If you love a good detective game, you’ll love Watson & Holmes!

We played this game twice before reviewing it. The first time it was just the two of us, and it played quite well, but we felt it may play better with more. So, the second time we invited our friend Chris over to play again, and discovered that it’s more fun sleuthing around with more people. As you can deduce from the name, Watson & Holmes is set in the world of Sherlock Holmes. Each player is a detective, and we are working from the diaries of Dr. Watson to try and figure out who committed the crime, where they did it, and how? The player who figures it out first wins!

This game is well crafted; it has beautiful components, and the cards and case booklets are nice. There are only 13 cases in the game set, so once you’ve solved all 13, you may want to set this game aside for a while so you can come back to it with a fresh perspective. We’re hoping Asmodee comes up with an expansion with more cases… We enjoyed it so much, and have already played five of them!

How’s it Played?

Each case has a booklet which explains the particulars of the crime, and what you need to do to solve the case. Inside is the solution, so make sure no one pages through and peeks until the very end. Each case also has location cards with different clues that are used during play to figure out the solution. What’s convenient is each case has an envelope to store them, so that no one can see any clues before playing. The first thing we did is put all the case cards in their respective envelopes. It also suggests placing them in the envelope so you don’t see the card backs, which have the clues.

Once you choose the case you want to solve, take the case cards and place them face down on the table in the order that the booklet states. You also place the Carriage Stop, Watson, and Holmes cards face down, which are available for any game. Next to the game area you have tokens to place on the side – Carriage, Police, Call Off, and Lock Pick. These are used during the game.

Each player chooses a pawn and token, receives 10 carriage tokens and a police token, plus pen and paper (not included) to scribble their notes, then given a face-down character card describing their unique ability; their own identity is kept secret unless they decide to use their ability.

You’re now ready to play! Have someone read the case booklet aloud. Or, what we thought was super cool: Scan the QR code for the case, and the booklet will serve as the narrator! We like that because it’s difficult for the person reading the card to take their own notes at the same time.

There are two phases to each round:

Visiting Phase – on their turn, each player chooses a location to visit and places their pawn on it. If the location is free they can either place their pawn on it (getting there by foot) or put their pawn on it and some Carriage tokens. By putting Carriage tokens on it, it makes it harder for other players to go there. If you want to go to a location that has Carriage tokens on it you need to have more Carriage tokens that were placed in order to go there. If the first person went on foot, you need one Carriage token to go there. If you outbid someone, the original player removes their pawn and loses one of their Carriage tokens. Some of the cards may also have Police tokens on them. To go there, the player must have a Lock Pick token to read the card, or, can use a Call Off token to remove the Police token before going there. Once you use these tokens they are discarded. You can also choose to go to the Carriage Stop and receive three Carriage tokens instead of a clue. If you feel you figured it all out, you can go to the 221 B Baker Street card to see if you solved the case! One more option for players during this phase is to pay four Carriage tokens to take the Watson card, then announce which player must read their location card out loud, benefitting all players. Investigation Phase - Once everyone has decided where they’re headed, everyone simultaneously reads their location cards and makes any notes on them. When they’re finished, they can choose to put a Police token on that card, making it harder for someone else to access it. Whoever goes to 221B Baker Street must have their guess to the questions written down first. Once they read the card, if they’re correct they win the game. If they’re not, they must announce they were wrong, along with how many questions they answered correctly, if any. Then, they stay in the game playing “Sherlock” using the Sherlock Holmes card, and may assist other players with consultations.

Game play continues until someone solves the mystery. If nobody successfully solves it, everyone loses! (Darn!)

Timing of the Game

It took the two of us around 45-minutes to play, and the same amount of time with three, because the clues were revealed at roughly the same rate. We played it twice in a row both times because we really enjoyed it!

Fast Facts:

• MSRP: $59.99
• # of Players – 2-7
• Age Range – 12+
• Duration – 45-75 minutes

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