Does anyone remember this Victorian themed point and click adventure?

December 19, 2008 1:30 AM

Nostalgia has left me attmepting to rediscover a series of online point-and-click adventure games I played when I was younger. Its basic premise was a spoof on Sherlock Holmes and Watson, and you solved murder mysteries in Victorian era England. Anyone remember anything?

Most of the details I remember seem to be too vague for Google to help me out here, so I'm hoping someone here remembers more. Keep in mind that the games themselves might not even be online anymore, but I'm still interested in the title or more info about the creator. Here's all I've got:

• There were several different episodes, but the general series title was the names of the two main characters in a "Blank & Blank in Such and Such" format, unless I'm mistaken.
• The games were written in Java and were posted on a site with some other medieval themed p-a-c adventures.
• There was a horse-drawn taxi you could take to various locations, one of which was always Scotland Yard.
• There was a bumbling constable you had to outsmart to get into some of the crime scenes. I recall using a fishing pole for this purpose at least once.
• One specific case involved the framing of a Lithuanian cook. You had to communicate with him using a damaged Lithuanian to English dictionary in which all of the useful phrases were illegible.

I know it's not terribly much to go on, but if anyone here has played it they'll know what I'm talking about and may be able to provide more info.

posted by Rocky Dennis Memorial Inner Beauty Pageant to computers & internet (5 comments total)

One thing that might help is a year. Can you date the game at least vaguely?

I assume you've gone through the List of graphic adventure games on wikipedia. It's a good starting point.
posted by slimepuppy at 3:07 AM on December 19, 2008

I'd have to say it was around 1997 or so. No earlier than 1995. No later than 2000.

Problem is these weren't commercial releases, so they wouldn't be cataloged anywhere that would list those. The more I look the more I doubt they're still online, which means the answers I'm looking for are mostly in someone's brain, or possibly in an archive.org wayback of a site I don't remember.
posted by Rocky Dennis Memorial Inner Beauty Pageant at 3:27 AM on December 19, 2008

The people on the Adventure Gamers forums will probably be able to help you out.
posted by painquale at 9:17 AM on December 19, 2008

I feel a little silly for solving my own question, but about 5 minutes after I woke up this morning (and presumably after subconsciously turning it over in my head all night), I was struck with one of the character's names and was able to find the answer on my own.

They were called Lozenge and Hampshire, and I loved them. The games are offline, but a wayback of the site they were on still exists in an almost useless form, as does a fan forum, although this seems to also be useless as well, since, upon registering, the only posts seem to be penis enlargement ads.

I guess I'd like to contact the guy who made the series, both to congratulate him for the fond memories and see if I can get a copy of the game for myself (and possibly to discuss hosting them online so others can play). He is apparently one James Evans, but I can't seem to find any up to date information on him. Perhaps I can repurpose this into an attempt to find him?
posted by Rocky Dennis Memorial Inner Beauty Pageant at 11:30 AM on December 19, 2008

I found the following page which seems to list an old email address for him—not sure if it's still good, but worth a shot if you want to try contacting him.
posted by blueberry at 3:10 PM on December 19, 2008