This Review was first published the 11th of November 2020

As many of you may know, I am an avid board game, RPG (Role-Playing Game) and Puzzle Enthusiast. I have been amassing a board-game collection steadily over the last few years. One of my most recent additions is 221b Baker Street: The Sherlock Holmes Master Detective Game. Produced by Gibsons this game is designed to be played by two-six players aged ten and up. The game comes with a beautifully colourful, yet stylised, board for the player's individual Sherlock busts to explore nineteenth-century London. There are six different colours of bust, and one die for the players to roll to determine how many spaces they move. The aim of the game is be the first detective to correctly solve one of seventy-five cases. You must have your wits about you, demonstrate a shrewd cunning, and most of all, be faster than your fellow detectives to win in this battle of wits.

Each case included with the game begins with a beautifully written prologue. This prologue not only provides context for the players, reminiscent of the authorial style of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, but may also provide hints and clues required to solve the mystery. At the end of the prologue, there are between three and six solutions which must be found for the detective to be successful. These can range from the classics: motive, weapon and perpetrator to what was under the bed? Or as in case 14 The Adventure of the Coded Message you must endeavour to crack the code. To complete these objectives, the detectives must traverse nineteenth-century London in search of clues. When they visit a location, such as the Tobacconist or the Docks, they must then refer to the case card for a unique clue number. This will take them to either: a key sliver of information, or a potentially misleading red herring.

This game not only expects the detectives to use their wits to sift out red herrings, and piece together the solutions to the case. It also places value on being the first to arrive at a location. It does this through the lock and key mechanic. At the start of the game, each detective is issued a lock from Scotland Yard and a key from the Locksmith. If you arrive at a location and find the clue to be useful (or perhaps useless), you can lock the location. This prevents the next detective accessing it unless they use their key. In the case of useless information, you can lock down a location to encourage players to go there and waste precious time. For, of course, only one player can win in this game of the battle of the wits. Another key can be collected from the Locksmith so long as you do not have one and vice-versa for the lock at Scotland Yard. This mechanic caused some laughs and some sighs of frustration during my time playing. It functioned as a significant reminder that you are working against your friends in pursuit of the same ends. This was an important element of game's construction. It fostered the group inclusion factor which could so easily be lost in a game where discussion and conversation could so easily give your fellow detectives the edge they need to solve the case first.

The clues in this game are brilliantly arranged within the rules, clues, and solutions booklet. So, even if one was to read through the clues from front to back, they would not be able to solve a single case from them. They are randomly dispersed throughout the booklet, without regular increments, in order to make it impossible to accidentally read a relevant clue and glean unearned information. The one, almost glaring, problem I found about the clues and their presentation was that the game often requires the players to have a working knowledge of the setting. When playing through a few of these mysteries I found that the player is expected to be able to recognise significant names, such as Moriarty and Colonel Sebastian Moran. Not only this, but they must recall connections between these characters to deduce the correct solutions. Despite it being a fair assumption that those buying the game would know this information, it would be useful to include a handout for those less well-versed to become familiar with key names, places, and events.

One rule which I found heightened the game experience, but perhaps may be considered unfair by younger gamers, is that if you were wrong in your solutions you are out of the game. In order to win, you do not have to visit every location on the board. The detective must simply visit as many as it takes for them to find solutions for the case. Speed is an important factor as only the first to solve the case wins. However, you must take into account the devilish red-herrings and that clues unless complete may be misleading. To state your solution to the case you must return to 221b Baker Street and declare your answers. This can be done as poetically, or briefly, as the detective desires. Though in my opinion it is much more fun if you pretend to be Sherlock themselves stating answers to a flabbergasted Watson (the rest of your table). Herein lies the danger, you must be both swift and accurate. For, once you have stated your solutions, for better or worse your time playing has come to an end. You then must silently read the solutions and state whether you were right or wrong. If you were right, you can be humble or you can do an unflattering victory dance, it is your choice. If you are wrong you must state as much and then sit silently giving no indication to which solution(s) were wrong.

One of the main problems which cropped up in the game, was the slower pace of the movement. With only one die, and quite a lot of spaces, it can take a significant amount of time to traverse the map. Our group agreed to add another die to speed things up. As it turns out this was an out of the frying pan into the fire kind of situation. The game was clearly excellently play tested with the option for two die being considered. For, instead of a steady, albeit moderately slow pace to the game, two die created an even more infuriating problem. With two die, the detectives did reach locations sooner. However, there was a traffic jam worse than waiting in a queue for a public toilet when you've drunk over a litre of water in an hour. The time used for detectives to read, comprehend, and note down clues suddenly became premium. There was a backlog waiting for the clues which made the game have a stop and start feel to it. Rather than, the carefully thought out steady build to climax that the game makers intended. So, dear gamers, if you choose to add another die, choose carefully.

Overall, this is a wonderfully thought out game which I will be investing many hours into working my way through with family and friends alike. It is rich in detail and excellently structured. Everything, from the board, locks and keys to the solution book and handouts are beautifully designed to bring an elegant simplicity to an otherwise complex game to challenge your mind.