First Impressions of Beyond Baker Street

I’ve now had chance to give this the full review treatment! Have a read of the full review here.

Frustrated with being shown up time after time by Sherlock Homes, the men (& women?) of Scotland Yard are determined to solve a case first! They’ve studied the grand master’s techniques and they are ready to examine the evidence at hand. Or rather, you are. Get ready to solve a crime!

To do this deducing you’ll be able to see everyone else’s cards, but not your own… and like a firework going off you realise: wait. Isn’t this just Hanabi? Why, yes! It technically is.

For those unfamiliar with those core mechanisms, each turn a player can play on of the cards from their hand (that they can’t see) on to one of the piles of evidence you are building in order to win the game. But to know whether it is a good card to play, they’ll need help. A player can instead, at the cost of time, indicate to another player all the cards in their hand of a particular suit, or of a particular number. With enough information they can deduce where and when to play certain cards (we hope).

But Beyond Baker Street adds a number of elements that change the core gameplay of Hanabi. Instead of creating a run of values, you’re trying to add together cards to match some target, a target that might change if you make a mistake or decide to pursue a new lead. You must also, of course, eliminate the impossible, ensuring that all that remains must be the truth, meaning discarding enough cards to reach a total, and no more else Holmes will rapidly make progress on the case. Yes, these are fairly minor mechanical changes, but they are also nicely justified within the theme.

It works well. It is, mechanically, a very similar game to Hanabi (which I have tragically only played a couple of times), but thematically it makes so much more sense! Your solving a crime together, but each of you can only see, or perhaps understand, if we are justifying mechanics here, the evidence you have thus far collected. Together, you help each other interpret the puzzle you have in front of you so that everyone is able, and indeed, must, contribute to capturing the criminal. All while racing Sherlock Holmes in a lovely, high quality package. And that’s before we get on to the great pile of role cards present in the game that (apparently) mix up the experience every time you play. Sadly I didn’t get chance to try them.

I feel like criticising Beyond Baker Street for being Hanabi would be like criticising any deck builder for just being Dominion. It’s a cool mechanic, and it’s great to see new games making use of it! It replaces what was a somewhat pasted on theme (fireworks) and creates something that fits much more comfortably (in my opinion), although I must acknowledge that it is still a puzzle of numbers and suits when you’re playing. The context is more real though. If you disliked Hanabi then you won’t like this anymore, and if you own Hanabi this is probably a little expensive for what it adds… But for fans, you’re getting effectively a deluxe edition with a whole host of replayability that I could easily see replacing that original game. And for new players, and this is only a first impression, I would almost certainly pick Beyond Baker Street.