Los Angeles, February 1938. Freeman Linder has received what he believes to be death threats from a man called Stiles whom Mrs Linder had had an affair with before her suicide. Linder asks the police for their protection and he gets it. A detective (the player) is assigned to be present at the Linders' home on the evening Stiles' telegram to Linder talks about.
Even with a policeman sitting in the same room as him, Linder is shot in his office. A shadowy figure, whom Linder had apparantely identified as Stiles a split-second before his death, had stood in front of the window. As frustrating as losing the person you were supposed to watch after is, the case seems to be obvious. Or is there more to it?
Good humour takes proper setup and precise timing: Leading up to and delivering a punchline is an art form of its own which is harder to master than most people tend to believe. Yet it is one of the most important skills that separates the amateur jokester from the true comedian. Of course this is also what makes or brakes any video game that tries to make its audience laugh and it is especially the adventure game genre that has a tradition of delivering prime examples to both the best and the worst in comedy. One of the former is Alias 'The Magpie', a piece of interactive fiction telling the story of a hilarious art heist in a masterful way.
Professor Moriarty is the arch-enemy of Mr Holmes. The clash of these two well-known figures is undoubtedly of epic proportions. The result of the encounter decides the reign of good or evil over 19th century London. The mini adventure at hand takes the player to this fictional final battle, which, however, never occurred in this exact form in actual literature.
Sherlock Holmes finds himself in his flat, which is guarded by snipers on behalf of Moriarty. The arch-villain is about to gain access to the flat. Holmes is on his own. He has no weapon at his disposal and escape is out of the question. Therefore, the detective must quickly use his intellectual abilities to find sufficient defence of his life against the approaching criminal.
