Hansom Cab Chase
🕵️ A Sherlock Holmes game — The consulting detective himself
Holmes flings open the trap of your hansom: "Follow that cab, driver, and don't lose it!" You drive from behind the horse, down cobbled London streets at night. Weave past omnibuses, brewers' drays, barrels, road-works, constables, and the odd stray cow. Stay close enough to read the fleeing cab's number one digit at a time, but let it get too far ahead and the fog swallows it. Along the way, pick up the clues Holmes spots: Trichinopoly ash, a false beard, a scented glove. Enough of them lets him deduce a shortcut. Four cases from the canon (The Hound of the Baskervilles, A Study in Scarlet, The Sign of Four and The Final Problem), then Moriarty's men keep coming. Keyboard or touch.
- ✅ Free
- 🔓 No sign-up
- 🌐 Runs in your browser
- 📱 Desktop & mobile
What it does
The canon's cab chase
Take the famous No. 2704 on Regent Street, then follow the cabman of Brixton Road, Jonathan Small from the Lyceum, and one of Moriarty's agents through the City.
Read the number, gather the clues
Stay close and Watson writes the plate down one digit at a time. Clues and close shaves fill Holmes's deduction meter. Press Space and the fog lifts, every hazard shows up, and he names a shortcut.
Gaslit London, painted by hand
Every horse, cab, omnibus, facade, and lamp is painted in code: Regency shopfronts, Brixton villas, the Strand's theatres, and St Paul's over Ludgate Hill, with rain, fog, and lamplight on the setts.
How to play
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1
Change lanes with ← → or A/D, or tap either side of the screen.
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2
Whip the horse with ↑ or W (on a phone, swipe up or tap 🐎) to close the gap. You get three lashes, and they refill.
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3
Stay close until the plate is read, grab the clues, and press Space (or tap 🔎) to let Holmes deduce.
Drawn on a plain HTML5 canvas in the style of the old arcade racers. No libraries and no image files: every sprite, texture, and skyline is painted when the page loads.