a murder mystery with a neat gimmick, that's really all i need in a game tbh. it's a short game, but that's not a bad thing! the story is well-paced and doesn't outstay it's welcome too much, and at $5 it didn't feel overpriced for the amount of gameplay you get.

i had a pretty smooth experience as far as bugs or glitches, maybe the biggest offenders had been patched out by the time i played. the only times i got stuck were due to me missing a line of dialogue or something, which could be a bit finicky at times. but i also enjoy tedious clue hunting, so the downtime was enjoyable for the most part. once i hit the late stages of the game i had to resort to a guide a couple of times and i had a lot of trouble with the big final scene for some reason.

But otherwise it was an enjoyable little mystery game where you get to snoop around a ship. Slowly uncovering each characters backstory and secret as you progress through the main story and unlock different gameplay mechanics keeps the game engaging for the majority of the runtime. as long as you can keep the story moving that is, if you get stuck or miss a vital line of dialogue it can certainly turn very tedious pretty fast. also there's not enough games where you get to solve a big mystery and i just love that shit

"ok i know everyone talks about how this game is like their favorite game ever and they wish they could play it again for the first time and whatever but, it's gotta be like a little overhyped, right?" - me, an utter fool, moments before playing return of the obra dinn

this is like, peak video game. what a cool way to present a story. i'm so glad i avoided sort of story spoilers for 6 years, i literally just thought it was gonna be a murder mystery on a boat with a neat gameplay mechanic. the music, the environment, the visual style, the storytelling and detail in each scene, the tedious clue hunting, gradually piecing together the chain of events and eventually being able to name the entire crew off the bits and pieces of info you can gather. it all just works together so so well. normally i'd respect the creators wishes, but damn if there's any game that deserves a sequel or spin off or something it's this.

(if you're into murder mysteries on a boat, maybe check out Why Am I Dead at Sea, i don't actually remember if it's all that comparable, but i was reminded of it quite a bit while playing this game)

I remember seeing their first couple of development posts in 2015 (probably from reddit) and I've been excited for this previously untitled cat game ever since, i still have the devblog bookmarked somewhere lol

Honestly, I just wanted a game where you get to run around as a cat and i gotta say stray delivered. There's other gameplay segments like stealth sections and very basic puzzle solving, but i'd have been totally happy with just exploring more of the city. Yeah, it's short. But I don't mind shorter games, I think the length felt appropriate for the gameplay and the story didn't feel cut short or anything

also, coming into this game straight after finishing nier automata for the first time was interesting, i did not expect these games to have anything in common but there was definitely a bit of deja vu with some of the robots and their relationship with humanity

oh boy i sure do love repeating the exact same dialogue and puzzles multiple times to get the True Ending. too bad you only need to do the first room six times, i almost had the lock combos memorized by my last run. this might be improved in the remake, but good god it's rough on the ds.

and oh my gooood the descriptions.

The clock was screwed onto the wall with screws. That meant that Junpei needed to use a screwdriver to remove the screws.
-selects screwdriver, taps on clock-
"I can use this screwdriver to unscrew the screws!"
Junpei took out the screwdriver and began the unscrew the screws to free the clock from the wall.
"I did it! I used the screwdriver to unscrew all the screws!"

it was almost that bad at several different points in the game. for a game about racing against the clock to escape a sinking ship, you'd think things would move a bit faster. But no! You can be down to the wire, characters freaking out about how they only have 30 minutes left until they freeze to death, or explode, or catch on fire or whatever so we gotta figure out this room now, and then suddenly one person will pull you aside and find the time to casually tell you a somewhat plot relevant anecdote for 10 minutes.

And don't even get me started on all the math and number puzzles. Stop putting sudoku in fun games! Sudoku isn't fun!! please i'm too stupid for sudoku i can't believe this is such a reoccurring issue for me with puzzle games. even if this one was allegedly "a really easy sudoku puzzle"

But, slowly, so very slowly, watching the story unravel with all the stupid plot twists and surprise reveals was worth it. Not that it makes any more sense at the end. But it was still fun to experience at least. I imagine the re-release fixes some of the replaying issues I had, but playing on the original console (3DS still counts as original right) enhanced a certain reveal towards the end of the game. Also nothing beats the wonder of seeing a nintendo certified DS game say fuck

and no this isn't cope because i only found about the re-release after i beat the game

Unlike prior entries, I went into Silent Spy with very little previous knowledge or bias. I knew it was about Nancy’s mom who just happened to be a secret international spy, but that’s really about it. But that alone was enough to make me a bit hesitant. I like that these games have relatively short, contained stories, I’m not here for extensive Nancy Lore. Alibi in Ashes was like, 3 games ago, i don’t want another nancy story guys

Setting: I always love when we get to leave the country, it usually results in much more interesting locations and Nancy is just so clueless in foreign countries it’s great. i wasn’t exactly expecting Scotland and now having finished the game, i’m not exactly sure why they chose Scotland. Maybe I’m missing a reference or perhaps a book plot but it just feels kinda random. This could have taken place in Australia and you’d only need to change a couple cultural references and like three puzzle solutions (btw herinteractive if you’re reading this I’d love a Nancy Drew goes to Australia game, idk just feels like a lot of untapped potential there)

Nancy Drew games tend to lean really hard into their locations but it felt dialed back here. A lot of it was vaguely Scottish, with a couple nods to the culture thrown in like the bagpipes puzzle and the cookie making. I’m really not sure what was up with those cookies tho, am I uncultured? Are those really what Scottish cookies are?? I personally like it when they saturate the game with whatever relevant culture Nancy is visiting, but maybe this approach is a bit more tasteful, especially if you are from said relevant culture.

The locations themselves were fine. Not the most interesting to explore and each section felt very condensed, but at least that made navigation pretty straightforward. Visually and graphically speaking, everything looked nice at least.

The lake area was underwhelming, I expected to at least see some nature beyond just the still background image. The restaurant was needed for exactly one optional quest and beyond that went completely unused. This leaves you with the hotel, which has 3 rooms, Moira’s small house, the lake, which has only the cabin and the gym, and then the train station, which is largely just used as a hub area. So really I guess most of the map was underwhelming.

Characters: While there’s the usual 4 suspects you can chat with, the characters getting the most attention this time are Nancy herself and her dead mom. And also Carson, Nancy’s dad. He gets a lot more character development here than any other game and it’s done quite well for the most part. He does change his mind about Nancy going to Scotland very abruptly in one scene, but besides that I liked how he was handled. There’s some nice phone conversations with him.

Nancy’s mom, Kate, is fleshed out pretty well for a character who’s been dead for like 15 years at the start of the game. The choice to make her a spy was…a choice. You gotta have some suspension of disbelief with Nancy Drew plots, but this one’s rough even outside of the whole mom spy thing. But I liked how she was written, she’s clearly not an entirely good person and you can easily argue she’s a bad mother, but hey I like when mother characters get to be characters outside of just being a mom. I don’t like the direction with her being an international spy and I don’t exactly care for Nancy lore in general, but despite that I really enjoyed her inclusion in the story.

And the other characters? Like, the actual suspects? eh. I liked Moira’s character and how her history with Kate was revealed. And it’s fun to talk with someone who knew Nancy as a kid. But Moira isn’t actually in the game that much, after things get going in the first like 30 minutes, she’s gone for a good chunk of the game. I wish she was more involved, but I liked what we did see from her.

Dude who hangs out in the train station? He’s okay, he’s there. Well, sometimes he’s there, he’s another one who goes missing pretty frequently throughout the game. The other spy lady is annoying at worst and forgettable at best. Oh and the computer spy guy is also there.

Puzzles: The puzzles weren’t especially memorable in this game. Even going through my notes I can’t remember any that stood out. The tartan puzzle was interesting, I like these weird layering puzzles that pop up occasionally, even if this one was timed and I hate timed puzzles with a passion. The puzzle on the bench was a good mix of frustrating and satisfying to complete.

I completely skipped the giant cylinder logic puzzle because I just can’t do logic puzzles. If it was on a smaller scale I’d probably brute force my brain into solving it, but I know my limits. And apparently a puzzle in a children’s game is part of my limits. I definitely also skipped the USB puzzle too, from what I remember it was a timed sudoku-like and that’s another type of puzzle I will never enjoy.

I’ve seen more than one complaint about the bagpipe puzzle and I was sure I was going to hate it, because yeah music puzzles are another one of my weaknesses. idk what’s different about bagpipes but I solved this one first try. That archery minigame in the same location was also surprisingly fun. Speaking of minigames, cookie making may be the best Nancy Drew Cooking Minigame so far.

Also there was straight up an unfinished puzzle in the game. You’re given a clue on how to solve the Jabberwocky poem and when you go to examine it, the game jumps straight into a standard cryptogram. The whole bit about the colors is completely ignored and never referenced again, despite it being given as a very obvious clue. It just feels very strange, but I do enjoy a good cryptogram.

Story: Like most Nancy Drew Games, there are two storylines going on. This time we have the Dead Mom Story and the…Bioterrorism Story?? The storyline that follows Kate’s hidden past as a spy and what her final trip to Scotland entailed was easily the much more interesting and well written one. Nancy’s personal involvement here was more engaging for me than it was in Alibi in Ashes and I enjoyed the various flashbacks involving Nancy and Kate, even if they felt a little out of place for these games.

Unraveling Kate’s involvement with the spy agency, learning how she stopped the terrorist attack 15 years ago, her friendship with Moira and why she left Nancy and her Dad for the last time, all of that is the real meat of this story. Enough is explained through dialogue and notes, but a lot is also left unresolved and that feels fitting. Nancy doesn’t actually learn anything about how or why her mother died, but that makes sense. The letters at the end, the one Kate wrote before she died and the one Nancy writes at the end, those felt like the perfect conclusion to this storyline. both of those letters were lovely and unexpectedly heartwarming for a Nancy Drew game, excellent work writers (maybe just writer? I’m not sure exactly how barebones the staff is at this point)

However. There’s also the other half of the story. Where Nancy gets involved with a little terrorism and helps save Glasgow by becoming a spy. This side of the game is not quite on the same level as the Dead Mom stuff. It was already fairly ridiculous that Nancy gets recruited as a spy in Phantom of Venice, but it just feels so much more baffling here. This Scottish terrorist group that’s been inactive for 15 or so years is just suddenly back and then there’s the government spy agency that kinda knows what’s happening but they don’t actually do anything it’s all up to the 18 year old (she can’t still be 18 right??) American detective to actually stop them.

All the big spy stuff going on is completely ridiculous. I don’t really care for spy stories that much, so it wasn’t off to a great start already. But then you get a pair of spy glasses and you fucking zipline from your hotel room across the courtyard into another hotel room by shooting a crossbow instead of picking the lock like a normal human. And the computer hacking and wiretapping and the high tech spy computer station that emerges from the cabin out of no where and all the other spy gadgets and it’s just so very out of place. I usually love when Nancy Drew games get weird and ridiculous, but it just doesn’t work here. Especially when juxtaposed with the more serious and somber Dead Mom story and all the, y’know, terrorism stuff.

Anyway, the big terrorism the terrorists are gonna do is…unleash a virus that’s meant to be non-lethal but will still incapacitate a large portion of the population so that the bad guys can take control of the local government amidst all the panic. yeah. i guess it hits a bit different after 2020 huh. So the interesting thing is that Nancy is actually helping out the terrorist group by solving a bunch of puzzles that were hiding away the formula for this disease. There’s even like…side quests you can do for the clearly evil terrorists that like…hack your phone to give you missions. You can ignore them, but you still end up giving them way too much information either way.

Or maybe not? Maybe they already had a lot of this info? The plot gets very convoluted when you aren’t focused on Kate lore. The villain isn’t given any motivation at all beyond ‘i did it because i could’ and then suddenly everyone else comes together to help you stop the bombs. The disease bombs that were planted around the city i guess.

Overall? A perfectly fine Nancy Drew game. The story could have been something special if they just cut all the current day plot stuff. Maybe replace it with something a bit more inconsequential? I love a story with stakes, but my god this is so much. Nancy Drew does not need to thwart a bio-terrorism attack, she needs to solve museum thefts and ghost horses and idk, murder mysteries.

At first I thought all the hype about Ghost of Thornton Hall was because it was one of the Spooky nancy drew games and everyone loves the Spooky games, but I’ve also seen it recommended a bunch as a game for newcomers to the franchise and there’s a lot of praise in general for the story.

So I went in with higher expectations than usual and I was honestly surprised this game showed up so late in the lineup. It’s pretty obvious that this era of Nancy Drew isn’t as popular with the fanbase and Ghost of Thornton Hall lands right in the middle of some popularly recognized mediocre games.

Setting: Despite just implying that I was somewhat knowledgeable about this game going in, I actually didn’t really know anything about it. I honestly thought Nancy was heading to a British castle, but no. Turns out it’s actually a spooky haunted abandoned…plantation? Or it’s not a plantation, it’s just an island where workers lived in the factory and there’s also just a cotton gin hanging out in the house. They were definitely going for the vibes of a southern plantation setting, without most of the baggage that comes with an Actual Southern Plantation. And actually that’s fine, I’m glad that HerInteractive recognized that addressing the topic of slavery might be a bit too much for them to handle respectfully. They got around it by having the property be awarded to a lady spy who worked for the Union, which I think is a good way to go about it.

So, initially I was disappointed that I wasn’t getting a cool haunted British castle, but the location won me over pretty quickly. The house is strangely reminiscent of the house from Crystal Skull, but maybe that’s just how all houses look in the south. There’s actually quite a bit here that feels like Crystal Skull, but it doesn’t feel like they’re just copying the setting. It’s distinct enough, some things just feel a bit too familiar though. Like the layout of the first floor and the hidden passages and the graveyard and the subtle Southern Gothic aesthetic.

Now that I’m thinking about it, the map was a bit small. I don’t think it ever felt that way while playing, but there’s really only the house and the graveyard. The burnt building has very little to examine and the secret passages are pretty limited in what they unlock. The dev team did well with the smallish map size and a lot of the rooms felt decently fleshed out, while still keeping that abandoned and haunted feel.

The spooky atmosphere deserves a mention too, because they pulled it off really well this time. Similar to Message in a Haunted Mansion, there’s a lot of little Spooky Things that can just happen. The first one that got me was a portrait blinking, but there were also shadowy figures passing by doorways, a coffin moving on its own, just a lot of things moving out of the corner of your eye. It’s very effective without resorting to your typical cheap jumpscares.

Characters: I didn’t really expect to like the family drama on display between these characters, but I found myself wanting to know more about them each time they divulged a new bit of lore. The mother was the weakest character of the gang, mostly because she was missing half the time I visited her spot. I didn’t really get the chance to talk to her that much, so I didn’t really care about her until she got more involved in the drama towards the end.

The two guys were pretty decent characters too. The fiancé felt a little too similar to the fiancée from Haunting of Castle Malloy, but mostly because they share a very similar role in their respective plots. Graveyard guy talked a bit too much about ghosts for me to like him too much, but I enjoyed his character when he occasionally talked about not ghosts. His line about the black friday bankers got me good, mostly because I was not expecting a (pretty tame) dark joke in a Nancy Drew game.

I don’t really know how I feel about Harper. She felt like the de facto Quirky character of the cast, but she’s also written as the ambiguously mentally ill black sheep of the family who may or may not have been sent to an asylum when she was younger. It just doesn’t feel like her character was handled particularly well for the most part. I liked her resolution, but I’m iffy on everything before that. The dialogue here was at its best of the last few games, but Harper’s dialogue wasn’t on par and felt the least natural.

Oh and what was up with the giant rat? The giant naked rat that looked like it had ice physics and drifted around corners. Was that real or not? I gotta find out more about this creature I must have missed some dialogue or a clue or something because it can’t just be an unexplained giant naked rat that I saw 4 times

Puzzles: I always love a Nancy Drew game that’s just chock full of puzzles. It doesn’t really feel like a lot, but I know that’s what I spent most of the game doing. But it just doesn’t feeeel like I just did a bunch of puzzles. I guess that’s a good sign.

A lot of them felt intuitive and were fairly unique. I feel like I should have hated that pseudo sudoku (pseudoku :0) plus minus puzzle, but I managed to logic my way through it both times without much complaint. The stained glass puzzle was a fun spin on a puzzle that feels like it’s been in a Nancy Drew game but I can’t remember for sure. Had a few hiccups on the graveyard puzzle, first time because I guess I’m just supposed to intuit that (w,l) means (word,letter) and the second time because I guess I’m just supposed to know that names count as words.

But the only two (ugh three technically) puzzles that stand out as Bad were the clock puzzles and the math puzzle. As soon as I saw how the clock puzzle worked, I looked up the solution because I just knew it wouldn’t be fun solving it naturally. And then I had to look it up again because I guess that was the puzzle the developers wanted to include twice. Also, don’t make me do math Nancy Drew I do not play video games to solve math equations

My stance on slider puzzles has really evolved as I near the end of the Nancy Drew catalog of games. At first, I hated every moment I spent clicking and sliding tiles around at seemingly random until some of them ended up in the right spots. Now I mostly tolerate them and I’m proud to admit that I actually enjoyed a slider puzzle in this game.

Story: ok yeah the story was pretty good. It’s got a similar start as Castle Malloy, with the victim going missing right before their wedding and now you gotta find them while their partner is just like “yeah”

But this time it feels a lot more fitting with the whole family drama storyline and haunted island. It was easy to forget there was a wedding and a missing bride, I was much more invested in the ghost lady and the factory explosion and the dark family history. There’s also just a lot more talk about ghosts than about the kidnapping. I mean, at a certain point it makes sense that all you wanna talk about is ghosts because you start seeing shit, but it does get repetitive.

The whole twist behind the ghost and spooky happenings probably would've been a lot more interesting if I hadn’t already known the reason because I just gotta visit the nancy drew subreddit and read a thread asking “what’s ur favorite plot twist” or whatever knowing full well I am very likely to get spoiled because there’s still 6 games I haven’t played. I like to think I could have guessed the twist thanks to some foreshadowing in the beginning, but I probably would’ve just forgotten about it.

Love the use of alternate endings here, which is already a rare sight for a Nancy Drew game. I can only think of two others where you had any sort of influence over the ending. And this time you can just straight up let someone die! You get to add another ghost to the island! Hell yeah Nancy Drew I wanna see more of this in future games! I mean, those options are clearly the Bad Ends, but it’s just fun to have the option. buuuuut if you do save everyone that means you gotta do that goddamn clock puzzle again so is it really the best ending?

Anyway, I can see why this game gets a lot of love despite being a later entry. It’s got the usual charm of a Spooky Nancy Drew Game with an interesting story full of family drama you get to slowly unravel. There’s a decent selection of puzzles that I had a fun time solving with only a couple of real stinkers in the mix. Also. unexplained giant naked mole rat. you’re not gonna find that in any other Nancy Drew game.

Okay I shouldn’t be reading opinions of these games on reddit before I actually play them but I do and this game is an interesting case. I can’t tell what the popular opinion on it actually is. I’ve seen plenty who hate it, say the character gimmick ruins it, put it at the bottom of tier lists, and say it’s a disappointing entry. On the other hand, I’ve seen a number of people list it as their absolute favorite game in the series and all the reviews on this site seem to adore it. There’s a lot of passionate defenders of this game, and I can kinda see it. I don’t agree, but I can see where some people are coming from

Setting: It’s…ok. The map is nothing special or especially interesting. Maybe if you’re a fan of the actual book series there’s a lot more charm in seeing Nancy’s hometown. But I’ve only ever been here for the games, so I’m lukewarm on the initial idea. The main locations you explore are all pretty good, graphically. They just aren’t fun to explore. The ice cream store has like two spots, we’ve already been to a much more interesting antique store in Crystal Skull, and the jail doesn’t have much going on. Nancy’s house is just…so white. oh my god it’s so blindingly white inside how do you live here

The map did not need to be so huge with so many useless locations. At least like, highlight the important ones. It took me a while to get familiar with their spots on the map.

Characters: The suspects are really the highlight of the game, considering the plot and the small variety of puzzles available. I think they were all pretty interesting, I enjoyed figuring out their motives and why each character hated Nancy so much. There were some neat stories in there, it just involved a lot of talking. And going back and forth between different Nancy friends and different suspects and locations and back to Nancy again and back to Bess and oops back to Nancy because actually I need Ned for this

Everyone was a believable suspect and piecing together the crime from talking to everyone was fun. I didn’t love anyone in particular and no one was over the top in a fun or bad way, but at least I didn’t hate talking to any one suspect.

I did hate having to swap between Nancy and the Clue Crew though. Boy that gameplay mechanic really does suck. It would have been much more tolerable, still not good, but slightly better if you could switch off between friends. But no, you need to be Nancy to select anyone. If you’re Ned but only Bess can get more dialogue from this suspect? Gotta switch over to Nancy and then you can switch over to Bess. It just adds so much unnecessary time to this already not that exciting game.

Puzzles: I finished this game a few days ago and I am drawing a blank on what puzzles were present. I think…I stacked objects to reach something in the beginning? I remember there was an annoying number puzzle at some point. All the puzzle solving present here is very lightweight and takes a backseat to the story and characters. I barely took any notes, actually all I ended up writing down were a few numbers and a reference guide for the tunnel puzzle (which I fucked up twice and then cheated on because I only have so much patience)

This is definitely a dialogue heavy game and I can respect that, but I don’t really like it. Nancy Drew games are, for me, at their best when I can explore fun locations, find things and then use things to solve neat little puzzles. While occasionally chatting with some wacky characters to advance the plot.

Story: So, if this game is all about the story, how is the story?

idk I guess it was pretty good. It certainly wasn’t the most captivating plot, despite the fact that it should be. Nancy getting framed and trapped in jail for a mysterious crime? That should be pretty exciting, but I just didn’t really feel any urgency. Ransom of the Seven Ships suffers from this problem too, a plot with stakes but no urgency to back it up. I mean, Ransom suffers from a lot of other problems too and that’s honestly one of the lesser problems. But this game is a lot better than Ransom and deserves a bit more Oomph in the storytelling.

The Final Scene does a great job at conveying a sense of urgency with the dialogue and music, even the lack of puzzles makes you feel like you’re not wasting any time trying to find the victim. But the puzzle scarcity in Alibi in Ashes just highlights how boring the constant switching and navigating the map is when there’s not much there to break up that cycle.

am i even still talking about the story? Anyway, the setup felt a little ridiculous to me. what the fuck is a clue competition what is up with this weird ass detective town. And what a convoluted way to frame Nancy. I’m still not clear on why a snowflake ice cube caused an old building to catch on fire or how exactly the culprit set that up to frame Nancy. Is it possible I didn’t get all the details because I couldn’t be bothered to exhaust all the dialogue options? yeah, that’s pretty likely actually.

I did like the theme of corrupt small town politics and how some will ignore justice in order to advance their own goals and I think the story handled these topics pretty well. And Alexei’s story ties in well with Nancy’s current situation, even if internally i’m like “ok damn how many teen detectives does this town produce.”

I wish I liked this game as much as others do. It felt special. We get to explore Nancy’s hometown she’s talked about for 24 games now (and probably much more in the actual books that I sometimes forget exist) and all of Nancy’s friends are here (except for the hardy boys) and it’s a pretty exciting plot setup for a Nancy game. It just doesn’t hit all the marks I expect from these games and it ended up feeling a bit disappointing at the end of it all.

where is my desk where is my case file?? :(

I had pretty low standards going in, ngl. And the change in format did not help my first impression. The main menu is now just a generic video game menu, not the Nancy Drew Center of Operations desk nor my beloved and iconic stack of books menu. There’s no case file to give you like, even a little bit of context for the mystery. It’s just straight to Choose Difficulty and then Ominous Cutscene. i don’t like change I want nostalgia

ok i actually really like the new ui but i can’t accept the other changes

Setting: I’ll admit I’m not a huge fan of the Ancient Egypt time period/aesthetic, so I was pretty underwhelmed with this location. But I will say the tomb was an enjoyable environment to explore and slowly unlocking new rooms is an excellent mechanic I love tangible progression

As for navigation, it seemed a bit more annoying than usual. I completely missed the fact that you can enter the second tent, I only found that out after the hint guide mentioned an artifact tent. Several puzzles on the walls in some of the tomb tunnels were obnoxiously placed just at the edge of the screen. You can’t pan the camera towards them, just hope you mouse over the wall and notice that you can interact with a small fraction of it.

Ok another fun thing about the location was the spooky whispering that happened in some sections. totally wasn’t explained ever, but it was good for the spooky, cursed tomb atmosphere

Characters: I liked having two characters that only showed up after a couple puzzles were solved, rather than having them all start out scattered around the map like usual.

But despite that, I didn’t find myself wanting to talk to them that often. They were all fine, I just never liked any one of them that much. Plus there was no cell service in the tomb, so I just didn’t call people unless I actually had to.

Puzzles: yooooo cryptograms are my shit and there’s so many of them here! Actually, maybe too many of them. I want to thank the developer who looked at the 10 or so repeated cryptogram decoding puzzles of varying length and said “yeah, this is tedious as hell, even by our standards.“ and then added a quick translate button. Like, I really enjoy that puzzle format and I still skipped probably 3 of them.

I always like when the puzzles are just scattered about a location and you just solve them as you please, and this game delivered. Unfortunately this format usually results in me mainlining all the puzzles and ignoring conversations until I need some outside information to solve one or advance the plot. So I’m pretty sure I missed out on a bunch of extra dialogue and a few story beats, like apparently there’s a water tank sabotage? And locusts??

Anyway, the puzzles were fairly unique with not many repeats from previous games. None that are particularly memorable, but I remember enjoying them at least. The raising and lowering pillar one stands out because I solved it in like 4 tries by complete accident. No clue what was happening but glad it worked.

Oh and the 7 childrens names one was pretty fun, I’m a big fan of research puzzles that make you look for hints in documents and different locations. I love taking notes gamers today just don’t understand

Story: well, I appreciate what they were going for. Unlucky Egyptian tomb exploration team, bad things happen on site and numbers start dwindling, is it a curse or sabotage? I guess I haven’t really seen much media with this plot, but it still felt pretty predictable for the most part. Towards the middle it got a bit more muddled and the story started to lose me. Of course, as I mentioned earlier, i missed what seems like a good chunk of the optional scenes and dialogue so that might also explain why i was confused

I gotta say, this felt like an Egyptian reskin of Scarlet Hand in a lot of ways. Just, at an actual archaeological site and not a museum. I still vastly prefer Scarlet Hand over this one, but I don’t hate this game. It’s just…forgettable? It’s only been a couple days since I finished it, but I already don’t remember a ton about it. The location wasn’t my thing, the characters weren’t engaging, and the story was predictable. But then it went off the rails, but not in a fun wacky Nancy Drew PC Game way, but in a confusing I Don’t Know What’s Happening In This Story Anymore kinda way.

Overall, very mid game. But hey, at least I had fun with the puzzles

So I’ve heard a lot of mixed reviews on this one. Nothing specific, just that people either love it or it's Boring. So I went in fairly neutral, but the last game had me slightly hesitant about this seemingly new era of Nancy Drew Games.

Setting: ok so I liked a lot about this game, but idk the environment was very bland. We’ve seen plenty of old buildings in these 28 games and you’re not even gonna let me go outside in this one? I mean, the game looked visually pleasing, but the location was just boring compared to the usual exotic or thematic locations in these games. The different rooms you have access to are all distinct, but forgettable and generic. The big laboratory is easily the most interesting and busiest area, but it’s just too busy. There’s so much visual clutter and clickable spots that I always felt lost trying to navigate that section.

The navigation in general also felt a bit finicky. Though I didn’t miss any plot-critical details like the last game, I did have kind of a hard time turning corners and accidentally advancing to the wrong part of the map. I usually find myself rapidly clicking through the map like an aspiring speedrunner and in most games it works out fine! But in some games it just ends up taking longer because I keep clicking the wrong hotspot and ah shit not that room, no not that way, no no just let me- just let me turn around again- no the other way. fuck i accidentally clicked on a person again

ugh and that elevator did not need to be so slow. Just give me some stairs so i can spam click my way around the map

Characters: The cast is much more memorable this time around! Unfortunately, still not very likable but I’ll take memorable over likable any day (in game at least). Everyone is obnoxious and shady in their own way, but it keeps the conversations interesting at least. Ryan was a bit…cringe with some of her dialogue. These later games tend to have at least one character that’s written kinda like That and I’m not a huge fan of the trend.

I’m pretty split on how I feel about the day/night cycle and how you have to switch constantly to be able to speak to different suspects. It works best in the early game where there’s a lot of new information and things to explore, it keeps some of it sectioned off so you’re not completely lost and overwhelmed starting out. But once you narrow in and get towards the end, you suddenly have to go to bed just for one conversation or so you can access a certain room just so you can look at something again. It helps the pace when there’s a lot to do, but eventually it just gets tedious.

Puzzles: There were a lot of puzzles to like this time around! And some not so good ones! Please don’t make me do math and try to pass it off as a “puzzle” Her Interactive!!

But honestly, the majority were solid, fairly unique and overall enjoyable puzzles. A few that required notetaking and figuring it out on paper, some that you just need to brute force by clicking different colors for 8 minutes until the hidden time limit comes back to spook you. I refused to draw a grid for that logic puzzle and had a hell of a time solving that one. I want to like logic puzzles but my brain just. it can’t. it has to work on them in the least efficient way possible.

I really wish there weren’t so many time limits on these puzzles. I hate feeling rushed, even if it’s an invisible timer and a fairly gracious one at that (I think you have like 8 minutes if a suspect is distracted temporarily?) But losing all of my progress on the overlapping colors puzzle hurt and i'm pretty sure i was really close to solving it that time

I also just did not understand what was happening in that last puzzle, I don’t think I was very good with circuits when I took physics in high school like, oh god, was that actually 8 years ago? so maybe that’s why I couldn’t understand the picture. Oh and there was another piano puzzle, one of my least favorite recurring puzzles besides slide puzzles. I just insta cheat on these now, please stop making me play the piano Nancy Drew.

Plot: Finally I get to solve another murder thank you i love a plot with actual stakes. And murder mysteries are just more fun honestly. It was decently interesting too! A handful of scenes managed to feel pretty suspenseful and the ending itself felt like a natural conclusion. I correctly guessed the killer fairly early on, but the story still kept me second guessing with the red herrings.

I wasn’t a huge fan of the theme for this game, science, electricity, Tesla, etc. Not really my vibe. The Tesla aspect was probably cooler when the game came out, but now it’s like “yeah, I get it. Tesla was a genius and was robbed”

But the puzzles, the characters, and the story were all, for the most part, really solid this game! And those are the actually important criteria for me, everything else is more nitpicky. Anyway, The Deadly Device? Good Game. Is it in my top 5? eh probably not, but i had a good time and came away with no major complaints

This feels like a Nancy Drew game I should hate, but I came away from this one pretty positively. There’s not much mystery happening here and not much to explore, but idk I enjoyed my time with it.

Location: Big empty sprawling farming town is probably the most at home I’m gonna feel in a Nancy Drew game tbh. I'm on the east coast so I can’t relate to the tornadoes and dust and shit, but driving around a big empty map filled with cows? Yeah that's pretty much what it’s like out here. It’d be more accurate if the ma and pa general store was a dollar general but I guess that wouldn’t have the same vibe.

But I did really like the cozy countryside feel of the locations. The farmhouse, the cluttered barn that’s half garage, the big empty fields. All very familiar. The music complemented the theme very well, big fan of that simple guitar track that plays in the house a lot.

Characters: I like the whole cast! I don’t love anyone in particular, but I enjoy everyone’s presence and all their short little storylines. If anything I think Debbie is probably the weakest character, she’s like the only one who doesn’t have a Thing going on. Mostly just tells you when it’s time to progress to the next day.
Loved being able to give everyone candy though.

Puzzles: well, I really enjoyed the mini games in this one! Yes, even the mouse trap one. I wish you can manually move the mice forward Instead of just waiting for them to cycle forward and we really didn’t need to play 4 different variations of this puzzle, but idk I kinda enjoy it. It’s relaxing.

I’m still not sure what I did correctly to solve the puzzle, but I gotta mention the prairie dog vacuum one because holy shit what a whimsical concept for a puzzle. I love you prairie dog vacuum. I can’t believe this is a real thing that exists in the real world and not a dumb made up video game invention.

Once I got the hang of the circuit board puzzle I enjoyed it, but ooh boy i hate timed puzzles. So land rush ended up being my go to money maker. Honestly Land Rush had no right being that fun

But the real issue is that none of the puzzles are actually related to solving a mystery. I'm a fan of chore puzzles, but that's like....all this game is. I still liked it, but it's not very Nancy Drew.

is driving a puzzle? maybe i'm just dumb, but realizing there was a gps and a map was certainly a puzzle. once I found that it made navigation much more tolerable. this is the best version of driving yet, but that doesn't mean it's good. well, driving full speed around a corner into another truck and causing a 5 car pile up is pretty good. i am glad they made driving faster though, but then they also added other vehicles as obstacles. but i can't really complain because the wild car crashes I can get into in this actual Nancy Drew game are amazing.

Story: where's the mystery :(

ok I liked the storm chasing concept and the initial idea of trying to figure out who's sabotaging everything, it's a grounded, realistic storyline. but it's not like you're actively uncovering that in the game. Nancy just does a bunch of fun little chores and accidentally reveals the culprit in the last 15 minutes of the game. There's very little snooping or interrogating, you don't get to unravel a big mystery or solve a 200 year old scavenger hunt. this is definitely the least grandiose Nancy Drew storyline yet. I don't hate it, it's just kinda bland.

Final Thoughts: These games go through a wildly short production cycle and this one might suffer the most from it. It's possible this game got the short end of the stick as the team might've been working on Shadow at the waters Edge, the Secrets Can Kill remaster, AND this game at roughly the same time. That's just speculation I saw on reddit, but it makes sense.

This is easily the buggiest one I've played yet. There's strange pauses in the dialogue, my camera turned red after taking a couple photos, characters sometimes mentioned things I hadn't done or discovered yet, and a couple of small graphical errors that popped up during puzzles.

But even with that and the lackluster mystery and chore heavy puzzles and lack of explorable locations, I still enjoyed my time with the game overall. Yeah, I would have liked to see a more fleshed out mystery in this location and it would have been nice to do more than just chores, but at least I still had fun. I'm just glad it wasn't another Ransom of the Seven Ships.

I wanted to like this one more, but it just felt weirdly linear and also kinda directionless. ok yeah that sounds stupid, but I really like when there's just puzzles strewn about the map for you to solve as you like. In Phantom of Venice I felt like I was being shuffled along from plot point to plot point and sometimes just wandering about aimlessly waiting for someone to tell me what to do. I've definitely had the occasional trouble with knowing what to do next in these games, but it felt especially bad in this entry.

Puzzles: The puzzles were a bit sparse unfortunately, as those are always my favorite aspect of the Nancy Drew games. But the ones that are present were suitably fun and not obnoxious (besides the water level puzzle). I usually hate big long card games, especially if you need to play them more than once to progress, but shit man scopa is actually fun. I bought a deck of scopa cards because of this game. The part where you need to memorize basic Italian vocab was a neat edutainment puzzle, but why did they need to speak italian weren't the cops already talking to nancy in english, why make it harder for the american teenage detective guys
I also really enjoyed the mosaic puzzle for some reason. I feel like I shouldn't have because it's just slowly copying a pattern, like a tedious pixel paint-by-numbers, but idk it was nice.
OH i almost forgot the diamond stealing puzzle! yeah that one wasn't a hard puzzle, just an annoying one. Not a fan of slowly navigating a maze while a bunch of laser roombas lazily patrol an ugly warehouse. And then having to do the same puzzle 4 times to shut off the power. Not even a good puzzle, one of the ones were you just gotta guess until you narrow it down to the correct combination.

Setting: I love the more interesting and "exotic" locations, so I felt like Italy was a great pick for this game. The actual in-game locations felt a bit empty, though thematically fitting and pleasant to explore. I wish there was more variety than just a couple of empty plazas and the house though.
I'm surprised there wasn't a puzzle where you have to navigate the canals tbh, just seems like it'd be right up the Nancy Drew Game alley.
Navigating between locations was a nice spin on the map concept, like a more interactive version of Danger by Design's metro map. It got a bit tedious at points, but I never hated it or felt that it took too long.

Characters: The suspects were alright, again no big standouts in the cast and they could probably have benefited from being more fleshed out. There wasn't a real need to interact with them for the most part, I would've liked to see more of the lady who owned the house tbh. Journalist lady was forgettable and mosaic guy sucked. wish i saw less of him tbh

Story: Working for the Italian police (or maybe the Italian FBI? i couldn't tell how important they were) as a spy to catch the titular art thief the "Phantom of Venice". I love it, what an absurd story hook. The execution is where it falters for me. It felt like a lot of waiting for my next objective and it was much too linear for my taste.
but doing spy stuff was fun and even though I would have rather joined the international group of art thieves i guess the story was pretty enjoyable all things considered

Final Thoughts: It's a good Nancy Drew game, it just doesn't have what I really enjoy in a Nancy Drew game. It focuses more on plot than puzzles, but it doesn't have any of the fun, goofy characters I like in plot-heavy entries. It has an excellent setting, but I feel like the locations in-game don't reflect that well. But what it does have is a mini game where you perform cheesy dance moves for an audience in a skintight cat suit to some bizarre music for extra cash. the games gotta get SOME credit for that because holy shit

I’ve heard a lot of mixed reviews about this one, so I went in with lower expectations than usual. And I can certainly see where the frustrations come from. There’s a handful of annoying, finicky puzzles and I definitely relied on a walkthrough for some (more accurately, universal hints which is an absolute godsend of a website for my Nancy Drew playthroughs). There were a couple that required repeated and frequent backtracking to complete which is just…not fun ever. I mean, I liked flipping through the big book of dead people to find the relevant punny name, but having to do this like, seven times while trekking to and from the graveyard each time just sucked the joy out of it. The iguana dress up puzzle is delightful because obviously I’m gonna have a good time putting silly costumes on an iguana. But doing the wasp game every single time you need a fruit for it is bad.

Loved having to collect a whole bunch of glass eyes though. I just like games where you need to collect things, but it also gave me a pretty clearly defined objective (which I’ve definitely struggled with before in these games) and it was a fun setup for a bunch of puzzles.

The characters weren’t heavily featured, but they were fine enough when they were onscreen. No real standouts, but at least I don’t hate them. Though the old doctor guy was kind of a creep and I felt real bad about fucking with the shop owner guy so much.

There was a noticeable upgrade in the presentation, the graphics, character models and animation. While I do like the improvements, part of me misses the old outdated style. It had a lot of charm and that’s probably just nostalgia talking because I played those games as a child but I like to think that I genuinely enjoyed the very early 2000s 3D graphics and the goofy looking character models and stiff animation. but yeah the new look is nice and captured the tone of the game very well.

Overall I liked the puzzle heavy focus (for the most part) and don’t have any huge complaints about the story or characters. Not the most interesting plot or most intriguing mystery, but it was a perfectly suitable backdrop for a bunch of pretty good puzzles. Wish I saw more of the iguana. Or any of the other wacky exotic animals that were implied to live there

This was one of the six Nancy Drew games I owned has a kid. I remember liking it the least out of the others I had and relied a lot on guides to get me through to the end. So I was pleasantly surprised to like it so much during my current playthrough. Like, yeah a lot of the puzzles do feel like activities you’re required to do on a 5th grade field trip to your local museum but apparently that’s like peak game design to me idk. Note taking is honestly one of my favorite parts of these games and oh boy does Scarlet Hand excel in that area. I was kinda disappointed that The Final Scene resulted in only half a page of notes, but I’m happy to report that I ended Scarlet Hand with two full pages of notes. Story was enjoyable, I particularly liked the whole repatriating artifacts storyline and the amnesia side plot was…unexpected but interesting. Ending felt weird even for a Nancy Drew game tbh but overall I enjoyed this more than I expected to!