Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective: The Baker Street Irregulars

No board, no dice, no turns. A map of London, a newspaper, and ten cases you are expected to solve without help.

Consulting Detective has been running since 1981 and the format has never needed changing. You get a case, a directory of London addresses, a copy of the day's Times, and the freedom to go anywhere and speak to anyone. Every lead costs you, and at the end Holmes solves the same case in a handful of visits and tells you how many you wasted.

The Baker Street Irregulars is the entry point — the street children who work for Holmes, and cases pitched at a level where a first-time group can get somewhere. It is properly co-operative in that everybody reads and argues, and it takes anywhere from one to eight people because the only limit is how many can hear the person reading aloud. Ninety minutes a case, ten cases in the box, and it does not repeat.

Please note: once a case is solved it cannot be replayed. Ten cases included.

Perfect for: people who complain that board games are not really about thinking, and are about to be proved wrong by a twelve-year-old with a street map.

1–8 players | About 90 minutes per case | Age 14+ | 10 cases