Welcome to Providence, Mr. Holmes: A Very Cthulhu Xmas

Few things have made me as happy as the Christmas Gifts I got From My family this year.

See,I’ve reached a point in my life where I can Buy the things I want Myself. I don’t need to ask for the things I want and this year I didn’t. I wasn’t being a Scrooge or anything. I told them that if they saw something they thought I liked, “Go right ahead and buy it,” But this year, I wasn’t asking for anything.

And my family, knowing what a disturbed individual I am, made it the All Lovecraft and Cthulhu Christmas. I always get SOME Lovecraft stuff, but this year I got a variety of Gifts that made me all warm and fuzzy inside.

First up was my kid’s Munchkin Cthulhu If you’re familiar with the Munchkin series of card games, they’re a beer and pretzels parody of many different game genres. Short on actual rules, the cards are just hilarious. Or at least I thought they were until I got to the Miskatonic University T-Shirt. Sometimes, satire can hit too close to home to be funny. Don’t be that guy.

Next was the Arkham Horror boardgame. This reprint of a classic game has incredible production values. Basically, it takes the classic Call of Cthulhu RPG and turrns it into a boardgame. Players take on Characters and must work together to close down gates that allow monsters to enter out world. To do this, they travel around a board that represents a map of Arkham, and pull random encounters from about a dozen decks of cards that correspond to different locations. While the original game is a generic, Monsters Invade Arkham scenario, there are many expansions now available that tell different stories.

Finally, the game that me me all happy and warm. The Fuzzy puppy of a game. This was Sherlock Holmes: The Awakened for the PC. First, My Brother-in-law got it as a two-fer with Shadows over Baker Street. This book is a collection of Sherlock Holmes meets Mythos stories. While wildly uneven, for the most part these work. Perhaps even better than the average new Mythos Stories.

And the Game? Well, the graphics aren’t too hot or state of the art and the game runs well on my ancient, steam powered PC. But really this type of game is all about the story. After all, the game play is not much evolved beyond the Command line interface of Zork. Collect items, look at everything and try to fit them together to solve puzzles.

The thing that makes this just RIGHT is the attention to details. Like the fact that this Sherlock Holmes looks like good Ole HPL. Or that the Prologue takes place around 221B Baker and includes a Baker Street Irregular. Or the first time Sherlock interviews a character and deduces his entire lovelorn life from a few clues. Or the Background at 221B that includes a Print of Reichenbach Falls and his famous Violin. Or that the first act takes place on the riverfront, pulling in both Victorian London atmosphere and Innsmouth horror. Ad references to Mycroft Holmes and Moriarty, and the game is just spot on. Just one Question, How Come LeStrade is missing?

Yes, like the book, some of the seams show. and the game play is not groundbreaking. But the Awakened satisfies a true fan in ways that more polished, acclaimed works just don’t. You could do a lot worse that picking this up.

In the meantime, Merry Christmas to all, and too all a good fright!