IF 2025 Reviews Doug Egan

“The Transformations of Dr. Watson”, is short mystery with supernatural elements, written in Twine by Konstantin Taro. The story incorporates music and graphics, Twine features I have praised in other games, but knowing (or frankly even suspecting) that AI has been used to generate assets leaves a sour taste for me. There are graphic artists in this community who might be willing collaborators for your work.

No matter, the text is human written (I presume), an entertaining contribution to the cannon of Sherlock Holmes fan fiction. Doctor Holmes is violently attacked while performing an autopsy at the estate of a wealthy client. His soul transfers into a series of other bodies, animal and human, through which he is able to collect evidence but less able to communicate his observations in an effective way to Sherlock Holmes.

The game offers several choice points: what details to focus on in a given scene. Time advances quickly, so there often isn’t an opportunity to go back and try the other option later. But this seems like the type of game where it will all work out in the end… for Doc Watson, at least. Maybe not for the various other bodies his soul has transferred through.

The game is short, and will be an entertaining read as long as the reader is not sensitive to violent content.

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