SEEING BUT NOT OBSERVING WITH
SHERLOCK HOLMES THE CONSULTING
DETECTIVE
TAPANI N. JOELSSON
INTRODUCTION
It’s quite exciting, said Sherlock Holmes, with a yawn. (A. Conan
Doyle, A Study in Scarlet)
In this article we try to convey some of our experiences of
playing the narrative crime fiction tabletop game Sherlock Holmes
– Consulting Detective (SHCD). This game was originally
published in 1981, but our experiences are based on the playing
of the first six cases of the 2012 re-release of the game by Ystari
Games (2017). There are also other new editions and releases for
this game, and there are some differences between them, so the
experience of playing them might differ from ours.
It was not chance that our path crossed with Sherlock Holmes –
Consulting Detective. It was the game that met our criteria of being
playable alone or with small group, that has an interesting theme
for our taste, and it should be challenging. Selection process was
carried at boardgamegeeks.com (2017) from where the potential
games were selected and scrutinized based on their theme and
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what other players had to say about them. Through this process
we came by a game that contained no dice or other means of
chance, but instead relied only on textual materials in the form of
casebook and related narrative materials, emphasizing decisions
made by the players. A closer look at the game brought up a
review by Shut Up & Sit Down (2016) which confirmed to us
that this game also has the challenge that we were looking for.
In example, in this particular review, reviewers can be seen lying
down at the floor and comparing their notes when they are
trying to solve their case, and in some points urging other players
to play against their abysmal score instead of the reference score
provided by the game.
Findings during the selection process intrigued our curiosity and
raised our expectations on playing this game. This background
information also affected the playing sessions, as we had the
knowledge to be prepared. As proper detectives, we play the
game with notebooks for our notes and we track our progress in
the accompanying city map with stickers.
As we are not native speakers of English, we translate the
narrative to our native language during the gameplay. In games
narrative we form the Baker Street Irregulars led by Mr. Wiggins,
who also represents the players in the games narratives. Other
characters in the narrative come from Sherlock Holmes lore,
including the titular consulting detective Sherlock Holmes, Dr.
Watson, inspector Lestrade, and case specific characters.
Chronological order of play of the cases is not mandatory, but
the rulebook suggest that the cases should be played in
chronological order as the newspapers for later cases might spoil
the previous cases. The in-game world is set in late-Victorian
London and in the world of Sherlock Holmes. For those that are
familiar with either or both of these themes, game has a familiar
feel on it. Players that are unfamiliar with the era in question
might have small handicap but it should not pose a threat to the
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gaming experience. Knowledge about Sherlock Holmes might
be helpful, but mostly specific knowledge or familiarity with
him are not necessary as general knowledge about crime-fiction
should be enough.
The rest of this article will include an analysis loosely based
on the MDA framework (Hunicke et al, 2004), following the
example of Duncan (2014). In MDA games are split in three
parts (Rules, System and Fun), and these are link to their design
counterparts (Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics) from which
the framework gets its acronym. Our analysis mostly deals with
the aesthetics of the SHCD. In MDA aesthetics describe the
desirable emotions the designer wants to evoke in the player
while they are playing the game. For us the sessions playing
the SHCD have been rollercoasters of emotion, ranging from
desperation to immense delight and joy, and for this reason we
see MDA as a fitting analysis tool for it.
The following text contains spoilers that might make some of the
available cases easier or unplayable for interested readers.
MECHANICS AND DYNAMICS
There is nothing more deceptive than an obvious fact. (A. Conan
Doyle, The Boscombe Valley Mystery)
Base components of SHCD are simple; the game provides us
with the rulebook (12 A4 sized pages from cover to cover), a
map of Victorian London, a directory of people and locations in
London (20 A5 sized pages), newspaper issues (1 double-sided
A3 per case), and a casebook containing the story for each case.
There are 10 cases which all have accompanying chronological
issues of The Times newspaper and as the later cases might
employ clues from the previous issue, this part of the material
accumulates with progress through the cases. Figure 1 showcases
the base components, and Figure 2 a spread from the London
Directory.
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Figure 1. Base components for playing a Sherlock Holmes – Consulting Detective.
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Figure 2. London Directory, demonstrating the section containing name/location pairs
starting with letter A and beginning of the B section.
Every case starts with a prolog about how Sherlock gets involved
with the case and which also provides the initials clues for the
case. At the end of a prolog, Sherlock dispatches the players
to solve the case. Thematically this in many cases involves half
careless quip on how Sherlock is busy with something and how
this might be good practice for the group in detective work.
From this point onwards, players can at any time decide that
they know enough to solve the case, in which point they go
back to Sherlock and answer a series of case-related questions.
Otherwise they must decide who to meet or where to go in
London to get additional information in the form of documents,
observations made by their characters, and short interviews with
suspect and witnesses.
The choice of next location to investigate is, preferably, made
based on the clues provided by the prolog, newspaper(s), and
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descriptions from locations that the group has visited. In case
that players get stuck, nothing prevents them from choosing
any possible location or person in the directory. Each available
location do not have a description in every case, so visiting some
of them is not actually possible. But, for locations that are
available there is a description for the players. These descriptions
vary on their length and content, ranging from simple “Jasper
Meeks doesn’t have any extra information to give us. You’ll have to
make do what you have, my friends” to page-long stories about the
location and conversations Irregulars have there with various
characters. From these visits players gather the most of their
clues from which they construct the case, who did what, how,
when, and why. In this the game follows the familiar traditions of
crime fiction, with all the familiarity of Sherlock Holmes stories.
By combining these decisions to the mental work players are
doing while finding clues, eliminating suspects and solving the
case, SHCD creates a strong mental engagement with itself and
players. Salen and Zimmerman (2004) call this mental
engagement as cognitive interactivity (or interpretive
interactivity) which refers to “the psychological, emotional, and
intellectual participation between a person and a system” (p. 59).
In SHCD, there are at least three manifestations of cognitive
interactivity in this network. First is with the game’s initial
prolog and following location investigations, second is then
between players who discuss and interpret the pieces of narrative
presented at these locations, and third when players decide that
they have to consult the in-game newspapers for additional
information or refresh their memory with rereading the
previous clues.
If players decide that it’s time to solve the case, they go to meet
Sherlock and answer a series of questions. These questions are
scored and compared to a baseline of 100 points, which is the
default score Sherlock gets on each case. The players’ score is
reduced by 5 points for EACH location/person they have visited
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that Sherlock did not visit. For example, if players knew how
to answer to the “who, how, and why” questions correctly they
would acquire a baseline score of 100 points, but if they visited
10 places that Sherlock did not visit during his investigation they
get 50 points redacted from their score bringing them to total
score of 50.
In short, the whole game revolves around these two main
decisions: 1) can we solve the case, if not 2) then to which
location in London we shall go next? All players have to go
on, are the reading material the game provides and their own
cognitive interaction to make this selection and to base their
answers.
AESTHETICS
You know my methods. Apply them. (A. Conan Doyle, The Sign
of Four)
In MDA, aesthetics are the emotional responses evoked in the
player, and they are broken down into eight types. According to
Hunicke, LeBlanc and Zuber (2004) these are:
1. Sensation: Game as sense-pleasure
2. Fantasy: Game as make-believe
3. Narrative: Game as drama
4. Challenge: Game as obstacle course
5. Fellowship: Game as social framework
6. Discovery: Game as uncharted territory
7. Expression: Game as self-discovery
8. Submission: Game as pastime
In the case of SHCD, the most fitting aesthetics to discuss are
the Fantasy, Narrative, Challenge, and Discovery. Fantasy and
Narrative aspects of SHCD relate to its theme of Victorian/
Edwardian London and the Sherlockian lore. It is possible to
play the game without prior knowledge of either of these, but
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that in our opinion probably causes some problems. If players
do have prior knowledge of how Holmes works with cases, be
the knowledge from books or movies, they can deduce much
easier what information is important in the clues and what is
“just a thematic filler”. Off-hand notes about muddy shoes or the
size of someone’s hat has many times more value than prolonged
discussions about a manservant’s schedule during the murder
day.
Knowledge on these themes also increases the immersion, feeling
of achievement when you overcome the challenges presented
by the game and even fellowship. In our case, our familiarity
with Sherlock influences greatly the way we have interpreted
his quips and remarks, especially those directed to us as the
Irregulars. For those that know the way he speaks to people,
remarking how something “is quite obvious” when it has
required great deal of work from it can be quite infuriating
especially as you have just blown the case or at least the given
score. This has fostered our determination as a group to up our
effort in next case to beat Sherlock, making us more focused
team. For some reason, the feeling of achievement is also
probably greater for the fans of the Sherlockian theme as you are
solving crimes assigned to you by Sherlock Holmes as a member
of the Irregulars.
In SHCD, the narrative is presented in textual format, and only
rarely are there any images accompanying it. This stresses the
importance of words, their meanings and how they interconnect
with each other and details, and also presents challenges that
might not be so evident in other formats. This might also cause
additional challenges in cases where players are not native
speakers of the game’s language or if the game uses the old
meanings of some words that players are not aware of. For
example, in one of the cases (“Case Four: The Lionized Lions”)
our investigation had led us to a hotel room used by our suspect
who had been described as young man with athletic abilities. So
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we suspected that he had climbed down from his room, using
the vines on the wall as aid, thus avoiding the detection of other
guests or hotel staff. But then the narrative for this location told
us that the leaves of the vines looked ‘dusty’, and to us dusty
meant that nobody had been climbing on those vines as they still
had dust on them. This derailed our investigation as this suspect
was cleared by this one word and the meaning we gave to it.
After the game had ended with less favorable results, we used the
Google Translate to check this word, and we found out that one
of the less used meaning for the word dusty is … ‘greyish’. After
this fiasco our attention to every word and its potential meaning
in Sherlock’s time has increased considerably, but still we have
found out that we have fallen to similar traps again. And again.
But, despite these frustrations and defeats, the game manages to
evoke sense of achievement and gratification even when we fail,
and we keep on playing the remaining cases.
Discovery in MDA refers to the game as uncharted territory
which player are exploring. In SHCD this aspect is somewhat
problematic from the viewpoint of scoring mechanism which
effectively restrains player’s curiosity and prevents them on
acting like real detectives. As explained previously, players get
minus points if they explore too many locations that Sherlock
did not visit during his investigation. Typically Sherlock has only
visited four locations, so this pushes players to minimize the
locations they visit in order to avoid penalties and try to draw
conclusions from what they were able to gather based on these
few locations. Effectively this scoring mechanism denies the
access to the wider narrative from the players by punishing them
if they try to uncover details and visit new locations which
provide them more pieces to the overall narrative of the case.
This problem is most visible in cases where players early on
recognize that there are two separate cases to solve. In solving
both cases, the players’ location count could raise so high that
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additional points scored by solving the secondary case get
nullified.
There are several ways to circumvent this problem if players are
more interested in seeing the narrative side of the case than on
scoring high at the end. First is simply to ignore the original
scoring mechanism, and just see if players are able to find out the
correct solution without counting the visited locations. A second
circumvention, as suggested in some boardgamegeek.com
discussions, is to utilize an outsider who scores the game, thus
not revealing them Sherlock’s solution. This is a bit problematic
as the outsider should be present during the whole playtime, so
that they know which questions they can ask without revealing
to the players that they missed something (e.g. secondary case).
In our case, typical playing time has been between 2-8 hours
depending on how many places we have visited and how much
we have discusses the case among our group (and also how many
times during these discussions we had to walk our dogs). Yet
another circumvention is to treat the case books as Choose Your
Own Adventure books after the play session. The original
scoring mechanism spoils the story anyway as in the scoring
phase the questions presented to the players sometimes reveal
things that they didn’t find out during their gameplay and
Sherlock’s explanation of how he solved the cases reveals
everything. Because of this, there is no replayability value on the
cases, so after the session players can just read the case story and
find out the rest of the narrative on their own.
CONCLUSION
My name is Sherlock Holmes. It is my business to know what
other people do not know. (A. Conan Doyle, The Adventure of
the Blue Carbuncle)
Members of our group do play lot of tabletop and computer
games, and some of us also have experience with tabletop
roleplaying games. In most of the games we play, there is a strong
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element of chance, usually in the form of dice or other source of
random number generation. To us, Sherlock Holmes Consulting
Detective gives a different kind of a tabletop experience. In
SHCD there is no chance, hence our failure or success relies only
on our own abilities to spot the right clues and make the correct
deductions to solve the cases. When we are solving the cases
we can use our personal strengths and apply our background
information to help the group reach the right solution.
SHCD achieves this by giving us a rich narrative, enabling
collaboration, and by producing a sense of fun and achievements,
even thru failure. Usually our cases are failures in some sense,
even when we solve the case, as Holmes beats us by a large
margin in the scoring phase. Other times, the game just bests us
as we are trying to be too clever and end up going too deep in the
clues. Refer to Figure 3, which showcases the typical setup during
our sessions and also acts as an example of our glorious failure to
understand what the game has been telling us.
Figure 3. Gaming table during a case, presenting the map, in-game newspaper, and notes
of four players trying to figure the meaning of a coded message.
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The situation in Figure 3 is from Case Five – The Cryptic Corpse
where murdered man has been found from theatre after the play
had ended. At the beginning of the game, the first set of clues
contains an encrypted message, which we of course tried to solve
furiously. And we did it, but that did not lead us any closer to
the solution. While we were being busy thinking on how to crack
the code, we had ignored several hints, direct and indirect ones,
on how to really solve the meaning of the message when we
went on from location to location following the other clues. This
dawned on us after we read how Holmes solved the case. The
comment from shopkeeper in one of the locations that said “You
must read what’s front of your eyes, that way you will save everyone
time and trouble” was suddenly very clear. What a moment before
had been an impossible case, was suddenly a very simple case
that we failed by being overly complicated and by misreading
the clue. In this case, the intend was not to take the original
ciphered message and find out how to decipher its contents.
Instead, you had to look for something that was on plain sight,
on the ciphered message itself. The ciphered message contained
a date (5 May, 1889) and string of letters which some were lower-
and others in uppercase, e.g. “E ormji ErkiP geQi…(and
continuing)”. Date and month were both 5, something that we
also had used in our attempts to decipher the message, and it
was the key to reading the message. Our idea was that with the
number 5 you know how to substitute the letters and then you
can read the message. Instead, you simply had to count every
fifth letter in columns from the message, and take the next capital
letter after each of the word that were formed. This way you
found out that the message in front of your eyes read: “Moriarty”,
the archenemy of Sherlock Holmes. This is similar to how
Pyrhönen (2010, p. 46) describes how in crime fiction readers
are often given clues needed for solving the presented case, but
the narrative simultaneously confuses the real meaning of these
clues that only become clear in hindsight. In this case we again
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went from frustration to amazement and laughter when we
discovered the simple solution.
As noted in the beginning, there are other versions of this game
available. Based on what we know about them, which is not
much as we can’t really search for information about them in fear
of spoiling the cases we haven’t played yet, they have the same
structure, but the playing experience might differ somewhat
because there are subtle differences. These changes include
modified narratives to “fix” clues that have been deemed as
illogical by the publisher and differences between how some
clues are presented in different language editions. Interestingly
there are also digital versions of this game, including the re-
release of the PC version which is available on Steam. We haven’t
played the digital versions, but it would be interesting to see how
this kind of game has been transferred to a digital medium and
how well it works. Based on a short look on a series of YouTube
videos about this digital version, it seems that the narrative is
presented in a form of full-motion videos where actors play out
the scenes from the casebook. Sherlock and Watson also have
much more presence in the narrative as players seem to be
guiding them around, instead of the player acting as the Baker
Street Irregulars.
SHCD does frustrate us when we fail, and it frustrates us when
we excel. But in either case, we are having fun at the end, be it
bitter failure or sweet victory. And for that reason every game
ends on a discussion on when we can meetup again and try to
solve the next case.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The game is afoot. Not a word! Into your clothes and come! (A.
Conan Doyle, The Adventure of the Abbey Grange)
I would like to thank my fellow Irregulars Lotta-Liisa Joelsson,
Mikko Arvola, Veera Arvola, and Petteri Joelsson.
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REFERENCES
It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly
one begins to twist facts to suit theories, instead of theories to
suit facts. (A. Conan Doyle, A Scandal in Bohemia)
Boardgamegeek.com (2017). https://boardgamegeek.com/
boardgame/2511/sherlock-holmes-consultingdetective-
thames-murder . Checked 27.6.2017.
Duncan, S.C. (2014). Fiasco and Failure: Uncovering Hidden
Rules in a Story Game. Well Played, Vol. 3, No.1., 11-32
Hunicke, R., LeBlanc, M., & Zubek, R. (2004). “MDA: A formal
approach to game design and game research.” In Proceedings of
the AAI Workshop on challenges in game AI , 04–04. Available at
http://www.aaai.org/Papers/Workshops/2004/WS-04-04/
WS04-04-001.pdf Checked 27.6.2017.
Pyrhönen, H. (2010). Criticism and theory. In Rzepka, C. &
Horsley, L. (Eds.), A Companion of crime fiction. (pp.43-56).
West Sussex, UK. Wiley-Blackwell.
Salen, K. & Zimmermann, E. (2004). Rules of Play. Cambridge,
MA: MIT Press.
Shut Up & Sit Down (2016). Sherlock Holmes: Consulting
Detective – Shut Up & Sit Down Review in
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u-63xEB31dA.
Checked 27.6.2017.
Ystari Games (2017). Product page at company website
http://www.ystari.com/home/games/originals/shcd-en/
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