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Will You Be The One To Help The Compelling Sherlock?
The Exit series of games is a favourite of mine. I love the challenges they pose and the puzzle solving involved, I love the way they make you think outside the box, and I love the themes. I was particularly keen to have a go at Exit The Disappearance of Sherlock Holmes as I enjoy the Sherlock Holmes stories and how Holmes is so clever at piecing things together, so I had high expectations for this game, and it did not disappoint. If you love Sherlock Holmes, this game is a brilliant entry into the way his wonderful mind works, and you get to step into his shoes as you think and act like Sherlock to help him solve a murder he was framed for.
Game Unboxing and Setup
Exit The Disappearance of Sherlock Holmes isn’t completely like the other Exit games you may have played before - because there’s no book. If you’ve ever played an Exit game, you’ll know what I mean when I say most of them have a small book of pictures and texts that give you clues to solving the riddles, but The Disappearance of Sherlock Holmes is a little different. Instead, you are given many closed locations such as 221b Baker Street, Crime Scene, and a Forensic Lab, which you will be able to open and explore at certain points in the game. Those of you familiar with Kosmos’ Exit series will recognise the familiar decoder disk included (the way you solve puzzles) and the three decks of cards (the riddles, the answers, and the help cards), not forgetting the “strange items” most Exit games feature which will be used during gameplay to help you solve a riddle or two.
For anyone who hasn’t played an Exit game before, Exit The Disappearance of Sherlock Holmes, like other Exit games, takes just a moment to set up. All you need to do is empty the contents of the box, pop out a few pieces of card, separate the three decks, give everyone a yellow “personal message” card, and grab a pen or pencil and some paper (and a friend or two if you don’t fancy helping Sherlock solo). You will also have a little folding to do before you begin with this puzzle.
Gameplay Overview
Exit the Disappearance of Sherlock Holmes starts with nothing more than the decoder disk and the 221b Baker Street location picture. Your very first puzzle gives you a glimpse into Sherlock and Watson’s living room. If you’ve ever watched the Sherlock tv series, this particular location will look familiar, but you’ll need to look carefully and think hard in order to help Dr Watson reveal the truth behind the story.
As you work together to solve the puzzles and riddles, you unlock access to new locations, riddle cards, and other items that will help you in your quest. The more riddles you solve, the more the truth unravels, and the more you can delve into the world of Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock is known for being able to see the tiny details in things in order to piece together the bigger picture and that’s exactly what you need to do in many of the puzzles Exit the Disappearance of Sherlock Holmes presents you with.
Kosmos have added a very interesting twist to this particular story. This is not a spoiler so you can read safely. As you set up the game, each player is given at random one of the yellow “personal message” cards which you are instructed not to look at until the game tells you to do so. This isn’t something I’ve seen in an Exit game before. Towards the end of the story, those cards are pulled from whichever pocket or secret place you put them and read silently. These are not to be shared out loud with the other players. Each of the personal messages is different, and each tells you to look for a certain thing in order to solve the riddle. Working together is key here more so than with any other riddle, and I have to say, without spoiling it for anyone keen to play for themselves, I never expected what happened next.
Can you work out who framed Sherlock? The very last riddle in any Exit game is there to close the story. In most, that means escaping whatever perils you ended up in, but for Exit the Disappearance of Sherlock Holmes, the final riddle involves finding and capturing the bad guy… will you succeed?
Final Thoughts
Well what can I say? The feeling of following in the footsteps of the famous Sherlock Holmes by taking a leaf out of his book and trying to solve puzzles as he would solve them was great fun. There were a few puzzles where we knew exactly what to do but struggled to do it because we missed something or because we couldn’t quite get things lined up, which led to a little frustration with one riddle in particular, but the story, whilst not the most thrilling Sherlock Holmes story out there, was most definitely an adventure and one my partner and I both thoroughly enjoyed to play.
Like other Exit games, Exit the Disappearance of Sherlock Holmes does require you to damage some of the game components, and that always makes me feel sad, but for the most part a pencil is fine, and that can be erased, and nothing was majorly damaged which means when we eventually forget the answers, we can, if we want to, play the whole thing all over again (yay). I like to pass the games, once completed, to family and friends to have a go at, it’s always fun to compare our scores and see who did better on which puzzles. For anyone a little eco conscious, whilst the game isn’t designed to be played more than once, all the components apart from the little plastic pin that keeps the decoder disk together are recyclable, which I appreciate.
P.S (And don’t read this if you don’t want to spoil your own game), I love how Kosmos have incorporated the game box into more than one of it’s riddles, it can throw you totally off guard to realise you need to use the box if you haven’t played an Exit game before.
My Own Playthrough Score?
Kosmos’ own rating of the game is level 3/5 difficulty which for me and my partner (we’ve played many Exit games) means we were expecting it to be fairly straightforward with a few harder challenges thrown in so we were aiming for a 60-90 minute game and were spot on coming in at 87 minutes with a final score of 7 out of a possible 10 points. A fairly average score for our playthroughs of the Exit puzzles. If you aren’t familiar with the scoring system, there is a chart included which shows you how to use your play time and any help cards you needed to calculate your score.
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