221B Baker Street - Case books for Case Library disks

[TheRaven81]

The Case Book for the Main cases is in the back of the manual, which is on AtariMania. But there are 2 Case Library disks, and they don't have Case Book scans available. I've dug deep through Google, and I can't find them. TBH I'm not entirely sure case books existed for these disks. Does anyone know about this, that can help me find them(if they exist)? 

[351cougar]

did you look at other release platforms? apple comodore sites? 

[TheRaven81]

Well, as far as other platforms go, Case Library #1 and #2 were only released for Apple II, MS-DOS, and Atari 8-Bit. I tried adding "Apple II" or "DOS" to the searches, and the best thing I got was when I searched DOS, and found the game on myAbandonware. There's an HTML file there for download with Case Book #1 and #2. #1 is for the base game, and #2 is for Case Library 1. But it's not a scan, it's just typed out in text. That will work for the time being, but a scan would be better for the sake of the Archive. Also ended up with a lot of results related to the board game that this is based on. 

[+kheller2]

This is an ATR.. is this something different? https://www.myabandonware.com/game/221-b-baker-street-case-library-2-l2d

 

 

[TheRaven81]

3 hours ago, kheller2 said:

This is an ATR.. is this something different? https://www.myabandonware.com/game/221-b-baker-street-case-library-2-l2d

 

 

 

The link you have is their link to the ATR of the Case Library #2 disk. It's not the Case Book for it, which is what we are missing.

"Case Book #1" is for the base game, and that is included in the last half of the PDF of the instructions on Atarimania.
"Case Book #2" is for the Case Library #1 disk, and "Case Book #3" is for the Case Library #2 disk, and these are what I am (still) looking for. 

13 hours ago, TheRaven81 said:

...found the game on myAbandonware. There's an HTML file there for download with Case Book #1 and #2.

I attached the file here that I was talking about. As previously stated, it's just a simple webpage of the case books typed out in text with a linked table of contents. It's not a scan, which is what I am looking for.

221B Baker Street - Casebooks 1 & 2.htm

Edited December 13, 2023 by TheRaven81
minor typos

[bfollowell]

I spent quite a while looking through archive.org after I read your post last night, thinking they were bound to be there and I'd save the day by finding them and posting a link, but no such luck. It really is hard to believe that a decent scanned copy of these hasn't turned up somewhere over the years.

 

[TheRaven81]

35 minutes ago, bfollowell said:

It really is hard to believe that a decent scanned copy of these hasn't turned up somewhere over the years.

Well, concerning the game as it is, there wasn't a whole lot of replayability in it, even with the extended case libraries - the board game that it's based on is what you would call a "One-And-Done" game. You play it once and there's really no reason to play it again, because the result wouldn't be any different if you did. They tried to mitigate this by adding 30 different cases to solve, but even then, once you solve all 30, that's that. So to extend the life of the game they came out with "Case expansions", with 30 more cases to solve. I think the board game has 4 or 5 of these expansions, where as our video game adaptation only got 2. 

 

Anyways, my point is that even with all the cases available, once they are solved, unless you have a terrible memory there's no reason to play again. So, my guess would be that anyone who had them, likely got rid of them in some capacity after playing them, and they didn't end up in the hands of enthusiasts or collectors. As a result they might have(sadly) ended up disposed of and destroyed by someone who didn't know the value of such things.

 

Now for some slightly positive news. I have still been continuing to dig for something, and I fell upon these eBay auctions which are still going. I would buy them, but it would be a waste because I don't have the means to scan them anymore, so if someone else here wants to snag them for the sake of the archive, that would be nice.
Auction for Case Library #1 with Case Book 2 - this is for the Atari ST version, so the disk could also be photographed for the archive, if it's not there already.

Auction for Case Book 3 for Case Library #2 - Also for the Atari ST version. 
Despite being for the ST, the important details required for gameplay would be the same. So both of these could still be used for playing the A8 version, or even the Apple II or DOS PC releases of the Case Libraries. 

Edited December 14, 2023 by TheRaven81
information clarity