Demo offers first clues to Dumb Sherlock

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Comedic present-day take on Sherlock Holmes stars the great detective's less-than-intelligent descendent

Being the great-great-great-great grandson of the famous Sherlock Holmes leaves some big shoes to fill – particularly when you're an imbecile. But that's precisely the amusing premise of Dumb Sherlock, an upcoming comic mystery adventure from indie Canadian developers Electric Laughbag Studios.

The latest in a distinguished line of Sherlock Holmes descendants is also, by far, the dimmest. In fact, he's "the world's dumbest amateur detective." Fortunately he has his own Watson, a "magnetic but emotionally stunted" woman who serves as Sherblock's devoted and capable sidekick. Rather than telling a single over-arching tale, this game follows the pair in tackling the "zaniest, cockamamiest mysteries" throughout the city of Churrono – the ones that the police consider "too dumb" to pursue. Having just fumbled his way through foiling a heist attempt that ended up with the criminals behind bars and priceless Fabergé eggs smashed by Sherlock himself, their next case involves one of Watson's many exes, who ate a hot dog the previous night that caused her to hallucinate badly. And so the two bumbling crime-solvers set out to solve "The Hot Dogs of the Bakerville."

Dumb Sherlock's aesthetic is just as tongue-in-cheek as its premise. The 2D artwork is intentionally simplistic, accompanied by bombastically jaunty music and full voice-overs clearly performed by non-actors. And instead of demanding serious investigation, this game is all about fun interactions and puzzles and minigames that pop up along the way, from successfully tossing your hat onto the office rack, to spot-the-difference newspaper challenges, to sequences requiring deduction – or in Sherblock's case: "dedumbtion." You'll maneuver Sherlock around the small self-contained environments via keyboard, using the mouse to interact with hotspots when close enough. It's important to poke around as much as possible, whether relevant or not, not just because objects offer "reputation points" that accumulate for bonus extras such as changes of clothing, but because they all have unique, often funny responses. 

There's no word yet on a potential launch date for Dumb Sherblock, but you can get a bite-sized sample right way via the demo on itch.io, playable directly in your browser.