Interface issue in Sherlock Holmes: The Mystery of the Persian Carpet

After buying and installing it from Steam, my father is having an issue with Sherlock Holmes: The Mystery of the Persian Carpet and forwarded a summary to me. He's emailed Frogwares tech support twice but not received a response, so I thought it might be useful to get some Boomers' input.

Here's the problem: walkthroughs for the game mention a three-icon menu for navigating around. For example, the walkthrough at gamezebo starts, "It's important to familiarize yourself with the 3 icons on the top left side of the screen. This will help you navigate the game well and get through the game faster and in an organized fashion." Apparently these three icons allow you to go to 221B Baker Street, look at the map, or travel to Scotland Yard, from anywhere in the game.

Screenshots abound for the game, also showing these three icons.

Unfortunately, those three icons aren't present. Instead, they're replaced by a big icon that just reads "Puzzles." Clicking the icon inexplicably shows you a list of puzzles you've already completed, allowing you to go back and...solve them again? I guess?

As a visual aid, here's the menu as it shows up in the game: Click here.

Compare that to this image, which is a snippet of a screenshot posted on the frogwares website.

An image search shows that the 3-icon menu is by far the more prevalent interface, but the "Puzzles" interface menu does appear in a few screenshots at various websites. That's why this thread isn't posted in Glitches. (Yet.)

But the interface swap presents a huge problem. It's a little complicated, but here are all the necessary pieces:

1. The game autosaves progress, including what puzzle you're currently working on. If you leave and return to the game later, you start exactly where you left off.

2. If you start a puzzle, you MUST finish it before you go anywhere else in the game. That's because a) There's no navigation menu, so you can't leave the puzzle, and b) as noted above, if you quit the game and return, you'll still be in the puzzle you were in previously.

3. Some puzzles are not solvable when you first encounter them. Notably this includes the Deduction Board. It's possible to access this at many points in the game, but you can't solve it until the very end. Because of this, if you open the Deduction Board, you cannot go anywhere else in the game, ever again. (See points #1 and #1)

4. The ONLY way my father has found to go back to another point in the game is to use the "restart level" function in the menu. Unfortunately, the game's definition of "level" is very broad, and this often means losing an hour or more of work, all of which has to be redone. Then he ends up back at the deduction board anyway.

5. Clicking the deduction board is essentially forced, as he eventually arrives at 221B Baker Street, and though there are a few clickable objects around, there is no "exit", and none of the other objects seem to advance the game. So, inevitably, the only option left is to click the Deduction Board, which brings us back to point 4.

I searched around the forum to find if others had encountered the problem, and so far I did turn up this thread.

It's a fairly long thread, but eventually Laurette asks, "How do I get out of the deduction board without finishing it?"

MaG posts a reply which reads,

"See the frame at top left.
See the 3 pictures above the word Main menu.
Click on the map or the desk. See what happens."

To which Laurette answers, "I don't have those icons in my game."

Then. Argh. The thread ends.

So. Has anyone experienced this problem? Is the game broken, or is the interface just horribly obtuse?

Hi Demosthenes --

I just downloaded this one from Steam, and whether just "Puzzles" appears, or whether the three icons appear depends on the difficulty level selected.

If you choose either the "Casual" or "Detective" levels, just the puzzle icon appears at the top left. If you choose "Adventure" then the three icons appear at the top left instead.

Since I just started the game, I can't tell you more about it, unfortunately. But your father may want to create a new profile and begin the game again in "Adventure" mode, and then use a walkthrough if he gets stuck, instead of trying the easier modes. (If that makes sense.)

Thanks Becky,

I thought the same thing so I tried Detective and it didn't change so didn't bother with the next one. I guess I should have.

So, I'm going to delete all that I wrote because yours was the simple answer.

Flo

Hi Flo -- there still might be a way to address the problem while in Casual mode -- I haven't played far enough in yet to figure that out. Did you experience the same problem that Demosthenese described above?

Thanks, Becky and Flo. I can't wait to tell him that trying to make the game easier actually made the game harder (impossible?) He'll love that almost as much as having to start over again.

The law of unintended consequences? (Or is that something completely different?)

Everything he explained is in the casual and detective mode. You are in a scene until completely finished unless you skip the puzzle. If he finds any puzzles hard, there are very few to skip maybe one or none in adventure mode.

I think to save frustration he's probably better off in casual with 7 skips for puzzles.

As for the deduction board, make sure he looks at the bottom screen that will tell him how many connections he needs, and he can't make the connections until all substances and materials have been analysed, from a particular suspect, at the analysis table.

My father says that running in adventure mode seems to fix the navigation issues. I'm not sure what that means about the playability of the other difficulty levels, though.



That's part of the problem. Once you've accessed the Deduction Board, you can't go back to other parts of the game (like the analysis table) because the navigation buttons are missing. So if you don't have all the evidence you need, you're stuck unless you restart the entire level.

Anyway, I don't think he's totally happy about having to start over in a higher difficulty, but at least it's working now.

I'm curious as to how he would even get to the deduction board without having all the evidence.
You only need what evidence you collected for the one suspect.

When I replayed the first suspect. I got all the evidence, it automatically took me to the lab, then I clicked the analysis lab, analyized all the evidence and I think it then automatically took me to the board. I only had to make 3 connections and then it was back to the map, automatically.

Hope he figures it out.

Flo

I just looked at the walkthrough again, because I was frustrated with the deduction board. I thought I remembered being able to get out of there and leaving it until the end.
In the adventure mode you can leave the deduction board until last, if you look at the walkthrough, it is at the very end, there is an exit up in the right hand corner, so you are able to leave it and move on without deducing.

If you're talking about the little X in the upper right-hand corner...that was not present in his game.

I don't know if it's a difference between the casual and adventure modes, but there was definitely no X button, nor any other way to exit the screen once there.

It is only in the adventure mode.Like I wrote.

In the adventure mode you can leave the deduction board until last, if you look at the walkthrough, it is at the very end, there is an exit up in the right hand corner, so you are able to leave it and move on without deducing.