played for you

Watson & Holmes

From the Diaries of 221B

The game offers 13 cases of varying difficulty and you try to be first to solve them.

A case is chosen and you select the corresponding booklet and Location cards. The cards are laid out face-down, as stated by the booklet. Next to them you set the Holmes- and Watson cards and the carriage stop. Players receive carriage tokens, a police token and their pawn + marker and, face, down a role card. This card gives you a once-only special action or, when discarded, three carriage tokens.

Then the starting player reads the case introduction, the questions that must be answered and, maybe, special rules for the case. Then you play rounds of Visiting Phase and Investigation Phase. In turn all place their marker on their intended location and maybe add carriage markers, this can be outbid. You can also spend carriage markers to take the Watson card. If you choose to visit the carriage stop, you get three carriage markers.

In the investigation phase Watson is resolved first. Then you take your location card, read it and can make notes and replace the location card. If someone thinks he has all clues, he writes down the exact answers, goes to 221 B Baker Street and checks his answers. When they are correct, he has won; if not, he is out of the case and, if he was first to have to quit, from now on embodies Sherlock Holmes using the card. A new round begins.

Games on this topic are all rather similar, here the very nice differences come from bidding for the location cards, the blocking/unlocking of cards with Police/Lock pick tokens and the help provided by Watson and Holmes. A very nice extension for the genre!

Players: 2-7

Age: 12+

Time: 75+

Designer: Jesús Torres Castro

Artist: Javier Gonzaléz

Price: ca. 30 Euro

Publisher: Ludonova 2015

Web: www.ludonova.com

Genre: Deduction

Users: With friends

Special: Many players

Version: en

Rules: en es

In-game text: yes

Comments:

Excellent components

Very clever details

Good rules

No errors due to mistakes of others

Nice extension to the genre

Compares to:

Sherlock Holmes Consultant Detective, Letters from Whitechapel and others

Other editions:

Spanish edition, Ludonova

Chance (pink): 0

Tactic (turquoise): 2

Strategy (blue): 2

Creativity (dark blue): 0

Knowledge (yellow): 2

Memory (orange): 2

Communication (red): 0

Interaction (brown): 2

Dexterity (green): 0

Action (dark green): 0