Sherlock: Last Call is a part of the “Q System - Sherlock” line of games. The naming of these is as mercenary as it gets: other than the title, there’s not even the tiniest nod to connecting the games to Holmes. These games (6 released so far) are cooperative, take about 45-60 minutes to play, are a single deck of cards with a tiny box, and priced accordingly (~8 Euros).
The way the game works mechanically is that there’s a deck of 32 cards. Each player gets a hand of three cards. They can’t reveal the cards to others or describe the contents in general, but are allowed to read any underlined words out loud (e.g. there might be a card with 50 words of text, where “seat 17d” and “argument” may be read out). Some cards don’t have text but pictures: for those, there’s a subtitle that may be read out loud instead.
On a player’s turn, they either play one of the cards or discard it, and then refill their hand. If the card is played, everyone gets to see it. If it’s discarded, it’s gone for ever: other players don’t get to see it, and you can’t bring up the contents during discussion. There are two reasons to discard cards. One is that the players must discard at least 6 cards or they’ll automatically fail; the other is is that cards that turn out to be irrelevant to the case will score minus points at the end.
At any time the players can talk about their understanding of the case, which will presumably drive the decisions about exactly which cards to play or discard. When all cards have been played or when the players feel confident in understanding the case, it’s time to answer 10 multiple choice questions on the case, and the answers are scored.
The case we played was surprisingly subtle. We did not come up with the right theory, and indeed had to ignore one key fact entirely to force our theory into working. But that was still the best we had. The actual solution made at least as much sense as our attempt, and the bread crumb trail for arriving at the correct solution was there. We just missed it. Partly we didn’t consider it due to missing one detail in a specific card, and partly since my nephew threw away one card that from the keywords sounded really important (and I said so), but that he was adamant was not going to be useful given the contents. And of course it was. So I guess that the funny card-play system actually did the job.
One thing to understand is that this won’t be a deep and engaging story: it’s 32 cards each with either a picture or only a little bit of text. The bandwidth is used strictly for the mystery (whether it’s hints or red herrings), there’s nothing left for building characters or setting the scene. But after the turgid writing of SHCD: Jack the Ripper and Detective: Modern Crime Boardgame, the minimalist approach was kind of refreshing.
I liked this in general, it seemed like the most satisfying attempt so far at making one of these games take less than an hour. Not something to play instead of my usual recommendations in this thread, but good enough and in a totally different niche.