Adventure Gamers - Forums

I am part of a book club, and for our next read we have decided everyone will read a different Nancy Drew novel. However, I was thinking that I would try one of the Nancy Drew games instead.

I’ve never read a Nancy Drew before, nor have I played any of the games. Looking through the AG archives, it looks like most of them (that have been reviewed) have good to great ratings. I see GOG has Curse of Blackmoor Manor, but I would be willing to track down old CD/DVDs of the games as well.

Any recommendations on which one to play? Are there any based directly off of the books that are worth playing, or are most of the games original stories?

I never read any of the books, but here you can find ut on which books some of the games are based: http://www.nancydrewsleuth.com/nancydrewcomputergames.html

With respect to the games:

- Two of them are hidden object games (they are fun to play, but really different from the rest). They are called Nancy Drew Dossier (Lights, Cameras Curses and Resorting to Danger). I would not chose one of those as a first game.

- The newest game is very polished, but has fewer puzzles then previous games. That’s Midnight in Salem. It is a very nice game, but when you would like a game that is more ‘typical’ you should choose a different one. On the other hand, it might be a good choice to see Nancy in a modern look :-)

- For the remainder of the games, there are several aspects to choose from.
You could, for instance, start with newer games because the interface is more intuitive (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nancy_Drew_video_games).
Or you could choose on location. Japan (Shadow on water’s edge), Egypt (Tomb of the lost queen) or Hawai (the Creature of Kapu Cave) for instance.
Or you could choose based on the starts that are given here, alhtough I not always agree on them.

You can find short descriptions, and the order of release, here: https://www.technewstoday.com/nancy-drew-games-in-order/

This is awesome, thank you!

Nancy Drew games are a hard pass for me.

There was a game that received 5 full stars(!!!) here on adventuregamer and went out of my way to buy it. Ultimately turned out to be a generic adventure game experience with lackluster story. I felt had and still traumatized by that experience.

Do I remember vaguely that being Message in a Haunted Mansion Origami?

The game was originally promoted “For Adventurous Girls 10 an up” so perhaps the review was a little misleading? 

I don’t know if I’d pick ND game INSTEAD of the novel - I grew up on those and occasionally still re-read them, but ND games is somewhat of a niche with a cult following.
There are all very similar to each other in their majority, so every time you get a different location and set-up but the rest of the components stay relatively same. Some are better then others, of course. In general, people who like ND games enjoy majority of them (doesn’t mean they won’t criticize something in them or guaranteed to absolutely love it), but they know what they are getting, so they’ll probably have all of them in the library already. And it’s a high chance people who didn’t like one or two of the games in the series won’t like the rest.

For me, ND games is a comfort thing. Brings me to a good place when I was little and reading those books, gives me Danger!Mayhem!Mystery! but in its purest sense - bad people are bad, good people are good, all the traits are exaggerated - essentially, like a children’s book. And I really like the voice of Lani Minella, who speaks for Nancy Drew. I played a few odd ones throughout the years, but never stuck with it, just remember overall liking them. About a year ago I decided to give them all a try from the very start, and I’m really enjoying experience. I’m only on game 5, I believe. I go through them slowly in-between many others.

“Curse of the Blackmoor Manor”  is considered one of the best ND games, mostly because it has really great atmosphere and manages to be really creepy, downright chilling in some places. Puzzles are quite difficult too, as far as remember. (That was one of the odd ones I have played before). But if you going to attempt it, just remember it is an OLD game. Really, your choice may largely depend on how OK are you with playing a game with an old interface, clunky movements and so on. If you don’t mind that kinda thing, Blackmoor Manor wouldn’t be a bad first ND game. Hell, it’s #99 in AG “Top 100 All-Time Adventures”. Sounds funny, but it’s tough to crack that 100. The description of the game there is perfect. https://adventuregamers.com/articles/view/18643

Also, I’ sure you’re aware of all ND games being available on Steam and probably just don’t like Steam or something, but they are there.
And on HerInteractive web-site, the publisher of ND games. Here’s a link:  https://www.herinteractive.com/
Although, arguably, buying a single game from there is the most expensive way to acquire it - it maybe easier then tracking down old CDs.

I found a ranking of the games, with description and reasoning of the place in the ranking here: https://talesofbelle.com/2020/08/23/ranking-every-nancy-drew-pc-game/.

The ranking is quite like I would rank them :-)

For me, the best game would probably be Last train to Blue Moon Canyon, because of the puzzles. They are really hard (as in most Nancy Drew games!), and really inventive.

chrissie - 25 May 2022 02:31 PM

Do I remember vaguely that being Message in a Haunted Mansion Origami?

The game was originally promoted “For Adventurous Girls 10 an up” so perhaps the review was a little misleading? 

Yes I think it was. I think the review was a bit misleading, because the reviewer didn’t hold back with the superlatives describing every aspect of the game. It unnecessarily raises the expectation of potential users and ultimately be left disappointed. I see a game like that receive 5 stars and then see which games receive less than that and the whole world stops making sense.

Did you write it?

Well, I am done ranting btw. Jackal already reprimanded me 7 years ago.

Edit: Having said all this, I just purchased Shadow at Water’s Edge on Steam LOL.

Man, the deeper I go in this search the harder it is to choose a game.

I found The Hidden Staircase for DS cheap (unsurprisingly), and thought that would be a good one to compare with the book. However, after finding out there are several different ND series, I think I’ll try to stick with the mainline Her Interactive ones. White Wolf of Icicle Creek would be nice as it’s on Wii and would be easy to show my book club on the big screen, but as pointed out, the settings are so varied, honestly I just want to play them all now haha.

Also, had no idea Lani Minella did ND’s voice. I love her!