Visit to DTP, day 2: Sherlock Holmes: The Silver Earring preview
Gorath, 2004-08-03

In early July RPGDot followed an invitation by Hamburg-based publisher DTP to have a look at three upcoming games. Our first preview covers Sherlock Holmes: The Silver Earring. Read on to find out why Frogwares´ game is a little different than today´s typical adventure.

Story

London, May 1897. Sherlock Holmes and Dr Watson attend a party at Sherringford Hall. The host, Sir Melvyn Bomsby, a construction tycoon, intends to seize this opportunity to make an important announcement concerning the future of his business. Before he can finish his speech he falls to the floor, shot. Of course Holmes and Watson start their investigation immediately.
As you may have noticed by now, the story isn´t an original work by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Frogwares wrote a new case for the world´s most famous detective, in the spirit of the classic material.

Gameplay

The Silver Earring is an interactive detective story. The focus is on solving the case as a whole. You have to do basic investigative work. In the first chapter, for example, you can find a white powder in several places if you examine the whole mansion carefully. A microscope analysis will proof whether or not the samples are identical.
Other clues can be obtained through interrogation. If a servant reports he used a certain noisy device only once but another servant is sure he heard the typical sound again a few minutes later this detail could be worthy of your attention. New dialog options open when you´ve found the clues needed to unlock them. For instance, when you´ve found the gun and a witness you can question Sir Bomsby´s daughter about the weapon.

You can investigate either as Holmes or Watson. Available tools are magnifying glass, test tube and tape measure. Expert tests can only be done in the lab in Holmes´ office, where you can also find a library with scientific books.
The game automatically logs your findings, both clues and conclusions, in a journal sorted in different categories. At the end of each of the five days you have to pass a test. The player has to answer a few questions about the case. Possible answers are 'yes' or 'no' in combination with one or more links to the relevant clues. The only hints you receive are the number of clues about the respective question and the category it can be found in.
This is a new twist. You play Holmes & Watson but you also maintain an outside perspective and draw your own conclusions. There is a downside to it, though. You don´t get detailed feedback about wrong answers. Good luck finding your error.

Technical features

Frogwares tried to recreate the London of the Victorian era. Quite successfully, as you can see in the screenshots. The graphics are full of details. You can ramp up the resolution to 1600*1200 without notable performance impact. Only the character animations fall behind the rest of the production - they could be a bit more fluid, but this is no big issue.
Instead of composing a new sound track the developer licensed classic tunes by Paganini, Mendelssohn, Schuman and Dvorak. The voice actors talk in a slightly snobby British accent, which sounded really good to me.

Misc.

Frogwares´ game is scheduled for an English language release in Europe on August 27th and North America on September 21st. DTP will ship the German version under the name "Sherlock Holmes und der silberne Ohrring" on November 1st, with completely translated texts and voice acting. Chances are that the localization will be top notch, if we take their other adventures as an indicator.

Conclusion

Sherlock Holmes: The Silver Earring will be a good point & click adventure for players who prefer an unhurried pace. Production values and atmosphere are good, the interface is unspectacular, although a few advanced features need to be explained in the manual. The lack of feedback in the daily questionnaire is the only obvious drawback.