Sherlock Holmes: TDD - skip the foundry puzzle
10In the 2nd case "A Study in Green" there's a foundry where you have to get around a locked door with an elaborate sequence of switch pulling, box pushing and other acrobatics. Fortunately, most of that can be skipped with a small exploit...
Like in many other Unreal Engine-games, fidgeting against collision in a certain way can zip your character upwards. In this particular game, you get the best results by trying to walk against a small height while switching between Sherlock and Watson at a certain timing. (Note: I haven't tested enough, but there's a chance that zipping can ONLY be done in areas with character switch ability.)
So, to do the skip, you first have to pull a few switches on the ground level to open up the path to the top floor. Then...
0:00 - I actually discovered two methods of doing the skip, and each has its pros and cons.
This first one uses the game's own chain mini-game to finally reach the balcony. This means you have to pull one extra switch on ground level to move the chain in front of the balcony, so it's a bit slower to set up.
Get to the top floor using the ladders. Then fidget over the small invisible wall preventing Sherlock from falling and get down to the last platform of the platforming sequence from where you can start the chain mini-game as usual. Doing this is a bit tricky because of invisible floor near the catwalk. Changing direction in mid-air is also difficult, so you probably have to switch to Holmes while falling to reset your movement.
The chain mini-game itself can be action skipped, so it doesn't waste any extra time.
0:43 - the second method is in theory a bit faster, but it requires two zips instead of just one.
Get over the wall on the top floor from the right side, much like in the first method. However, now you want to run towards the balcony, or more precisely you should aim towards the lamp to the right of it. This lands Sherlock above some weird collision, from where you can do another zip to bounce on the balcony.
As another side effect of getting to the balcony like this, you get to keep the character switch ability a bit longer - normally you'd lose it after the chain mini-game. This doesn't seem to affect the rest of the level all that much, though.
I played through the case after doing this skip, so things work out completely normally afterwards. The skip might overall save around 2 minutes, but I haven't timed it.