arrest', she names the third player, who plays an Alibi - cancelling the arrest. All players pass on one card (the effect of the Alibi) and the game continues on.
It's pretty simple to grasp, you have to continue the chain, aiming to get rid of all your cards (or at least your high scoring ones), defend your hand if you have the Villain, pass the villain to someone else to make an arrest and try to keep a track of how might have what.
Once an Escape or Arrest is made then points are totalled. In the case of an Arrest, everyone adds up the total points on the cards they have left in hand, and the Arresting player gets to deduct the value of the Villain they just nabbed. In the case of an Escape the player who played the villain gets to deduct the points value of the villain (resulting in a minus score) while everyone else has to total up points. Escapes can only be played if you have nothing but Villain cards in hand, if you empty your hand any other time you're going to be drawing to get something to (maybe) play next turn.
You play one hand per player in the game and at the end the lowest points wins.
There is one part of the game that can be a little counter intuitive and that's the movement cards. Movement cards come in two types, Trains and Hansoms, each one limits the cards that can be played following it - If you are in a London area (including Scotland Yard or Baker Street) then a Hansom will allow the next player to place any other London card, while a Train card will only allow The Country cards to be played. In The Country Hansoms only allow more The Country cards to be played, and a Train card will have to be employed to allow Baker Street, London and Scotland Yard to be played again.
Keeping track of this can be a tad difficult, especially in a large game, that's where the Location card comes in, when a train is played it is flipped over (and similar when the Thick Fog card comes into action) - allowing for everyone to see at a glance where Sherlock is at their turn without having to look at the card below the Hansom/Train.
The following pictures illustrate how the movement and location cards interact:
Double Sided Location Card
The last thing to go through is the Arresting procedure. It's pretty simple as well, the player who played the arresting card (Holmes, Watson, Inspector or Arrest) nominates another player, they have to either play an Alibi card or show the arresting player their hand. If they have at least one Villain there one of them is plonked onto the table and the arresting player wins the round, otherwise their hand is returned and play continues.
The Good Parts:
I'll be honest, most of the time deduction games make me mad, they tend to work from the same format - the one that Cluedo set out years ago, and I never liked Cluedo. I hate it when you're using 'process of elimination' to work out what little cards the game has set aside at the start - Games like Murder at the Abbey and Mystery Express make me spit teeth. On the other hand I adore deduction games where you are set directly against other players like Fury of Dr Acula, Scotland Yard and even hidden role games like Bang!, The Resistance or Shadow Hunters make me feel like a little kid again.
Sherlock Holmes lands into the second catergory, you're pitted against the other players to try and deduce where the villain(s) are, you watch to see who's playing the cards that let them pass on cards and the expressions of the players involved. When you have the villain you seek to pass him on to your neighbour, but you might also decide instead to 'go for the escape'. If you receive a Villain from someone then you know you've become their target, and you have to decide if you dig in and Alibi your way to an Escape, or pass on the Villain as soon as possible.
There's a real sensation of silent bluff and double bluff going on, you eye up the player who's passed you this hot potato, but you can't outright exclaim anything to them because then everyone else will know what you have and the jig is up. Instead you either simmer silently, or shoot them an evil glance and hope no-one else notices. It's genuine fun and there is real satisfaction when someone plays an arrest, triumphantly names you and then sees a hand with no Villain... Oops!
The game also provides a sense of narrative, it is quite impressive how caught up you can become in the story that the game provides with its cards. Considering the simplistic nature of the cards and the abstract nature of the game it does actually hold a great deal storytelling in it - the game feeds the imagination.
The Weak Parts:
There are issues with the game, random arrests can cut a round very short, that's in the hands of the players, generally almost everyone gets punished for allowing an early lucky arrest (apart from the arresting player, who gets hurt less).
Telegrams are the biggest issue in the game; they are nothing more than a 'take that' card against which there is no defense. The ideal use for them is to pass them onto the player sitting closest to the current points leader, but as they are worth 10 points themselves players normally just slap the next player with the 10 point penalty. There are four of these cards, they're not that common, but there's little you can do against them and they serve little purpose other than inflating other people's scores. I recommend that players alternate each round's flow of play from clockwise to anticlockwise if they find Telegrams a little too frustrating. It will help a little, because the 10 points you dish out this time might be coming back around next round.
The game isn't deep, there are no massive strategic decisions you can make to take control of the game, all you can do is steer the direction a little and try to fight against the rest. As a consequence, once again, the experience is dependant on the level players in the game play at. If everyone is playing in a similar fashion then it can be a great experience.
Additionally, there is currently no way to play this game with just two players, three is not a great number to play either - the game only starts to shine when you get past four - I feel 4 - 5 players is the sweet spot.
Finally this game has been damn hard to get your hands on. Hopefully I have now rectified that situation (see below).
The Summary:
Sherlock Holmes is a card game I enjoyed playing and look forward to playing again. There's a great theme which feels very much a part of the game and there is considerable interaction between players. It's something I can recommend as both a filler and a gateway game for less experienced gamers. Now get your sleuth on PnPers!
Appearance of Cards in the Files - they have White Borders when printed out and cut.
The Files:
For those of you who are lamenting that you are unable to get a copy of this game without resorting to eBay. The following links are for my redesign of the game (which is the version used in the pictures in this review). Enjoy!
Sherlock Holmes: Luxury Edition Redesign - Part 1
Sherlock Holmes: Luxury Edition Redesign - Part 2
Sherlock Holmes: Luxury Edition Redesign - Part 3
Sherlock Holmes: Luxury Edition Redesign - Part 4
There is a Rules Summary for the game here:
Rules Summary
And version that uses less ink (try before investing anything more!) here:
Alternate deck of cards
Both these two files are by:
Show him some love and thumbs.
To check out my other reviews see this geeklist.
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The Soot Sprite
Australia
Brisbane
Queensland
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I'm still not sold on the game, but good review and thanks for the files. I enjoyed the cartoon!
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fen
Wales
Cardiff
The Vale of Glamorgan
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spritey wrote: I'm still not sold on the game, but good review and thanks for the files. I enjoyed the cartoon!
Thanks, I think the game is great for what it is. About a 7/10 on the BGG Scale.
There is a sequel to that comic as well.
The entire Hark! web comic is a great little quirky piece.
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Posted Fri Feb 3, 2012 5:35 pm
