Developer: Afoot Games
Published: 2025
Played: August 2025
Utterly charming.
Sherlock Holmes has retired to live the rest of his days as a beekeeper in the village of Fulworth. When his dear companion Dr. Watson visits, Holmes decides to arrange a surprise picnic. Only problem is, low-stakes mysteries and village drama keep getting in the way.
It is a very cozy game, with beautiful pixel art, fantastic characters and voice acting, and a lovely soundtrack.
The writing is excellent too. There is a wistful feeling to the whole game, particularly with the themes it touches upon, but it also has a good sense of humour, and it is pretty clear that the developer(s) have a genuine love for Sherlock Holmes.
I also love that the hint system is phoning Mycroft.
Holmes' slow walking pace can be a little frustrating if you need to backtrack or you missed something the first time around. However, any solution to that minor gripe would ruin the lovely slow pace of the game - and my impatience is a character flaw I accept in myself.
The gameplay is otherwise excellent, whenever you click on something you choose what action to take from a wheel. That is where a lot of the humor comes from, if you accidentally (or deliberately) try to 'use' your neighbour, or 'talk' to a distant building.
I love it. It was an excellent way to spend an afternoon and these two deserve a happy retirement. 10/10 would recommend.
Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective (ICOM / Zojoi)
Developer: ICOM Simulations, originally. Zojoi re-released them on Steam
Published: 1991 originally. Steam versions released 2015
Played: October 2025
I love that these are available on Steam. If you are after some short mysteries to solve and have a fondness for retro games you might like them. If you are in it for the characters, there isn't much here I'm afraid.
There are four of them available on Steam. I played three: Tin Soldier, Mummy's Curse, and Mystified Murderess.
Each game is played from a menu. You have the newspapers from the last few days to read through, an address book, and a case book with your most recent clues and some hints you can request.
The game starts with an initial cutscene introducing the case, then from the menu you choose who or where you want to visit. This prompts a short live-action video where the characters talk or occasionally Holmes finds a piece of physical evidence. Once you have narrowed down who dunnit, you go to The Judge, choose your suspect from the address book, and answer his questions from a multiple-choice menu.
It's delightful getting to experience an old game like this, particularly as the game is older than I am.
However, the limitations of the medium are clear. There is little room for much nuance, characterisation, or investigation. You can go investigate the wrong suspects and get some amusing scenes, but each case only took about half an hour. Even the first one I played where I was figuring out what I was doing and putting off going to the judge took about 50 minutes.
There is also only one video for each location or character you can investigate, so even if you are 100% sure you know who did it, you cannot exactly go to get more information or ask them about the damning evidence against them.
The only clues you really get are dialogue. Maybe once or twice Holmes finds something in a suspect's room, but I feel the methodology here isn't very Sherlock Holmes. Neither is the characterisation, really - he is quite passive, but considering the limitations of the technology that is completely fair.
In all, I enjoyed the novelty and the charm, and the cases weren't bad. I'd really only recommend if you think you would also enjoy playing something this retro.
Sherlock Holmes versus Arsène Lupin
aka Sherlock Holmes: Nemesis
Developer: Frogwares
Published: 2008
Played: c2010. Replayed the remastered version September 2025
I really liked this one. It's just a good time.
Holmes receives a letter from legendary French gentleman thief Arsène Lupin, who is threatening to steal five of England's most prized treasures in order to humiliate them.
The rivalry between England and France is a tale almost as old as time, and the main driving force in this game is the threat to England's honour and Holmes's reputation.
It really doesn't come across that seriously though. It feels like Lupin is just messing around and having a swell time, and he and Holmes clearly respect each other. Poor Watson suffers a bit in this entry from being easily manipulated, and I wish parts of that had been handled differently, but I will not spoil anything and the plot is perfectly good.
It is much like the other Frogwares titles of this era. You investigate crime scenes and gather clues in some absolutely beautiful environments. Most of the game is spent deciphering Lupin's riddles to figure out what he is going to do next. Some of the puzzles can be frustrating, particularly the ones that require a lot of maths, but the clue system is good and the puzzles are mostly enjoyable and original. I particularly liked running around the Tower of London trying to catch birds.
The version available on Steam is the remastered edition, which unfortunately means creepy Watson is no longer with us RIP.
Would recommend. It closely ties with the Awakened as my favourite of this era of Frogwares, just because it's fun.
Developer: Frogwares
Published: 2009
Played: The Steam version. August 2025. Pretty sure I played it in the 2010s as well?
Basically what it says on the tin: you're investigating the Ripper murders.
It has many good elements, but fetch quests abound and it can be a little too complicated. The right sort of person would absolutely love it.
You'll talk to the police, who'll make you talk to another guy, then report back to the police, who tell you to talk to the other guy again, who wont give you any information until you talk to a third guy for him... but you can't find the third guy... but maybe an earlier guy will know where to find him... if you do a favour for him first.... ugghhhghhghhhhh
I'm exaggerating a bit, and it does get better as the plot moves forward, but you do seemingly end up as an errand boy for every Tom, Dick, and Harry in Whitechapel.
Meanwhile you will accumulate pages upon pages of text to rifle through: documents in not-exactly-easy-to-read-cursive and lengthy dialogues full of names and times and dates and addresses. It seriously starts getting overwhelming. Bring a notebook and pencil because this game will not hold your hand.
It is the Jack the Ripper murders after all. Five-plus victims, lots of suspects. The cold case of all cold cases.
I have a very basic knowledge of the history there, and did some searching while playing the game. It seems things were quite accurate with some necessary liberties taken. Notably, many of the murder locations in the game perfectly match photographs that can be seen on Wikipedia. Some of the victims' real-life postmortem photographs are also visible pinned to the deduction boards in 221B.
However, none of the murder scenes in-game are terribly graphic. In fact you examine two-dimensional drawings, which I prefer to detailed models of real-life murder victims.
[SPOILERS ? IN THIS PARAGRAPH]
On that note, in my favourite part of the game, Holmes stumbles across the scene of Mary Kelly's murder. All you see on-screen is a bit of a knee, but Mary Kelly's is the most infamously gruesome of the Ripper Murders [a photo of the crime scene is on her Wikipedia page, but please be warned]. Witnessing that scene causes Holmes to have a small mental breakdown of sorts - which I just love as a piece of characterisation.
[END SPOILERS]
With it being an old game, I did run into some technical issues. I was occasionally befuddled by solid doors I could phase through (because they were supposed to be open and thus not have a door there).
I also got a bug where the dialogue and subtitles in just the confrontation cutscene both didn't work, which was kind of funny. Holmes walked into the Ripper's house, did his best impression of a fish out of water, then got treated to an interpretive dance piece. Roll credits.
However, for all my trash-talking it did have many good points, most of which are in common with The awakened. The atmosphere and setting are delightfully creepy and morose, the characterisation is solid, and the music is nice. It suffers from a few of the gameplay problems that the awakened does - such as some absurdly difficult puzzles with no clues (the American Civil War puzzle oh my god) but it does at least let you know when you have got all the evidence in different parts of a crime scene. I still had to use a walkthrough, though.
Overall, it is a difficult game that I just couldn't get into in the way the game needs. If you are really into the detective stuff, really into Jack the Ripper, or really like Frogwares Holmes, check it out. Like seemingly all of the series it is frequently on sale for pocket change.
Sherlock Holmes and the Hound of the Baskervilles (Frogwares)
Developer: Frogwares
Published: 2010
Played: Must have been c.2010 the first time.
Replayed it just this afternoon (July 2025)
I had a good time. It's a hidden-object puzzle game, with the premise being the curse is real, and you are in the most spooky haunted mansion ever tasked with breaking it.
Thankfully there are clues, skippable puzzles, fast travel mechanics, and a map with icons showing which rooms you need to check out. These blessed features keep the gameplay snappy and free of frustration. I finished it in two and a half hours and it only crashed once when I tried to take a screenshot.
It's not the most complex or deep game ever. In my playthrough I came to a story point where a character said 'oh since we have completed x, we just need to get y, then we can z' when we had not, in fact, completed x yet.
Whether the house has had any housekeeping recently also seems to change from dialogue to dialogue, but seeing how much blood and cobwebs are about I came to my own conclusions.
The plot includes time travel, ghosts, superpowers, and dark magic. It's implied that you find the philosophers stone and then it's never brought up again. Holmes finds time travel far easier to believe than the hound being real, though I suppose he has personally seen the time travel at that point. It's kind of hilarious in a wacky way.
The art style is fantastic and has beautiful colours, with a whimsical haunted-house feel to it.
Also Sir Henry is clearly modelled after Kristoffer Tabori, who played him in the Granada adaptation. Though they seem to have squished him a bit:
Would I recommend it? If you like hidden-object games. Like all the older Frogwares titles you can get it super cheap at the right time, too.
Published: 2008 (originally published 2006, I played the version available on Steam - a remaster from 2008)
Played: c.2010 originally. Replayed July 2025
A series of kidnappings sends the duo on the trail of a sinister cult who are attempting to summon Cthulu.
Loved it and enjoyed the atmosphere when I was younger. It still holds up well enough considering its age, but you may as well play the remake.
At this point I'd recommend this one to serious fans of the Frogwares games. Like many of this series you can get it dirt cheap on sale, though I had to go into the Steam program files to launch the dang thing.
Unfortunately this game is so old by now, and I look at it with so much nostalgia, that it is another adaptation I find difficult to review without just comparing it to the remake. So I give up and will do that.
I do think the remake did most things better, which you would hope so. However, it is interesting to go back to an earlier game where many elements - particularly around detective work at crime scenes - have yet to be refined. Unfortunately this means many sections are opaque or downright frustrating.
I had to look up a guide because I did not realise an innocuous decoration in one corner of a room (in quite a large map) was in fact interact-able and an important element to solve a puzzle. Later installments have spoiled us with Holmes' detective-vision, skippable puzzles, and 'ALL EVIDENCE COLLECTED' notifications at crime scenes.
This version from Steam does have a hints system accessible through the inventory though, thank goodness. I just missed it somehow.
(I also ran into a game breaking bug so remember to keep multiple saves, people.)
Many elements of the plot are also significantly different. While the remake focuses more on a young Holmes and Watson as characters, this game is all about the case and the characters are much older. It is an excellent case and thoroughly engaging - and it is more in keeping with canon for the pair to be so unaffected by The Horrors.
What else? I actually found myself really enjoying the atmosphere and scenery despite (or maybe aided by) the old graphics. The scenery is quite good - and I actually found myself standing around admiring it in its stark simplicity, there is something almost liminal(?) Or lonely(?) about it, particularly with so few npcs around, and those that are present not reacting to your presence whatsoever.
The score is quite good too, as is the lighting. The spookiest part to me (I assume unintentionally) is the first murder scene you come across. You descend into a pitch black underground passage, at this point thinking the crime is simple kidnapping. The entire screen black, you stumble forward until the first (and at that point only) thing you see is the faintly glowing silhouette of a dead body in the far distance. I remember being scared out of my wits as a kid, and during this replay I still found it delightfully creepy.
Not sure I will replay it again for a while yet, but I'm glad I did.
