Games like Sherlock?

[profanicus]

Hi guys! I'm new to the group and really like logic puzzles. :)
Right now I'm playing Tametsi, the neat/hard Minesweeper style game, which has led me to re-install The Witness.

One of my all time favourites is the old game Sherlock by Everett Kaser:
http://www.kaser.com/sherwin.html

Has anyone come across any other games like this? I never have, and am hoping someone can point me to a modern clone or inspired-by of some type, preferably on Steam of course.

Thank you!

[Dohi64]

welcome to the group. I seem to remember sherlock from a long time ago, haven't thought of it for a while, but this is something similar, I think:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1313400/Einsteins_Riddle/

also, check out the deduction-based games list on the curator. tametsi is not there yet, but some other neat stuff is, including logically, which has a similar logic game in the package (you can skim my review for more info).
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1309890/

[profanicus]

Thanks!

Einstein's Riddle does look pretty similar, but they haven't made many advances in the way of presentation since 1991 lol...

It actually looks like a step back, since everything's so small, widely spaced apart, and not using the available screen space well at all. And kind of uglier than the old DOS-style game, which is a feat in itself! :)

Cheers though, you came up with that option pretty quickly. I'll look through the curated list for more goodies!

[Dohi64]

yeah, the concept is interesting (maybe I subconsciously remembered sherlock when I saw it a few months ago), but this isn't the first game that tries to recreate a decades-old classic and fails even with the presentation. I'll drop by the forum, see if they could maybe do something about the icon sizes and such.

[profanicus]

Here's the wiki on the puzzle type, for any interested parties. There is not a whole lot of info there, I guess they never got overly popular...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebra_Puzzle

Searching for that revealed this game, which doesn't look too great:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1135730/Zebra_Logic_Master/

[Dohi64]

looks a bit rough, but mostly text-based, so might still be enjoyable.

I think your best bet is logically, the logic puzzles look like this:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2136484738

and just found this on itch, appears to be free and available on android too:
https://fsvieira.itch.io/consistency

[profanicus]

The logiCally one looks really dry, I much prefer the visual ones as opposed to parsing/remembering blocks of text, which I'm not great at. :)
The graphical ones also add a more spatial aspect, like to the left, right, in sequence, that kind of thing rather than mainly Boolean.

Consistency looks highly promising though, awesome find!

[Dohi64]

I tend to favor minimalism and functionality over colorfulness and general presentation, but ideally (and rarely) both come together. let me know how consistency is, the number of puzzles scares me off, I'd never be done and prefer shorter stuff these days for more variety.

[profanicus]

Originally posted by Dohi64:

I tend to favor minimalism and functionality over colorfulness and general presentation

Yeah me too, though I appreciate something technically sound and user friendly that plays smoothly.

I think the iconographic approach is more minimalistic than the text for me, in that you can see at a glance the parameters of the clue in a small space without having to read a sentence. So it's not totally about the pretty pics... ;)

let me know how consistency is, the number of puzzles scares me off, I'd never be done and prefer shorter stuff these days for more variety.

I have no patience for long sessions either. I will be playing Consistency and will report back!

[profanicus]

So I played a bit of Consistency and it's ok. :)

It looks nice and is very similar to Sherlock but lacks some of the features and complexity. The huge one is that it only seems to feature a small subset of the clue types Sherlock has.

For example, it only has one vertical clue type - 'in the same column as', whereas Sherlock has a bunch of these like 'in the same column as this or that but not both'.

It is a bit bare-bones with the UI too. There are no tooltips. You have to click a grid square then click one of the buttons at the top of the interface each time you want to commit a choice, which is tedious and kind of kills it for me. This doubles the number of clicks and triples the distance you should really need to move the mouse. All you should need is a simple left-click to add and right-click to remove.

The layout could be better too, all the clues are laid out in a small strip above the board, leaving big empty spaces to the left and right where they would be better served.

Going through a few of puzzles in sequence I'm not sure it progresses in difficulty for a given grid size either. Sherlock uses a system where some of the grid spaces are already revealed, and these lessen as you go, making it more difficult (it's more difficult by default due to the increased clue types).

Overall, it's a good start for a modern take, but I don't think it's the Sherlock-killer I was hoping for!

[Dohi64]

that's unfortunate. it shouldn't be hard to recreate an already working concept and make it play (and maybe look) better, but it rarely happens. the ui is probably like that because it's also a mobile game and they didn't bother with proper mouse-friendly stuff. so I guess your search continues...

[Aglet Green]

Personally, I always preferred "Dinner with Moriarty." https://www.kaser.com/moriarty.html

[profanicus]

Yes that is great too. :)