I received 221 B Baker Street this week, so the kids and I had a little “family game night” time, and tried it out.  I must say, we enjoyed it very much!  It was exactly what I’d hoped it would be; I only wish I would’ve bought it a long time ago…

It’s similar to Clue, but more in-depth.  You travel to different places to gather clues along the game board, but you don’t solve the case only through the process of elimination.  Each case is 2-3 paragraphs long (or more), with 3-5 objectives to solve as given by Scotland Yard.  The cases introduce their own characters, locations, and themes, so they’re different each time (almost like a mini-episode on TV, or something).  The most common objectives to solve are the weapon, murderer, and motive, but sometimes there are others.  The clues can be contextual, general, or “word play.”  For example, you might find a clue that gives part of the killer’s name, and the clue might be something like “the opposite of short.”  In that case, you would know the killer’s name has either “Long” or “Tall” in it, and of course, the case would have two or more characters with names that would match.

We played the first case, and it took less than an hour.  I solved it, but the kids had 2 of the 3 objectives figured out, so they were close.  I didn’t need all of the clues, either, which was cool.  After the game, we read all of the clues to fill in the blanks of the short story, which helped it all make sense.  We also used that as a teaching tool to help my youngest with how the clues work.  Overall, we enjoyed it, and we’ll be playing it regularly in the near future.  Good stuff!