

Sherlock Holmes in "Another Bow"

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[www].se [ftp].se [mirror].us (198.66 KB)
For System 1 - 5
[www].se [ftp].se [mirror].us (55.55 MB)
For System 1 - 5
Guides on emulating older games

Having remained synonymous with deductive brilliance for the entire twentieth century, Sherlock Holmes makes an obvious choice for an adventure game protagonist. However, mimesis becomes an issue. How synonymous with deductive brilliance will the player feel after bashing their head against one puzzle for hours, walking back and forth to re-examine the same few locations? Moreover, how will other characters perceive this behavior of the great detective? Won't they suppose he's gone a bit senile?

Games like Infocom's Sherlock sidestep the issue by casting you as Dr. Watson. Another Bow takes the rarer path of actually making Mr. Holmes a bit senile.

It's 1919, five years after his last bow, and the duo have been roped into a transatlantic cruise to talk business with an American publisher. Also aboard are Watson's agent, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle; Holmes' portrayer on stage and screen, William Gillette; and a veritable Who's Who of the era: Picasso, Houdini, Thomas Edison, Henry Ford, Gertrude Stein, and Lawrence of Arabia, to name a few. Naturally, several mysteries develop, including a scheme that threatens to derail world history. The only hope of untangling this knot is the retired Holmes, who may need to ask for reminders of where he is and who all these people are around him...

Like Brimstone, this game goes out of its way to present itself as a resurfaced manuscript, with the first three chapters printed in the manual and the remainder transformed into interactive fiction. In this case, taking an action as Holmes reveals the next passage of Watson's first-person narration. Another notable feature is the lack of compass navigation: you simply type "go to [location]" using the printed documents as a guide.

Architecture: 68k

Important: This game is not compatible with the Mini vMac emulator (last tested with v3.5.8.) It requires a physical compact Macintosh such as a 128K, 512K, or Plus.