There Can Only Be One

Hopefully me apologizing for stepping away from the blog for longer than I meant to doesn't become a reoccurring theme but I am sorry and at the very least, I'm able to come up with a good excuse this time. 

I mentioned some time ago that my grandmother died while I was visiting her in her nursing home. This past Saturday we were finally able to get all the family together (many had to travel which of course meant tests and arranging for quarantines when they get home), have a memorial service, and bury her ashes. I'm not a religious person by any means but I can't help but think that she's finally rejoining her forever dance partner, my grandfather who died in 1978 and who's spot she never filled, for a much missed spin around the dance floor, and that makes me happy. 

Needless to say, I've been busy prepping for all the visiting, spending much appreciated- though brief- time with my family, and dealing with the strange feeling of directly dealing with the loss again after a two month break. It's all back to "normal" now as I dropped my family at the airport yesterday but I have to say, I've been feeling a little aimless since then. I guess it was such a whirlwind few days and a lot for me to take in and now that it's all over I don't know what to make of things. Luckily I had the foresight to take a couple extra days off to recuperate and here we are. 

As I sit here on my porch (where else?) sweating bullets even though I'm only moving my fingers to type (its 93F/34C, why am I out here?!), I feel like I'm finally ready to enter the real world, despite all that. My morning was spent cleaning then watching, for reasons I cannot fathom myself, The Highlander TV show from the 90s while I sewed but I think this heat has me sweating out my shiftless mood and I can tell I'm starting to feel better and ready to engage in some sort of activity, with other humans even, and I think I know just the thing...

Yeah, the more I think of it, the thing I'm looking forward to the most today is the arrival of M. This is not just because I'm particularly fond of him (I agreed to marry him after all) but I know that no matter what kind of day at work he had, if I ask him if he wants to play a game with me he'll say yes. 

And I just really want to play a board game today.

I've mentioned this before I think but though I've always enjoyed board/card games, I never knew how intense they could be until I met M who's a real enthusiast. Any and all types of games he's eternally, well, game to play and though I'm not quite at that level, its nice to have someone who'll play with you if you're say, in the perfect mood to engage with someone and get out of your head a bit after being home alone all day. Yup, like today.

As a testament to his love of games, here's a bonus picture of M getting crushed by me in a game of cribbage at Night Shift Brewing in Everett, Massachusetts: 

But we still played another game right after that one.

How awesome are our Star Trek: TNG cards by the way? Oh and anyone in the Boston area that wants to drink their beer in a place that is not their house while being conscientious of the whole pandemic thing, allow me to whole-heartedly recommend Night Shift. They seriously go the extra mile ensuring everyone's safety, as does nearby Bone Up Brewing Co- they very politely reminded me to re-mask after I absentmindedly forgot to put my mask back on as we were leaving. 

Anyway, GAMES. 

The one I'm most eagerly awaiting M's arrival for is Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective. I've linked you to the first box set there, but there are two others which were created much later. Not technically a board game per se but so utterly immersive that it's perfect for my weird brain today.

source

Essentially, it's a Choose Your Own Adventure style murder mystery game. You play as Wiggins, the head of Holme's street ruffian gang of assistants to help him solve murders by chasing different leads. However, the more leads you go to, the more points are deducted from your final score which is always compared to/based on Homes' always perfect score of 100. For each case, you are given a booklet which has the initial case information as relayed to you by Holmes himself plus all the leads, as well as a map, London directory, newspaper, and occasionally different bits of paper evidence. There are also "experts" you can visit (like the coroner for instance) that are the same throughout the game. 

We're currently on a case in the box set pictured above which is the third that was created. Though you don't necessarily have to complete the boxes in any particular order, I wouldn't suggest starting with this one as it has extra long cases and some annoying typos- we had to look up some error corrections for this one but we've already established a deep love of the game so it didn't entirely put us off. If you're just starting out you might find that too off-putting. We started with The Thames Murders box and still have yet to do the Jack the Ripper cases.

It says it accommodates 1-8 players and in the rules it suggests people take turns figuring out where to "go" next but I feel it's definitely a 2 person game- and you better like that other person. Any more heads in the game and I feel like it'd be a "too many cooks in the kitchen" situation. 

Usually, our game play consists of one person reading the clues and the other taking notes (oh yeah, you gotta take notes), then we have a discussion about what we've read, what that means to the case, and where we should go next. If' we're deadlocked on where to go, we'll take turns choosing but generally it's a mutual decision. 

You decide when you're done the case and ready to answer the questions at the end, though you don't know what the questions are until you've officially quit, adding to the difficulty. Like I said before, your score is calculated against Sherlock's but don't expect to "beat" him. We're usually happy if we're able to answer most of the questions and get something above 60. Its not so much a win/lose situation as it is a "how badly did we do" kinda thing. 

Each case takes us quite a while - we never finish in one sitting- and there's a lot of heated discussion. To be perfectly honest, we usually stop when one or both of us gets too cranky. Maybe that doesn't sound like a stellar review but that just goes to show how deeply involved you can get. Some people will love that, some won't, we definitely do. 

Liking the world of Sherlock Holmes (so, 1800s London) would be helpful of course but you don't have to have read any of the Conan Doyle stories to play. I have and love them- above is a picture of my much loved copies- and I would definitely say it adds to my enjoyment. M hasn't read them though and he's still just as much into the game as I am. 

All in all I'd highly recommend this game if your into sorting out murder mysteries and puzzles. Each box costs roughly $50 new which admittedly is a lot for a game you can really only can play once. If that's an issue for you I'd scout eBay or something for a used version because if you're anything like us, you'll get a great many hours of enjoyment out of each box all the same. 

And with that, I guess I'm off to kill some more time with Duncan McLeod until M gets home. If you can just watch this intro to The Highlander before you go so we both can have that Queen song stuck in our heads, that'd be great.