presentation

Holmes

Sherlock gegen Moriarty

In the core game Spiel im Schatten, Sherlock collects clues to clear up the attack on Parliament”; Moriarty collects those clues to fog the issue and hinder Sherlock. Person and Clue cards are displayed, during the game new cards are added; Dr. Watson, Mrs. Hudson and Inspector Lestrade are always available for interrogation.

Sherlock and Moriarty alternate to take a standing action marker off a person card, lay it down on another person card empty of their own marker - an opponent’s marker can be on the card - and resolve the ability of the person thus  “interrogated”. Those abilities provide influence markers or clues, paid for with influence markers, or allow you to take over clues from your opponent’s display. When all markers are placed and abilities resolved, markers are righted; Persons carrying markers of both players cannot be interrogated next round. After seven rounds, you score for majorities of clue types or all clues of a kind and for map fragments; unassigned jokers give you penalty points.

In the Sherlock & Moriarty variant, the Moriarty player can make a reservation for a clue and then take this clue instead of a clue from the general display.

The Mycroft cards in the stack of person cards render the game more difficult; when one of those cards is drawn, you must implement it instantly - players either must discard clues or can only use two action markers in this round.

Holmes offers an interesting mix of Worker Placement and Set collecting, the mechanisms work very well. All in all, the game is an excellent addition to the range of 2-player games, fundamentally abstract, but with the topic nicely imposed.

Players: 2

Age: 10+

Time: 30+

Designer: Diego Ibáñez

Artist: Pedro Soto, Mirko Suzuki, Andreas Resch

Price: ca. 16 Euro

Publisher: Kosmos 2017

Web: www.kosmos.de

Genre: Worker placement, set collecting

Users: With friends

Special: 2 players

Version: de

Rules: de en es it pl

In-game text: no

Comments:

Core game plus two variants

Very attractive game for two

Rather abstract, but topic nicely placed

Compares to:

Lost Cities for set collecting

Other editions:

Devir (en, es, it), Rebel.pl (pl)

Chance (pink): 1

Tactic (turquoise): 3

Strategy (blue): 0

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 0

Memory (orange): 1

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 3

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0