Hello everyone!
I am back once again with a Nancy Drew related post. This one, however, was inspired by my younger sister Kaylee. She and I are absolutely obsessed with HER Interactives Nancy Drew games, with the exception of one. She and I have been playing together since I started getting the games in 2006 or 2007. This post is completely self-indulgent, but I want to share my favorite series of games with you.
Let’s get into it!
Over the course of over 20 years, HER Interactive has been producing Nancy Drew computer games including an app that teaches girls how to code and dossier search and find games. Their main line is the Nancy Drew Mysteries which has 33 different adventures. My sister and I have owned/played 32 out of the 33 games. Midnight in Salem is the only game we have not played and it's for a couple reasons, which I will get into later.
Here is the complete list of games in order of release:
Secrets Can Kill
Stay Tuned for Danger
Message in a Haunted Mansion
Treasure in the Royal Tower
The Final Scene
Secret of the Scarlet Hand
Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake
The Haunted Carousel
Danger on Deception Island
The Secret of Shadow Ranch
Curse of Blackmoor Manor
Secret of the Old Clock
Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon
Danger by Design
The Creature of Kapu Cave
The White Wolf of Icicle Creek
Legend of the Crystal Skull
The Phantom of Venice
The Haunting of Castle Malloy
Ransom of the Seven Ships
Warnings at Waverly Academy
Trail of the Twister
Shadow at the Water’s Edge
The Captive Curse
Alibi in Ashes
Tomb of the Lost Queen
The Deadly Device
Ghost of Thornton Hall
The Silent Spy
The Shattered Medallion
Labyrinth of Lies
Sea of Darkness
Midnight in Salem
Surprisingly, only two games were inspired by the Nancy Drew books (The Secret of Shadow Ranch and Secret of the Old Clock). Three of the games include mysteries where the Hardy Boys assist you (Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon, The Creature of Kapu Cave and Midnight in Salem). Overall, the games all have unique mysteries and take place all over the world. Initially, Nancy was traveling the US but eventually the mysteries traveled internationally.
However, out of all of the games, we haven’t been able to play Midnight in Salem despite owning it. For some background, HER Interactive used to release two games a year: one in the spring and one in the fall. Which meant, once you completed a mystery there was a teaser for the next mystery so you would be ready. At the end of Sea of Darkness, their best animated game in my opinion, there was a trailer for Midnight in Salem which was supposed to be released in the fall of 2015. That didn’t happen. The date was suddenly pushed back as HER Interactive decided to use a new operating system so they scrapped the completed game to update it to this system. And then there were no updates until May of 2019 when they opened preorders for the game which was then released in December 2019. After all that time, the game had major processing issues. The audio and video don’t line up, if you use high resolution for the graphics the game simply does not run. It was a huge disappointment.
I really love games 1-32 and constantly replay them with Kaylee. They never get old. If they never release another game, I would definitely be disappointed but the catalogue of games they have are so well done that it's okay. These games will always hold a special place in my heart and I’m happy to share them with you. If anyone is interested, I can rank the games from my favorite to least favorite or give an in depth review of the games.
Until the next post!
Links:
HER Interactive: https://www.herinteractive.com
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