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	Title: Now you can become a Baker Street Irregular via computer
	Author: Jeff Seiken, Knight-Ridder Newspapers
	Source: The Salt Lake Tribune
	Date: 6 January 1989
	Transcription by Steve Derby
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The Crown Jewels have disappeared from the Tower of London
and Scotland Yard hasn't a clue as to the thief's identity.

For Sherlock Holmes enthusiasts everywhere it’s time to dust off your
dearstalker cap and get your cape out of mothballs But you can leave
your magnifying glass and fingerprint powder in the desk drawer
This mystery is strictly a high-tech affair — ownership of a personal
computer is required. Is your disk drive warmed up? Good, because to
quote the fictional detective's famed rallying cry "The game is afoot."

In fact, there are a couple of games afoot — 221 B Baker Street
and its counterpart in computer crime, Sherlock: The Riddle of the
Crown Jewels. Both games pick up where Arthur Conan Doyle left off,
presenting their own series of confounding capers and perplexing puzzles
for play-at-home Holmeses to solve. Armchair detectives looking
to curl up in front of the computer with a good mystery will sit comfortably
for hours in the company of either of these products.

221 B Baker Street is based on the table-top game of the same name,
but in many ways it calls to mind another parlor favorite of old, the
venerable Clue. Picture the board from Clue rendered in 3-D graphics with
the rooms in the mansion replaced by the Pub, Carriage Depot and other
locations around London, and you'll have a good idea of what 221 B
Baker Street looks like on your video monitor. As in Clue, players race
from one location to the next, gathering bits of information in their quest
to unravel the knotty mystery at hand. The first to return to Baker
Street with the correct solution to the case is the winner.

The game provides crime connoisseurs with a smorgasboard of stabbings,
poisonings, kidnappings, robberies and other misdeeds to
investigate — a total of 30 cases in all. Although the mysteries involve
more murders than Sherlock Holmes ever encountered on the printed
page, they re-create the baffling character of the short stories very
nicely.

For instance, in the aptly titled "The Adventure of the Unknown
Victim," you not only need to uncover the identity of the murderer, but
also that of the murderee, a stranger found stabbed in a bedroom during a
party hosted by Sir Barry Auguston at his mansion. The plot takes a further
twist when the instrument of foul play turns out to be the sword
worn by the party's guest of honor, General Carl Seagram. About the
only thing you can be certain of in this puzzler is that the butler didn't
do it (neither did Col. Mustard).

Somewhat at odds with the complexity of the cases is the simplistic
nature of the clues, which tend to be so elementary that even Dr. Watson
would have no trouble deducing their meaning. In a murder case
where a packet of aspirin is discovered near the victim's body, it hardly
takes a great leap of logic to grasp the significance of a clue which says
that actor Earl Longworth suffered from headaches. Many of the other
clues lack even this ounce of cleverness and instead rely on simple word
games to pass along their message.

The real challenge lies in collecting the clues faster than the other
players. A fair amount of luck is involved, since the computer randomly
determines how far you can move every turn. A little bit of gamesmanship
also enters into play: You can use badges obtained at Scotland
Yard to temporarily seal off a location — and the clue it contains —
from the prying eyes of rival detectives. This ability to impede your
opponents' investigations adds just the right competitive edge to 221 B Baker
Street and keeps players from growing too complacent.

If you run through all of the cases in the game, you needn't resign yourself
to watching episodes of "Murder She Wrote" for fresh mysteries to
puzzle over. Two supplemental case libraries are available, each with 30
more instances of intrigue and mayhem.

Sherlock: Riddle of the Crown Jewels offers a gaming experience
altogether different from 221 B Baker Street. Sherlock belongs to the
breed of computer games known as "interactive fiction," a form of software
entertainment pioneered by its publisher, Infocom.

In an interactive fiction game, you become the main character in a story
that unfolds on your computer screen. The computer provides a textual
description of your surroundings, as well as any people you encounter
and incidents that occur. You interact with the story by typing
simple commands on the keyboard — "Enter room" or "Fire pistol at
thief," for example — and the computer tells you the results of your
actions. The decisions you make influence the course of events and
ultimately shape the outcome.

Sherlock begins in classic Arthur Conan Doyle fashion, with Sherlock
Holmes receiving a pre-dawn visit from a government official who delivers
some startling news: A thief has absconded with the Crown Jewels.
The only clue to the caper is an elaborate riddle found in the Tower,
which includes a challenge addressed directly to Holmes. Suspecting
that his enemies may have left the riddle to lure him into a trap,
Holmes decides on a most unelementary course of action: He will let you —
his longtime friend and chronicler, Dr. Watson — lead the investigation.

As you follow the trail of the felon across London, puzzles and predicaments
pop up at every corner. Indeed, solving the many conundrums
the game strews in your path is the crux of play. To say that the puzzles
are difficult would be an understatement — they're diabolically clever.

An example: At some point you will realize that Nelson's Statue in
Trafalgar Square holds an item of importance to the case. Unfortunately,
the statue stands atop a 167-foot column — how will you reach your
objective? This is a tough one, bit if your brain proves inadequate, you
can always turn to Holmes for a helpful hint (or an outright answer) to
any sticky problem by typing "Help."

The flavor of Doyle's stories — and a good part of the substance —
reappear in the game intact, for both speak to the imagination in the same
way, through the written word. The game's prose may fall short of
Doyle's urbane wittiness, but it's colorful enough and laced with bits of
cheeky humor. And in a way that no book could ever do, the game draws
you into a fictional world that's responsive to your attitudes and actions.
Even Sherlock Holmes would be charmed.

About the software: 221 B Baker Street, made by Datasoft, is playable
on Commodore 64/128, Atari, Atari ST, Apple II and IBM/PC home computers.
The C64/128 and Atari versions retail for $19.95; the other versions
are $29.95. The two supplemental case libraries sell for
$14.95 each.

Sherlock: The Riddle of the Crown Jewels, from Infocom, is available
for Commodore 64/128, Apple II, IBM/PC, Macintosh and Amiga computers.
Prices range from $34.95 to $42.95. Infocom also publishes several
other interactive fiction mysteries, including Suspect, Deadline and
The Witness.
