Monday saw Jonathan, Debbie, Jo and myself take on the roles of Baker Street Irregulars. Whose soul aim is to win approval from “Sheer-Luck” Holmes by solving crimes/mysteries in the game Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective.

The owner of a weapons manufacturing company is found shot dead in the alley behind his company. It’s the duty of our brain trust to follow the clues and solve this case of mystery and intrigue.

To aid us in this endeavour we have a “newspaper”, a map of London, a directory and a clue book.

Based on clues you find at locations around the map, you visit new locations, gather more clues, until you think you have solved the case.

In our case we thought we had it all worked out, we had our suspects and we’re just about to drop the hammer on them. But first we wanted to confirm our findings by visiting one more place and witness.

However instead of the confirmation we were seeking, we ended up with a new suspect. And it was all down to a brilliant moment from Debbie, who had somehow picked up on a clue from the original that the rest of us had ignored/ruled out/not picked up on. But it was to take our original suspects out of the picture and put a new one front and centre.

At the end of the game, when you think you know the solution to the case, you have to answer a series of questions about the case. You then score points for the correct answers given, then you take off points for the number of extra locations (not including any free ones) you needed to visit over and above the target set by Sherlock. You then compare your score against Sherlocks 100 percent to see how you did.

I thought this sandbox deduction game was ok. Jo and Jonathan found the script font in the clue book hard to read. Which wasn’t a problem for me. 

We didn’t record all the locations we visited because we didn’t know we had to. So our final score wasn’t entirely accurate. But we know better next time.

I think this game is really dependent on who you are playing with. You definitely are going to need pen and paper while playing to make notes.

Finally here’s a picture Jonathan took of me looking bored! But I was not I was reviewing my notes and listening intently!