Nancy Drew®: Message in a Haunted Mansion
I remember why I don’t like these early games. Between the weird characters, old graphics, and dull plot it does little to excite. Worst of all, I found myself having to call for help every other second because the gameplay is so arbitrary. It is mostly a guessing game, and I still have no idea if I did everything I was supposed to. I know I missed the seance, which caused me to worry that I was going to have to restart the whole game, but I managed to finish it. My interactions with Abby were just non-existent. Also, the dumbest second chance in the series has to be Louis realizing you snooped through his stuff simply by you saying you saw a phrase in a book. It could be any book Mr. Guilty. Overall, I wish I had just saved the $3 and ignored this game.
– Real player with 16.4 hrs in game
Read More: Best Mouse only Retro Games.
The second Nancy Drew game I’m (re)playing and the third in the series, although I don’t think I ever played this one before.
It takes place in San Francisco, but you spend the whole time in a Victorian mansion that a friend of a the Drew family’s housekeeper is trying to renovate to turn into a B&B. Something I like about the Nancy Drew games is how they try to incorporate the history and culture of a place. This one features a bit of Wild West/Gold Rush history (with made-up characters for the game) along with the influence of Chinese immigrants. In fact, get a notebook out if you play this, because a game-long puzzle has you collecting Chinese characters (which the game told me are called hanzi) that you will need to be able to distinguish. My Chinese handwriting is way better than my handwriting with the latin alphabet, but I also spent like 10x the time and effort.
– Real player with 9.9 hrs in game
Nancy Drew®: The Creature of Kapu Cave
This is the only nancy drew game i have played so far. Some puzzles in the game made no sense and others you had to die a million times to figure out. The Plot seems to lack a few things but it was okay..they couldve added more. sadly the villian characters stood out like a soar thumb. if it had built more into the story line and characters it wouldve been better. Making Characters more mysterious and harder to read, adding puzzles that acually had hints, better ways to buy/ find items (took forever to find certain things). what i hated the most was listeing to the characters lines, there is no skip option for that so everything i already read had to be spoken again and agian. The only reason i like this game is because its point and click. other than thats its a super easy game with stupid problem solving puzzles that are easy as fuck or just impossibe without a walkthrough. 2 outta 5. if you like point and click puzzle games try it out. it may have flaws but surprisingly out of all the stress it put me ethrough i still enjoyed playing.
– Real player with 10.5 hrs in game
Read More: Best Mouse only Great Soundtrack Games.
I really wish I hadn’t bought this. I absolutely love the Nancy Drew games, and I grew up on Maui, so I thought “Hey, I love Her Interactive, they haven’t let me down before, and I miss Maui and my family, it’d be nice to have a little reminder of home. This’ll be perfect for me, right?!”. But, no. I was wrong. So wrong.
I had actually bought a physical copy of this game when it first came out. However, I was still in Maui at that time, and I had a bunch of other ND titles I still hadn’t played yet, so it got put off. And eventually I moved, one of the discs got lost somewhere along the way, and I couldn’t play it. Recently, I got some birthday money, I found that the ND games were starting to be put on STEAM, and I thought “Oh, perfect! I’ll FINALLY be able to play it!!” But the hype was short-lived. The searching for shells, the fishing, making necklaces, etc. were nice and calming, but they got boring and tedious very fast. ND characters are usually all so vibrant, varied, and interesting, so at first I thought these ones would be the same, especially with the interesting concept introduced at the very beginning of doing stuff, getting novelty money, doing more stuff, and repeat. I mean, it wasn’t the most fun, but it was an interesting concept at least.
– Real player with 8.0 hrs in game
Nancy Drew®: The Haunting of Castle Malloy
7/10. I’ve been a Nancy Drew fan for a long time, and I enjoyed this one, with a few caveats. Many of the puzzles have very opaque directions that make it difficult to figure out how you are even supposed to approach solving them. The hint system of the “fortune teller” robot is not particularly helpful - you can only get one hint about puzzles/tasks, and many of them do not make sense either. It’s not even that the puzzles themselves are super hard, it’s just that it’s not clear how to solve them (the rocks, the pillars, the final puzzle sequence involving moving particular items in order). The fact that the game is all at night also made it more difficult to see things I was supposed to be noticing. If you can use a site like Universal Hint System that helps. But even with outside instructions, the final set of puzzles felt very tedious and frustrating. It made finishing less enjoyable and more “oh thank god I don’t have to do any more of these.”
– Real player with 14.1 hrs in game
Read More: Best Mouse only Great Soundtrack Games.
Pros:
-Beautiful soundtrack, scenery, and smooth gameplay.
-Interesting storyline, for the most part.
-The puzzles aren’t too challenging.
-A lot of places to go, though not necessarily to explore.
Cons:
-VERY dark gameplay throughout (minus the pub); it was very difficult to see what was going on when playing on my glassy-screen laptop during the day.
-Only 3 interactive characters.
-Not much direction from characters.
I think this is a pretty good ND game. After replaying it, though, I didn’t seem to enjoy it as much as I did the first time. Though it’s common in ND games, I found the dual storyline slightly confusing and strange. It did, however, make for a satisfying and complete ending. It’s pretty easy to understand what needs to be done, though there is barely any direction given from characters, except for some tasks that need to be completed. Additionally, it was slightly disappointing that the castle had very minimal opportunity for exploring (only three rooms with little-to-no mystery involved, and most of the castle was closed off). The storyline was shocking, frightening, and exciting in moderation, creating a nicely balanced pace. I think this game is a good experience, and it made me feel accomplished upon solving the case. I think the price is fair, but would recommend waiting for a sale.
– Real player with 12.8 hrs in game
Nancy Drew®: Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake
2nd or 3rd time playing this one. It’s one of my favorites for the storyline. As Nancy Drew, you stay in a cabin on a lake in Pennsylvania that was once owned by a Prohibition-era gangster. Local legend has it that his four dogs still haunt the property. A state park operates in the vicinity, and you can go to its visitor center. While there is a real Moon Lake State Forest, it doesn’t seem to be related to the game as the game places itself in a fictional county.
Playing it again in my current playthrough of all the games in order, I liked it a little less. I think that’s because it was so memorable, the pleasant surprises weren’t so surprising (though I still didn’t remember who the culprit was–as usual, everyone is damn suspicious). I have to admit, though, that the puzzles weren’t as satisfying. The best was probably the one where who have to put files in order by year, except those years are written in Roman numerals. Most other major puzzles revolved around finding nature-related items in a forest maze. Finding the birds to photograph would have been fine, but it became overused the moment we had to trudge around there looking under specific rocks to find several bugs. On the other hand, the well/water pump puzzle was too simple and I feel like an interesting educational opportunity may have been missed there.
– Real player with 12.3 hrs in game
I do not recomment this game for anyone who enjoys puzzles, solving mysteries, or a good challenge. The game goes out of its way to leave the hints as vague as possible and just give you the solutions through the in-game task list. The entire things felt like playing along to a walkthrough. I play on Senior Detective and usually the tasklist is there to remind you of information you’ve picked up, but in this game it just outright tells you what information you need for which puzzle and what to do to solve it. And if that isn’t enough Nancy will outright tell you! There were so many interesting puzzles here that were spoiled before I’d even gathered all the hints I would have needed to solve them the legitimate way. The only thing the game seemed to let me do was fiddle with wheel puzzles once it had given me the solution I needed to get to. Gee, thanks.
– Real player with 12.0 hrs in game
Nancy Drew®: Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon
Updated Review:
I’m not sure if I can recommend getting this game again with newer Operating Systems(for example, WIN 10). Although the game is playable, it also lags very badly in areas of heavy animation scenes. The lag doesn’t really make any sense seeing as there is no CD drive it’s reading from. It should run smoothly– especially when nothing else is running in the background. There are also moments when you try to go in and out of the game window and it crashes the game with error messages. This game also cannot understand how to transfer sounds through an HDMI cable should you try to connect your computer to a TV. Although the game is playable, and I’ve loved this game since I was a child, it’s hard for me to recommend it until HER decides to clean it up and fix the lingering issues with it.
– Real player with 19.3 hrs in game
I enjoyed this one. The setting and surroundings are absolutely beautiful, the puzzles all felt refreshing and in keeping with the theme, and the characters that you get to interact with are all fun and interesting.
I would be tempted to list this as one of my favourites in the series, but a couple of gripes hold me back. The first is the music which felt pretty half-hearted by ND standards, and the second is the cast. The characters were so great that I was disappointed that the writers didn’t do more with them. The other characters, even the Hardy Boys, barely feel related to the sory or the game as it progresses. Nancy could have solved the entire thing without talking to anyone except for Bess and George on the phone. The only mystery that involves the rest of the cast never even gets solved! The ‘bad guy’ at the end of the game was a big disappointment as well, which is a shame since it left a bitter taste at the end of an otherwise enjoyable game.
– Real player with 14.5 hrs in game
Nancy Drew®: Ransom of the Seven Ships
The game itself is cool, with a great story, extremely pretty locations, and you can even go scuba diving! Awesome! :D
Even though I’ve recommended this game, though, there are still a lot of disappointments in this one. The worst being the puzzles. As far as the puzzles go, it’s a 1/10 for me. The majority of the puzzles in this game are AWFUL. Like decoding a journal, the solution to it just makes no sense whatsoever. And there’s too many numbers and math puzzles in this game. There were so many, it almost makes the game too boring and frustrating to play. If the actual game had been as bad as the puzzles, I definitely would not have recommended this. But the story was absolutely brilliant, 10/10, and, for me, is what won me over. There was gorgeous scenery, exciting scuba diving, you can dig for treasure and use a metal detector to find stuff, and you can even play as Georgia Fayne at one point! I love it when you get to switch and play as different characters, and this game comes with actual steam achievements! :) You actually even get to see a little bit of what Nancy looks like, too! You don’t see her face, or anything, but you do see her hair, when you’re digging in the sand, or rock climbing, it’s the same thing for Georgia. I wish Her Interactive would actually let us see what Nancy looks like. Would be nice to see the face of the person we are playing as :D
– Real player with 32.1 hrs in game
tl;dr: Like with Sudoku, if you’ve played any Nancy Drew game, you’ve played all of them. Recommend if that’s your bag, pass if it isn’t.
The draw of Nancy Drew is, even though the series isn’t wildly imaginative or groundbreaking in terms of point-and-click adventure games, there’s a comfortable consistency to each installment. The art style has been identical across all 35-or-whatever-they’re-up-to-now games, such that it feels like they were all made in the early 2000s and are just slowly getting released for marketing reasons. Only one or two episodes I’ve played so far have deviated drastically from the core gameplay, one being a Nintendo DS release (aimed toward very young players and not nearly on the same level as the main series).
– Real player with 15.3 hrs in game
Nancy Drew®: The Captive Curse
This was my first ever Nancy Drew game and now I’m hooked! I thought this game was going to be really corny and the characters looked silly, but i was intrugued by the German castle setting and i love point and click puzzle games which are so hard to find! I wasn’t expecting much from the game and i was very pleased. Some of the puzzles i ended up looking up clues for online, but found if i would of just tried a little more i would of gotten them. But overall i found them challenging and fun. I liked many aspects of the game, which i think really sold it to me.
– Real player with 23.9 hrs in game
♥ Spooky spooky.
The first time I played Captive Curse, I was absolutely terrified.
Though the game firmly keeps with being family friendly, it does an excellent job of conveying the castle and its array of characters fear. From the dark atomsphere to the animal skull in the dungeon to the monster lurking outside the castle walls, replaying it gave me the shivers!
If you’d like to play a spookier Nancy Drew game, this one makes for a great choice.
♥ Love the mini games.
Usually I tend to skip the mini games unless they’re directly related to clearing a task or two. Playing Raid? Killing cows in search of the hidden monster? Loved them! The two mini games added a great amount of replay value to the game. Admittedly I wouldn’t mind if they made more of the mini games as fun as those two!
– Real player with 20.1 hrs in game
Nancy Drew®: The Phantom of Venice
Probably one of my favorite Nancy Drew games. Most of the puzzles, save two monstrous ones, are enjoyable and fairly straightforward to solve. The environments in this particular game are quite something to behold as well.
This game isn’t perfect, however; the characters all have promise but wind up feeling a tad underdeveloped, and the phantom himself definitely doesn’t live up to the hype. And then of course, you have the Scopa minigame. (I actually really enjoy it, but I imagine that if you don’t like it as much, it must be agonizing to have to play a minimum two games of it to progress the story.)
– Real player with 20.0 hrs in game
My second Nancy Drew game since I got back to them recently after a decade. I really liked this one. It is set in Venice, Italy and really has a fantastic scenery and appeal about it. I also really liked the voice acting. The story is interesting and there is quite a few more locations and characters involved than the previous game I finished (Legend of the Crystal Skull). I went for a senior detective level this time and I must say the puzzles were great and managable and super interesting (I played Legend of the Crystal Skull on junior mode and it was probably 2x harder). There are two puzzles at the very end of the game which are super intense though. There’s a bunch of stuff I learned (from italian phrases to sending encoded messages in both binary code and chess positions to kanji characters). The game feels consistent overall and I highly recommend it. If not else just for the scopa simmulator game. That was fun as hell. I know how to play it now.
– Real player with 18.1 hrs in game
Nancy Drew®: The Silent Spy
Overall, I’d give this one a 7.5/10! I liked the story and the puzzles were a good level of difficulty, perhaps it was on the medium side. Some of the characters were great, some were alright. The setting of this game was a good one as well, however there weren’t that many places to explore. I’m glad that the “chore” type stuff in this one was super minimal - barely there at all. I also liked that most of the resources you needed were with you most of the time.
One of the weaker points to this one was that there was a lot of repetition in the conversations with the characters. I think Nancy asked the same questions like 10 times. But because I liked most of the characters enough, it was not unbearable, and you can skip through them. It also felt like a relatively short game compared to some others.
– Real player with 14.6 hrs in game
Scotland. Secret agent themed brain teasers. Scotland. Archery. Need I say more?
Seriously, if you are a long time Nancy Drew game fan, this one hits all the marks, not to mention it’s a rare and responsibly told foray into Nancy’s canon and they do such a good job with the story. The game flows well and there always seem to be something to do, even in lulls
(of which there were few). It has a good range of puzzles, ranging from fun, to medium to challenging (for me these are always the ones where you simply use association and intuition to put the clues together, and ultimately solve it using trial and error). Be warned there is a lot of text/letters to read and lots of dialogue.
– Real player with 10.5 hrs in game
Mahjong: Magic Chips
Laziest mobile port possible.
– Real player with 0.6 hrs in game
Mahjong: Magic Chips is a port of a mobile mahjong game to PC, complete with in-app purchases and artificial game limiting through timers and lives. 3/10
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-cnzwLgo3w
– Real player with 0.1 hrs in game