I have always been a huge fan of shows and movies surrounding crime scene investigations, they can really have you on the edge of your seat, trying to figure out who the killer is or why they did it. Theories and conspiracies! I mean the list can go on and on…
That’s why when anything like this comes up such as games like Sherlock Holmes, I am the first to want to play it. The team at Find the Lamp Games has seen this pattern with fans and made something that really gets your brain power working, with a cross between a sort of Hangman kind of theme.
Not to mention a cool detective turtle who helps you along the way if you get stuck. Gamers, may I introduce you to the new single-player detective narrative puzzler, Turlock Holmes! Get your detective skills ready guys!
Need A Hint?
Story
A girl finds herself stuck in an underground mall, with her she finds a body and some turtle soup lying around. Caught in a mysterious loop, we must help her escape the underground by solving puzzles given to us to unlock ways to help her escape!
Holmes, Is On The Case!
Gameplay
In Turlock Holmes, we must solve puzzles that take you on a wide range of different journeys through different themes as you work together to uncover the hidden story behind the text. You must type out words kind of like Hangman except it’s not singular letters. Once a word is correct the red, yellow, or white paper will disappear revealing the world hidden.
Your main aim is to uncover every word in this text relatively, you want to focus more on the red ones as these are the core words, uncovering all the red words will unlock the other words completing and showing you the true story.
You have different options when trying to guess the word, you can type out a word and hope for the best, use the coins you unlock to reveal a letter or the whole word, or enter the “Guess a word” section which will act like Hangman without the hanging.
Each word uncovered will grant you points if you complete the story without help you will be granted an S rank if you do have help then you will lose rank and be granted lower such as A and below. To be honest I never needed to use any hints to help me solve these puzzles, as it’s more reading and seeing what makes sense.
You can also ask yes or no questions to Turlock Holmes who will help by answering which also helps reveal words on the board. If the text is looking at a murder case, you could ask if someone was killed – he will answer yes or no, which could reveal a hint on the board.
There is a total of 8 chapters in one collection, once you complete a collection then more will unlock for you to solve. Some of these collections are based on different themes. As you progress the difficulty does get tougher with longer and harder words to figure out.
If you cannot figure something out, you can revert to the situation of the story which will help shed some light on what could be behind the truth. As you progress in the story a picture will slowly form helping unravel what is happening.
Completing stories will unlock a mushroom for you to use which you will use to unlock more words in the Underground story, you will need to click and uncover keywords that show up in yellow to move the story forward until the truth is shown. You will need to complete all the stories for more mushrooms to help complete this part of the game. Collecting stickers at the end of each story will unlock for you to add to Turlock like a hat or glasses.
What Have We Here?
Graphics and Audio
Turlock Holmes uses an art style that is mostly drawn images and stickers including Turlock himself. They also use a newspaper design to tell the stories, some of these images are very colourful! With over 18 authors who helped create the stories.
Turlock can be customised using the stickers you unlock which was a nice little feature. There is a musical theme that is used which reminds me of something from the Professor Layton games using a music box-styled soundtrack which was soothing and highly enjoyable.
Eureka! I’ve Got It!
Options and Accessibility
The only option available in Turlock Holmes is being able to change both the music and sound effects volume. You can also change the display mode from window to pop out. There is no accessibility option as this game works entirely by mouse and keyboard and the ability to type out words, the game is easy to control.
Final Thoughts
Turlock Holmes was something entirely different when it came to solving problems and cases. I had never seen a word-based game before and was something new and exciting to try. With some many puzzles to complete its enjoyable to get your brain working. If you are a fan of puzzlers, this is 100% something you should try!
Turlock Holmes is AVAILABLE NOW! On Steam
GAMERHUB RATING: THREE (Out of FIVE) JOYSTICKS
(Thank you to the team at Find the Lamp Games and Neverland Entertainment for providing the code for this review)
