Production issues aside, I’d agree with that sentiment. SH: CD is fabulous, and I’ve really not found another game that captures the sense of solving mysteries to the same degree. (Mythos Tales tries, and has a couple of interesting mechanics to add to things, but is not generally as well written and also has serious production errors.)
To the extent there’s a game there, it’s comparing your score to a pre-determined (seemingly highly unfair and unbeatable) Sherlock number. I think it’s a fine experience in the right context, sort of like an escape room, but it’s more of a book than a game.
Which I really enjoy.
In fact this reminds me of a new (very old) game I played recently.
So about 10 years ago a FLGS was having their semi annual board game auction. One game came up for sale, one I’d never heard of, but it was Sherlock Holmes and the price was $7, so I bought it. It was 221B Baker Street. A copy from about 1982 or so.
It sat in my closet for those 10 years, never getting played. Until, when with a friend buying one of those escape room games, he saw SHCD on the shelf and was interested, said how much he loved Sherlock. Well I was shocked, and told him about this mystery game in my closet. So we resolved to break it out.
And we did.
The design is aged. Mechanically it’s similar to Clue. Roll a die, move to location, get information. However there is a distinction. Each location has a specific clue, referenced by a number on the case filed that refers to a line in the clue book. And attention to detail matters, since noting things like a cigar and going to the tobacconist, are likely to yield relevant clues.
It’s a game that shows its age, but we enjoyed it for what it was. It really, fundamentally, is just a less crap Clue. The fact you actually have to piece together clues from the mystery is nice. When you get the final piece you need, and have the ‘AHA’ moment? It’s there. But it’s also very limited interaction, all you can do is use a lock to prevent other players from entering a location, and very simple mechanically. And, realistically, for any given mystery you’ll have to visit all but one or two locations anyhow.
But for a game I picked up for $7? It’ll do. Not sure I’ll seek out the expansion mysteries beyond the 20 it came with.
Somewhere in a box I have my original 1982 version on SH:CD. It came in a brown vinyl three-ring binder with pockets inside for the other materials and folding paper game board. I gather the cases in the base are the same?
I believe they are. As far as I can tell, the new ones are just straight reprints with some minor improvements and better production quality.
At least that’s what I gathered when I was reading up on it recently.
I think in the wake of the success of the relaunch of SH:CD, there’s been an updated reprint of 221B Baker Street as well, though probably from different folks.
Hey, speaking of paragraph-book-games (of which I’m a huge fan), just today Ares Games announced they’re doing a reprinting/update to City of Chaos.
What, never heard of it? I’m not surprised. It was a super-small-press game from the UK in the late '90s. It really is like several players playing through several Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks at the same time. The rules are terrible (roll-to-move!), the stories mostly scattered and impossible to follow, but it has a certain charm.
I grabbed a copy from a little game store in West Seattle 20 years ago, and for most of that time I’ve dreamed of doing a rewrite to make it an actual playable game. The sense of style and imagination in the setting, the various guilds you can join and level up in, etc.- it’s a really neat open-world city to explore. I’m super curious to see what they do with it to update it.
I just bought it last week. It came with two copies of one of the bound groups of cards, and zero copies of another. I mailed support 4 days ago. They have not responded.
WOW, this is amazing news! I loved this game, despite its retro feel. I cant wait to see an updated version and replace my’ lost in move’ version!
Also, Tom, just a heads-up: in my set of The Shared Dream, the punch out sheet with the shadow creatures had two empty spaces. Apparently this was an error on their part and does not represent actual missing pieces.
This is a really cool boardgame. It’s got such a unique take, it’s a horror game where a bunch of players try to collect keys to win. It comes with a VHS tape you slip into your player where a ‘gatekeeper’ yells insults, makes you play simon says at random times, and also punishes specific players as the game goes on. If no player is able to win by the time the VHS tape runs out of time (1 hour), the gatekeeper announces himself as the winner. Another cool thing about the tape is at the start the actor appears very human, but like Palpatine gets more evil looking as the hour moves forward.
Yeah, so as you can guess from the mention of a VHS tape, it’s old. Came out in 1991. When I was really young I would see my cousins play it and it freaked me out but also made me really curious. Eventually being able to play it with a group of others was quite a boon to my young years. I got reminded of it recently which made me want to post it here. I also wonder if anyone here has even heard of it, considering it was made by Australians and while very popular here not sure if it was ever big overseas?
Oh man, I played that. A long time ago when In grade school. I’d neatly forgotten about it.
I played the demo of that at GenCon when it came out. They had a table setup with a TV/VCR at the booth.
This reminds of the star trek interactive boardgame: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3_739DxrMOs&
Which became a mini meme for a while: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qaI3UegpSI
I’ve owned this game since I was a kid. I till have it. the followup, Atmosphere, was a let down.
One of my favorite podcasts played Nightmare for an episode. If I recall, they enjoyed the game as well.
Also, they played the sister Star Trek Game.
Ok Terraforming Mars is a brilliant game. It puts together allt he best bits about Euro’s and somehow plays smoothly with lots and lots of great choices. Wow.
I didn’t love Terraforming Mars, but I normally despise heavy dry Euros and I wouldn’t mind playing it if other Euro fans wanted to.
At least, until we moved on from beginner corps and started using the advanced ones with advanced cards. So many ridiculous combos that you get left in the dust if you don’t know about them. After 2 advanced games where I finished 50 points behind the leaders I gave up.
We are playing Pandemic, Season 2, and I like it. The mechanics are slightly different, where you are trying to keep cubes on the board instead of taking them off. You also are exploring and revealing the map as you go.
It took me a few games I get into it, but I am really digging it.