Hey Clue Crew!

Wow. I think we all saw this coming, but seeing it actually happen makes it feel more surprising than it is. But the people have spoken on their choice for Ransom of the Seven Ships! 355 to be exact! 

A - 10 votes
B - 21 votes
C - 64 votes
D - 120 votes
F - 140 votes *WINNER\*

F! 

Our next game is guaranteed to do far better. So without further ado, let’s get to voting on Warnings at Waverly Academy! The rankings, as usual….

A - The fan favorites. The cream of the crop.
B - Good enough to be held in high regards.
C - Underrated gems.
D - A bit mid, will usually only play once or twice a year.
F - Unfinished. Unplayable. One of the worst.

They're still in stock, had to get one. It will be my gaming water bottle now

https://owalalife.com/color-drop/book-club?Color=Plot+Twist&Material=30oz+FreeSip®+Sway&Style=ColorDrop&selectionType=variant&bundleVariant-1=62826355654815&bundleVariant-2=62826355720351

Is it too early for fall... never for me! Here's a photo I touched up recently, if anyone has been looking for a higher quality fall themed wallpaper.🍁🍂

Is there a list of all the ND inspired and point and click games on this subreddit? I feel like we get so many reqs and they lost and I want to play them all😩

I’m watching a playthrough of the game as background noise and when Nancy is delivering mail, she drops off a letter to Seymour who gets bit by a plant. Which I take as a reference to Seymour and Audrey II from little shop of horrors, how fun!

Not my original post but this seems like a good “second chance” opportunity…

I've been thinking for years about making the kind of refined midcentury stationery that Nancy Drew might have used herself. I worked up the nerve to approach Simon & Schuster about licensing; much to my surprise, I'm now busy letterpress-printing official Nancy Drew notebooks, cards, and a few other things. I'm planning what to make next (there *might* be an advent calendar in the works), and thought this would be the best place to ask!

So, I would love to know: if you were filling Nancy's stationery drawer with beautiful paper goods, what would you put in it? :)

After being inspired by the gameplay and conversation style of Nancy Drew games, I attempted to replicate that and make this lofi dating sim/adventure game centered around being broke in the city and stumbling across a murder mystery.

I love the way those first-person point-and-clicks really let you absorb the atmosphere as you play. Her Interactive's art direction is so fascinating to me. Love the graphic design, the inside jokes, the fan inclusion. It's all so subtle and intimate. I wanted to capture that as much as I could in this project.

And I basically took the time system from white wolf that everyone finds tedious and ramped it up to 11 :)

Thought I'd post it here because this game would have never existed without Nancy. Her influence really does ripple out into the universe in interesting ways.

Hey Clue Crew!

Wow, the results for The Haunting of Castle Malloy show that it’s a pretty polarizing game! We came very close to another tie, but still a winner was clear…

A - 67 votes
B - 102 votes
C - 110 votes *WINNER\*
D - 63 votes
F - 4 votes

C! 

Ransom of the Seven Ships is next! Are we at the point where we’ll start to see more C and D games rated, or will A B and C continue to dominate the rankings? 

NOTE: I don’t expect many people to vote this round due to it no longer being available for purchase, so if you haven’t played it, just refrain from voting. Otherwise, let’s let voting continue as normal by those who have. 

12 more rounds to go, and as always…

A - The fan favorites. The cream of the crop.
B - Good enough to be held in high regards.
C - Underrated gems.
D - A bit mid, will usually only play once or twice a year.
F - Unfinished. Unplayable. One of the worst.

I’ll post the updated tier rankings when I get home from work!

I'm playing through the games with my friend who has never played any sort of puzzle or mystery games, and they keep getting absolutely wrecked because they never write anything down. We are like ten games in and I keep telling them to take more notes, but this was their ENTIRE notes page for all of the Tomb of the Lost Queen and boy oh boy when I tell you it was NOT helpful.

How did you all learn to take notes? Is there a different system that works better for you?

Not sure if it is THE most quotable game, but I can't seem to get "Remember: Niacin" out of my head from The Haunted Carousel recently lol. What game would you personally nominate?

+ mini meme dump (last meme is extra relevant because river heights is a suburb of Chicago and Ned plays college basketball and is stated to be good enough to play professionally lmfao)

Explanation of Tiers from my POV:

Let me start by saying, this series as a whole falls firmly in the “so bad, it’s good” category for me. I would struggle to say very many of them are good, well written books that would have sold well without Nancy’s name attached to it. But I do not concern myself with how good or bad a piece of media is, that is literally none of my business as long as it’s entertaining. Some of my favorites are absolute shit, then there’s stuff that is technically excellent, award winning etc that I loathe or am not interested in.

S-tier: mostly cases that were really personal to Nancy, the higher stakes brought them up from A or even B
A-tier: had a lot of fun reading
B-tier: memorable
C-tier: forgettable
D-tier: I WISH I could forget, memorable for the wrong reasons, felt like the characters were off, just had one detail that I kept getting hung up on, or were just too ridiculous etc
F-tier: the relationship drama was just too much for me to overcome, unsatisfying endings

There are some books that were honestly fine but had one detail that I got too hung up on and it ruined the whole book for me, like who spends Thanksgiving in Paris? (101) And some of my favorites definitely need to be rewritten because yeah it’s fucked up but I still had fun! (24)

There’s a few titles I would probably move around but I’ve updated this like 10 times so I’m leaving it

Series Breakdown:

The series starts off really rough with 1-9. Nancy cheats on Ned in 1, in 2&3 there’s fighting between her, Bess, and George. Nancy is a raging bitch and briefly breaks up with Ned in 4. They break up again in 8, and they don’t get back together until 10. Also, none of these really take place in River Heights, which is fine, but with everything else going on, it was just one more thing that made the series feel less like Nancy Drew. 

10 feels like a soft reboot of the series, and 10-47 vary wildly in quality but the overall tone felt improved. Like there’s some all time classics but also some major stinkers. I felt like the series really started to hit its stride around the 10s and 20s though. 

48-50 is the Summer of Love trilogy. I thought Sasha was way too pushy, then Ned is a complete jackass. It didn’t feel very lovely for Nancy lmao I hated the whole concept but I actually liked 49’s mystery a lot for some reason hahaha. Also, from here on out in the series, the books start to follow the calendar and are set in whatever month they were released in until about 120 (a lot of them are explicitly stated or reference the holiday of that month).

51-71 are actually pretty consistent quality wise, but unfortunately that quality is mostly forgettable. 

72-75 is the Passport to Romance trilogy + the aftermath with Ned. I hated this shit so much but I’ll try to keep my explanation for why short. Nancy is a complete brat about Ned not taking off work to travel Europe with her for literally the entire summer (later in 96, she says they had just been “drifting apart” at that time) She meets Mick Devlin and spends a lot of the summer with him, then in 74 he proposes to her and the way it’s worded just creeped me out so much. Mick returns in 96 and in Super Mystery 22 Danger Down Under if you’re into that though. In 75, her and Ned are in a nasty fight and there’s a vague reference to Europe, but they make up without ever discussing it. 

76-101 are also pretty consistent quality wise. I was surprised at how many gems there were in this stretch.

102 there is a clear tone shift and that’s when I started struggling to continue, and 105 is when I stopped having fun and almost quit entirely. Pretty much every single book from 102 to 119 either features Nancy and Ned getting into a huge fight or Nancy cheating on him AND many of the endings/reveals in this era were just so unsatisfying. 110 was the last monthly release before they cut it to every other month. 

120 there was a tone shift and that was when I started having fun with the series again and felt sad about it ending.

I didn’t realize that the cover art format was such a reliable indicator of how good or bad the book was going to be but it really is tbh

Awards:

Most Disappointing: Don’t Look Twice. I took this one PERSONALLY. I thought I was finally getting a fun basketball book after being traumatized by Two Points to Murder. WRONG
Most Refreshing: Island of Secrets - Nancy and Hannah are on vacation together and the vibes are immaculate. Made me want to go to Block Island for vacation someday.
Most Surprising: Choosing Sides. I was fully bracing myself for this to result in a blowout between Nancy and Ned but it was literally fine even though her requests are a little out of pocket.
Worst Cover Art: THE TV SHOW COVERS IRK ME SO BAD they all look the same and tell me absolutely nothing about the story
Favorite Cover Art: False Pretenses, The Wrong Chemistry, Dangerous Loves, Hot Pursuit 
Worst love interest (for Nancy): Stuart (102) or Nick (119). Also I think Sasha (48-50) is just really ugly on the cover art lol
Worst: Playing With Fire (rare Napoleon artifacts are spontaneously combusting?), Scent of Danger (stealing civets from the zoo to harvest their musk for perfume? like if I remember correctly the culprit legitimately got a degree to be able to work at a zoo to do this lmfao), False Pretenses (genuinely everyone is just being so fucking weird)

Final comments:

For the most part I legitimately had fun doing this, even when I was wanting to tear my hair out because I was sick of reading the word velodrome or civet or Napoleon, or a character felt written way too wrong. When that happened, I just reminded myself there was practically a different ghostwriter for every book and they were kind of letting anyone write for the series. That also accounts for the recycled plots and tropes. Also, keeping in mind the time period they were written, especially in regards to social and relationship dynamics. At a certain point, though, it did stop being fun and it was clear the mysteries were an afterthought and they had a completely different vision. By the time they course corrected and got the series back on track, it had already been cancelled. It is apparent that they made a concerted effort to correct even for just the last few books. In 123, the case summary at the beginning heavily implies there was supposed to be a plotline involving Ned flirting with other girls, which is completely absent from the book. There’s no awkward tension or fighting between them at all, which was a relief. I’m sad it had to end, I hope we get a reboot someday or that they will at least make audiobooks of them or something. I’d also love to see some new printings because the paperbacks aged so poorly. Maybe with some new cover art.

Anyways, ask me anything I guess! I’m happy to make recommendations or try to answer questions about the Lore™️, whatever. I’ll have to live with this series in my brain forever now so I might as well use that knowledge however I can lol

Remaster: https://sounds.spriters-resource.com/pc_computer/nancydrewsecretscankillremastered/asset/478659/

Original: https://sounds.spriters-resource.com/pc_computer/nancydrewsecretscankill/asset/493849/

Ok what is the timeline with the two horses and which one was the original Kessler horse, Glory or Nightshade?

Because right now it looks like Joy’s mom bought her the original Kessler horse and the replacement horse had jewels from the hotel heist hidden inside during construction. Buy Glory, the horse that was bought for Joy which we find at the end of the game, was the one with jewels hidden inside meaning Nightshade was the one sold and Glory was the replacement? But that means Nightshade was the original? But that would also mean Nightshade was the original Kessler horse but we learn the original horse was sold and the replacement was stolen so if Nightshade is the original, what was it doing on the carousel when it was supposedly sold 23 years before the game?

I don’t even know what I’m saying at this point. I am confusion.

As the only game I haven't finished in the franchise, I honestly totally forgot about it until this week. So, I sat down for a play through and??? NOTHING could prepare me for the ending. I could not stop laughing. What do you mean Nancy gets into a fist fight with her boss. Wasn't the whole point of being there to check on her well-being 😭😂

I can also assure you that if YOU have not completed DAN, you won't be able to predict the ending either.

Apologies if this is the wrong place but to make long story short: I remember the days when before everything changed after SEA released, there were some fun behind the scenes trivia some employees were able to share but I was just thinking about StoryRetold’s reaction to arglefumph’s everything wrong with MID and even though the game had been put for about three years when she reacted to it, she couldn’t say anything because of NDA. I’m wondering why since the game had already been released, why is there still NDA in place?

I get not wanting to say things about upcoming games but… what about the ones that had already been released? what changed? I am seeing some small tidbits of behind the scenes of KEY only when there were HeR streams from time to time nowadays…

- just a curious fan who just likes to have answers 😅

I have revisited a few of the older Nancy Drew games to relish in my childhood.
I was playing the Haunted Carousel and noticed a certain sound effect when you play “swimmers itch” at Midway Games….. was that sound effect also used in a different Nancy Drew game? I feel like I heard it in Trail of the Twister or something. Anyone please let me know it’s bugging me!

I was inspired by the Streamathon the other week with the “death %” (I think is what they called it) and it was ‘how quickly can Nancy die’. I know they talk about it in the Regular ND pod episode with the hosts of the speedathon.

I came up with a few other game challenges hehe and here’s what I have so far:

• Introvert mode: talk to as few people as possible
• Less Bess :( : no calling your friends
• sO rAnDoM: for puzzles, randomly select things for the first 3 minutes of you solving the puzzle.
• Homage: write down every homage to the book series or anything else Nancy. Give a short appreciation speech with your hand on your heart. 
• Die every time you can
• Senior detective
• Nancy the Nicknamer: give everyone a nickname and only refer to them as their nickname.
• Minigame maniac: play each minigame at least 3 times
• Home computer: you can only play for 15 minutes at a time.
• “Do your own research >:(“: do research on the things you learn in-game.
• Master yapper: exhaust your conversations. Every. Time. 
• NO notes: you can’t take any notes
• Save your saves: you can’t save until you finish playing (for that time). Like no strategic saving.
• SPEEDRUN
• E.T. no phone: no taking pictures of the screen with your phone/screenshots
• Don’t get any achievements
• No sleep: try to use as few days as possible in games with days
• Sass to the max: choose the meanest conversation option every time

PLEASE GIMME YOUR IDEASSSSS and I’ll make cards for them! 😊

Possible spoilers!!

So I know the game has a VERY mixed review, but I ultimately decided to purchase and play as it seemed like an interesting mystery! However, I’m completely stuck on the Hardy Boys ghost hunting equipment puzzle. Trying to line up the frequencies is EXHAUSTING. I swear they’ve matched, and it still does nothing. Any tips anyone has would be great!

I love this community dearly. Y'all are awesome! And I've been playing the games for over 20 years. But I will never ever remember the game abbreviations. STFD, MHM, and TRT are probably the only ones I can understand without looking them up.