Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective VS Watson & Holmes Board Game Review & Runthrough

0:00 do you like a good industry or come and join me at 221b Baker Street as we solve our next big crime Oh good-day mighty fine investigators and welcome to 221b Baker Street what are you doing in my lounge room details detailed now investigators do I have a juicy mystery for you to solve today today we look at two narrative Sherlock Holmes inspired war games for the first Sherlock Holmes consulting detective a fully cooperative choose your own adventure style board game and the other Watson and Holmes are competitively driven crime solving adventure board game it is your job in this case to look at the clues sift through the evidence make your deductions and decide which of these two board games is better in Sherlock Holmes consulting detective plays second the role of the Baker Street Irregulars as they follow lines of inquiry trace evidence using the map of London scoped out information using London newspapers or interview potential witnesses and suspects using the London directory or where the aim of trying to beat the master sleuth himself Sherlock

1:31 Holmes Sherlock Holmes consulting detective comes with a series of ten cases to solve a map of London and Whitechapel if you have the Jack the Ripper expansion which is divided into five distinct neighborhoods featuring locations you can visit throughout each case a street directory that features the addresses of people living in London at the time the day's newspaper that corresponds closely with the date of each case and a list of informants players will begin a new game by reading the case to be solved aloud players will then use the info the map of London the street directory informants and days newspaper to follow any leads witnesses or suspects that piques players interest and they refer to the sections of the corresponding pages of the case book to investigate different lines of inquiry players take turns following various leads and recording information down plays can debate over their theories and ideas once plays feel they have solved the enigma together they answer a series of Sherlock Holmes questions about the case if their score is higher than Sherlock Holmes they win in terms of gameplay Sherlock Holmes consultant detective is one of the formatic and evocative experiences I have ever had with a boardgame it's got these beautiful children adventure open world feel their players have a lot of freedom to follow some of the lead that they'd like to follow up based on the climate they're read the best way to play this game is to completely throw most the rules out of the window and just literally explore every lead every avenue that you plays wish to before trying to answer the questions this game is a little bit text-heavy and it does involve a lot of reading

3:03 aloud but it's the evocative and deep discussion that players have as they try to solve the unfolding mystery that makes this both challenging and rewarding I like how as you progress through the cases some of the previous newspapers contain information for helping places sold those later cases and I like how this game can also be played competitively when players reach the questioning phase of the game they can answer their question separately and then compare their answers and see who has the better score so detectives I make my final de duck shion's Oh in Watson and Holmes clave immerse themselves in the Victorian world inspired by the writings of Arthur Conan Doyle and they race competitively to different locations to cipher clues and try and be the first investigator to solve a mystery first they catch here that only one investigators allowed at any location at a particular time so players will have to try and be the fastest investigator in order to try and secure the most vital information first please select one of the 13 cases by firstly selecting the level of difficulty written on the front of each case book and setting up the location cards as shown in the diagram players listen to the case as it is read aloud there are two phases of gameplay the visiting phase and the investigation phase in the visiting phase each player selects a location card they wish to visit if it is unoccupied players can place their pawn on it if traveling by carriage players place any number of carriage tokens on it of their choice this symbolizes an investigators

4:34 traveling speed if the location is occupied the player needs to play more carriages than the occupying player in order to travel there if the current occupying play is outbid they return one coach to to the supply and wait for their turn to come around again players continue into all pawns have been placed the carriage stop provides players with three carriages from the supply during the investigation phase plays read their card noting any clues useful for solving the mystery players can place police chickens on their location card if they have any police chickens can stop certain players from visiting a site unless they have the lockpick or call of token if a player believes they've solved the case they head to 221b Baker Street here they record the answers and compare it to the answer card they get all the answers correct they win if they're wrong they are eliminated and gameplay continues and the eliminated player now adopts the role of Sherlock Holmes providing the other players with certain clues to the final solution what are Holmes excels by taking option being mechanism and weaving it into a deductive style mystery game it takes the important vital information of plays mean and spreads it out and locks it away making place fight over each other to try and garner the most vital information first of solving the case cases in Watson Holmes extremely well written and very well constructed different cards provide players with different details for example one card might be the list of suspects and the list of items whereas another card might give you a particularly quiver that helps you to narrow down those particular suspects

6:06 well if the third card might be a dud cut that gives you no useful information at all the best way to describe the cases and how they're constructed feels relatively linear it's kind of like at the beginning of the game where different players board a carriage on on a train and as plays visit and explore the Train they're building a better picture of how the crime or case is unfolded and it's a bit of a risk and reward element where plays decidable look I've only got half the information put a risk at all and go to 221b Baker Street and try and solve the case or do I just wait back and visit more locations before trying to solve the game so the narrative does take a little bit of a back stir in this game since the crime-solving element insurance consulting detecting each case can be described as a web where place start at the center of the web and follow different threads and often some of those threads are well connected together there's a lot of inferential questioning and connections that need to be made in this game to try and reduce and answer the questions at the end of the case and in saying that some of the questions can feel really specific and somewhat off-putting if a particular line of inquiry hasn't been followed through if you've got the asari edition of short claims consulting detective there are you printing errors in it and it's really important to go in for dengue and print off the errata and safe will be a writer to each of the pages of the relevant case books before delving into the cases in this version but in

7:37 saying that space cowboys have just released a reprint an updated of those with all the fixed errors of the original show friends consulting detective game your claims consolidate active is immensely fun I love how the components really evoke and immerse you in the Victorian era the map the newspapers and the London directory really test players abilities to look for detail and if that level of challenge that really make this game both exciting and rewarding alright activating Google Maps they weren't mobile phones around during the Victorian era no you actually have to use your width and your navigation shape I actually have to read this thing so is whatever phone's up button game I would say a resounding yes provided that you player under certain conditions first of all there's a great depth of amount of player choices that players can make I like how the card I link to all of the other location so in visiting one location might suggest where you might need to go and investigate next stop leading in closer to the most vital information that you need for solving the case there's a good dosage of player interaction and this game definitely excels at the higher play count but there is very minimal auctioning or bidding at the lower player comes especially at the two-player level but if you play the two-player variant you use the adjacency rule that is when the player who chooses a particular location places some carriage tokens

9:09 there and the second play we want to visit the same location or adjacent locations but orthogonal II and diagram they have to outbid the first plane in order to visit those places that creates for a much tighter game board and promotes more optioning and beating attitude player game the other downside is the fact that when plays play this they often play in silence so using the team variant where players pair up and control one character together and solve the case together that makes for a more interesting dynamic oh well oh you're back which board game did you think was better if you're planning to play on your own or with a partner I would highly recommend Sherlock Holmes consulting detective you definitely get lost in the world of Arthur Conan Doyle's writing for many hours you're planning to have a few guests over I will definitely recommend Watson and Holmes it plays in a much shorter amount of time but it immerses you in the same shell home themed experience and for which boarding I think is better I would definitely have to say that Sherlock Holmes consulting detective is the stronger board game thank you for joining me for another mystery and in the world of Sherlock Holmes himself you know my methods apply them I'll see you next time