TheRooms: Sherlocked – Part 1

First the good points. Nice setting and decor. We really liked that we could look underneath some things and behind some things. The theme is one of our favorites as Sherlock opens up for some cool decorations - we like this time period.

The tech worked as intended all the way through. This game was built on an old version of telescape where you had to write things in a text box to combine them. Unfortunately "works as intended" was very frustrating to play through. A lot of things were not as in a physical room. Actions and places to look were unavailable from the beginning and then you only could access it in a certain illogical order. It messed with our minds to the extent that we thought the tech was broken. We took a hint for a puzzle but the solution did not work when we input it into the lock. Weird. Well that was by design it turns out. It would only work after we had solved another thing - but then why could we get the hint?

Also there was a prominent item we wanted to search. We couldn't until about halfway through the game - then it was available. Illogical.

At some point we were given a knife. It would be a spoiler to say what we had to use it for but lets just say that I don't think it is like that in the physical room and if it is, then I'm worried for their decor - don't teach players to wreck the room.

Some puzzles were good, but one demanded outside knowledge (what is this music number) - and the music was time travelling (Elvis in a Sherlock Holmes setting?). If we weren't already frustrated with the room, we could have let this one slide, but now it just adds to the frustrated feeling.

All in all this was a very frustrating room. It started out well, but the digitization of it just got in the way of us enjoying it.