Sherlock Holmes: Carlton House & Queen's Park

Love being able to sit down with my girlfriend and sister to solve a good ole fashion mystery. The game is easy to learn and fun to play. It'll have you wanting to buy the whole set.

Love the new house map

Be prepared to explore Victorian England as you and your crew assist Sherlock Holmes (and company) in solving mysteries. Each scenario has a dedicated news paper that oftentimes provides clues with your current investigations and a booklet with possible leads that sometimes leads to interviews or events that unravel the mystery or results in our team having more questions than answers. You will decide where you want to visit and who you want to interview to gather clues before attempting the final quiz where you answer a series of questions based on your leads and uncovered. The fewer leads you need to acquire the greatest amount of information means a higher score, however our gaming crew works collaboratively and is not dissuaded from following up on just one more lead before calling the investigation over. We will bake in some zesty voice acting as we read the interviews with the NPCs and we always have a blast, even if we sometimes don't follow the perfect leads and are delegated to forever be in the shadow of the greatest detective of all time.

I absolutely adore these games. They are creative, intricate, well-written, and engaging. I never play according to the real rules where you are trying to beat Sherlock’s score because I’m of the opinion that that is impossible. Instead, I play with my friends and we go through all the leads we want to until we’re satisfied we’ve solved the case and answered the questions. The only reason this one didn’t get 5 stars is that there are a lot of typos and some plot holes in this particular one. The cases weren’t as compelling as the first and 3rd in the series, but still worth the purchase. Just be aware that there are some errors, clunky writing, and some major leaps from tiny details that had me going 🧐 okay Sherlock.

Best game ever. Prepare to spend a couple of hours pondering, debating, and discussing the clues to figure out whodunit!

I bought this without the second, they were playing the first version. And The difficulty was way too hard. Some of the cases we're almost impossible to figure out in the time allotted

This game is incredible, but very different from most games.

An entertaining collection of mysteries, but translation issues make it the weakest of the four SHCD boxes in my opinion. You're given maps, an address book and a newspaper page (plus ones from previous cases). Armed with these, you are presented with a crime to solve and have the freedom to choose how you go about it. When you are ready, you can go to the back page of the casebook to answer a range of questions. The mechanics of the gameplay are very simple, but the challenge is often high. You can play solo or in any sized group. There is a scoring system, based on your ability to answer the questions correctly while visiting as few locations as possible. However, I think the game is best enjoyed without worrying about it. Exploring London, going down rabbit holes, and being tricked by inevitable red herrings is more enjoyable for me than trying to "beat" Sherlock's score (which, let's face it, is rather a fool's errand). It seems a shame to have all this narrative material and then try to ignore as much of it as possible for a high score. But players are free to play however they like, so I don't really consider it a design problem. Many of the new cases require extensive visits to Carlton House, a mansion who's occupants’ constant murders and misfortunes must make it very cheap to buy up. There's dozens of rooms across floors to add to your address book. The final case - an ambitious effort spread across three casebooks - also gives you a new sub-area of London to explore (stymied slightly by an odd time-keeping system which discourages following a-ha moments in favour of a rigourously planned and efficient route through London). I liked the new places, and there's some great mysteries to solve. My big issue with this box is the writing. It quickly becomes clear that this was written in French and translated to English somewhat poorly. It's not incomprehensible, but the prose is often phrased strangely, there are numerous typos, and it simply doesn't sound authentically Victorian in a way the other boxes do. When reading aloud, I often found myself having to improvise a better phrasing because it sounded just too strange to read as written. I still recommend it despite that, but it is a tier below the others.