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Item - Scotland Yard Detective

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(First printing)
(First printing)
(First printing)
(First printing)

Combined Summary

Series: Time Machine — no. 17
Translated Into: El detective de Scotland Yard (Spanish)
Detektiv Scotland Yarda (Serbo-Croatian)
Detektiv Scotland Yarda (Slovenian)
Detektyw Scotland Yardu (Polish)
Author: Reit, Seymour V.
Illustrator: Vess, Charles
Dates: April, 1987 (First printing)
May 1, 2017 (Ibooks reissue)
ISBNs: 0553264214 / 9780553264210 (First printing)
159687628X / 9781596876286 (Ibooks reissue)
Length: 125 pages (plus data bank and data file) (First printing)
Number of Endings: 1
Cover Price: US$2.50 (First printing)
User Summary: You must travel back to early twentieth century London and help Scotland Yard rescue a kidnapped Indian prince.
Demian's Thoughts:

This book, written (rather surprisingly) by the man responsible for Casper the Friendly Ghost, is an entertaining read. Like quite a few of the other later entries in this series, it is well-written and educational enough to be enjoyable, but it is lacking in terms of gameplay. As shown by Julien Peter Benney's map, there are no backward loops in the book's structure, so you can't help but win no matter what choices you make. This trait (which is not unique to this volume) makes the already fairly insubstantial Time Machine gameplay even more pointless. Still, challenging gameplay or not, the series remains one of the more effective "edutainment" tools I've encountered.

More reviews by Demian

Special Thanks:Thanks to Ryan Lynch for the cover images.
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Users with Extra Copies: bigcobra

Known Editions

First printing
Ibooks reissue

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Related Documents

Structure Diagram

Time Machine #17 Map
Thanks to Julien Peter Benney for contributing this map of the book's structure.