City counsel

Not all clues wait politely to be plucked from the crime scene. Mystery substances are identified in an equation-balancing minigame, while eavesdropping on residents enables you to sift through snippets of idle chatter to find vital nuggets, some revealing sidequests in the wider city. One such distraction, a robbery at a tailor’s, acts as a tutorial for disguises as you festoon Sherlock in garish togs and cosmetics to jog a witness’s memory of their attacker. Later costumes will endear you to other corners of society. And should you hit a dead end, you can visit police or city hall archives to cross-reference hazier facts and unearth tangible leads. Between them, this spread of deductive mechanics gives the sense of harnessing a city’s resources against its criminals. Who needs the Baker Street Irregulars?