[EGD] A Domesticated Hero

Sherlock Bones is a game created by blackhole2

Game: Sherlock Bones

Maker: Blackhole2

Genre: Platformer

Prethoughts

Blackhole2 has made a name for himself with the execution of his fantastic puzzling mind by receiving multiple features with it. I have been a huge fan of his puzzle Platformers because not of what he added in the game, but how he executed it. Blackhole2 has entered Epic Game Drop (EGD) with a different genre in mind, and that is a multiple-leveled massive adventure game. EGD has been known for igniting a hidden light in game maker’s works of art by fascinating scenery and interesting gameplay sequences in order to land a spot in the Epic Games Library (EGL), but does Sherlock Bones have a chance at such glory? At glances at screenshots and the storyline, I figured that this would be another above average game by Blackhole2 with hints of going deep into EGD, but does this game actually have potential?

Review

The gameplay in Sherlock Bones was a fast paced monster that was hard to understand at times. The game featured Sherlock Bones in his hometown at first with some hints of questing by either knocking out enemies, or just plain getting out of the grueling place very quickly. I like how getting items this early was not mandatory, because introductory levels can get extremely boring if you are just going back and forth hitting switches. As the game progressed, gameplay got difficult, and it got difficult quickly. Sometimes it was hard for the player to stay on the same mindset as the maker and would lead the player to either quit because of frustration, or would lead them to fall into a trap. This didn’t happen too often thank goodness, so gameplay was still a tolerable aspect showing that many action scenes were present and that it was quick enough to tolerate.

The work of glitches and flawed item collection is dependent on the one and only aspect of dire importance: placement. Blackhole2 is usually tolerable when it comes to placement, but the change of style can mean a difficult step in placement, and this is not quite what I experienced from Sherlock Bones. Many players know which blocks can be manipulated through (a certain game named “Sto4” used some, please play that game!), and Blackhole2 seemed to have placed a fix to these. His enemy placements were fascinating as there seemed to be tons of them everywhere so that the player won’t get bored, but at some places they seemed overhauled. Although there were tons of extra lives that Sherlock Bones was able to collect, the enemies would stun the player into a lava trap and cause the player to lose whatever items they had. Checkpoint placement was frequent enough for the player’s convenience, but cl0ser placement was a bit of an issue; do not place checkpoints on the wrong side of a cl0ser!

Blackhole2 decided to spice up Sherlock Bones with a fun and challenging aspect known as puzzles. Blackhole2 placed relatively old puzzles so that the player wouldn’t be too confused on what to do, but he did add a couple new puzzles to make it interesting even if some were difficult and some were obvious. Blackhole2 placed a puzzle that would be considered too hard for minds that were not of the puzzling race, in an early part of the game while making it mandatory. This, at times, can scare off players because they’re stuck so early in the game, but at other times, players are desperate to solve the mysterious mystery. My opinoin on the placement and execution of the puzzles is positive because they did spice up the game just enough for my enjoyment.

Traps are a necessity in massive adventure games because they add another obstacle for the hero to dodge, and they can be placed in the most randomness of spots. Blackhole2 laid out traps everywhere for players to dodge quickly, and some were continuous for quite some time. Sherlock Bones featured traps that would hurt or kill the player and not end the game, which is a well-designed piece of trap execution. There were also a couple traps that if the player weren’t quick enough, they would have little to no chance of winning the game. Other traps were if an enemy would kill them and their spirit would hit an early progressing checkpoint, a careless cl0ser would block them to continue in the game. This is not what I would call a good trap because this leads to the player getting frustrated too often in the game.

Scenery is important in any sort of game because this is what can reel in a stubborn player. Sherlock Bones featured an average execution of scenery as he did not over do scenery, but there seemed to be some empty areas. The dark atmosphere makes scenery an easier factor to work with as the manipulation of lighting can make a game look epic, and some portions of Sherlock Bones has epic scenes due to light manipulation. The scenery route wasn’t taken in Blackhole2’s mind as I must say he did focus more on gameplay and the overall fun-factor, and I must say that this was absolutely not a swing and miss for scenery as he did place some to make Sherlock Bones look decent.

Pros

Gameplay

Puzzles

Effort

Neutral

Scenery

Placement

Traps

Cons

Difficulty

Ratings

Gameplay: 5/5 – Sherlock Bones featured strong gameplay sequences that added various features that differed from the average EGD attempt.

Placement: 4/5 – Sherlock Bones had great placements, but the placement of cl0sers and other traps were strongly against the score.

Puzzles: 4.5/5 – The placement and thought devoted into the puzzles were spicy in Sherlock Bones, and definitely left me impressed.

Traps: 3.5/5 – Traps that were present in Sherlock Bones were mostly on the positive side, but the little traps that ended Sherlock Bones’ destiny really damaged the score in this aspect.

Scenery: 4/5 – Sherlock Bones featured a rollercoaster of scenes that included average points and beautiful points.

Overall: 4.2/5 – Sherlock Bones was overall a fun and challenging games that had its flaws.

Conclusion

Although Sherlock Bones did not come up with huge marks, I am flattered at how enjoyable Blackhole2 has made this journey, and I would happily play the game again. With this being said, I undoubtedly call Sherlock Bones a feature-worthy game, and I’m sure the EGD judges will unanimously vote in Sherlock Bones as feature-worthy as well. The larger question at this time, however, is: how far will Sherlock Bones make it into the corps of EGD? In my opinion, I will say that Sherlock Bones has the advantages such as fun-factor; many EGD games make introductory scenes very boring and long, but Sherlock Bones made a short introduction and headed straight into gameplay that progressed in difficulty later on. Throughout the marvelous efforts provided in Sherlock Bones, I do not see it being published into the EGL and grabbing the first place prize in EGD. However, I do see Sherlock Bones placing very well in this year’s EGD, and I hope that Sherlock Bones will crush Sto4 very well this year!