the secret of shadow ranch (2004)
Ropin', ridin' and revenge. A ranch vacation takes a terrifying turn when a ghostly horse appears in this mystery game. Is it driven by the vengeful commands of its long-dead master, Dirk Valentine? Or is a living villain behind the ranch's string of bad luck? It's up to you, as Nancy Drew, to figure out who's wearing the black hat before your investigation is ambushed in Nancy Drew: Secret of Shadow Ranch! from HerInteractive
forever my favorite. <3
we start out the game having joined our friends Bess and George for a southwest trail-riding vacation at Shadow Ranch (owned by their aunt and uncle, the Rawleys). well, Nancy has arrived - Bess and George are having flight troubles and will have to catch up later. unfortunately, the Rawleys themselves are also out of the picture - Uncle Ed got bitten by a rattlesnake in his bedroom the night before we arrived. he's fine, but he and Aunt Bet will be at the hospital for the next few days.
where does that leave us? solo snooping in a working ranchhouse, helping out with the chores, and getting to know the cast of ranch hands that keep the place running. and then the ghost horse shows up, and of course we have to try and figure that shit out. in trying to solve our present-day mystery, we stumble into a much older one - that of Dirk Valentine, a wild west outlaw whose fate intertwines with the ranch, the Rawleys, and us.
on top of being a really fucking fun game, this is a masterpiece of storytelling and narrative design, and i would like to yap about it for a good little while so settle in! this will be a walkthrough of the story, not the gameplay - there will be spoilers but i won't go into detail about every task and puzzle.
consider this my love letter to Shadow Ranch. <3
after the classic introductory letter home, which tells us everything i've told you so far, we arrive in the ranch house. one minute into the game and we have already reached one of my top three locations in the entire series. i adore this little house. there are only two rooms you can explore (note) but they're so rich with details that they feel huge.
one side of the living room is dominated by this beautiful portrait - if we go up to it we can learn from the nameplate that this is Frances Humber. we'll quickly come to find out that she was a former inhabitant of Shadow Ranch in the 1800s. i love that she's the first thing our eyes are drawn to when we officially start the game. we'll come back to her after i show you the rest of the place. :)
y'all. the fireplace screen. the print on that couch. those rugs! the coffee table!! i would like to move in immediately. the triangular chest over in the corner is super pretty, and it'll be an important piece of the puzzle later on.
a couple more views of the living room...
there's a smaller bookshelf in the corner, behind the dining table, and it features both a Harry Potter easter egg and a romance novel we can look at - Like Wind Through My Heart by Charleena Purcell. hmm, wonder if that'll become relevant...
the tour is almost done, i promise - then we'll get into more of the story. first though, the kitchen.
that cow magnet lives rent free in my head. also a big fan of the shutters, the signboard over the fridge, and the fact that the Rawleys have a restaurant-style wet floor sign. as we'll find out, this game takes safety quite seriously, so this kinda makes sense.
there's more to see outside, but first, we can get to know one of the three ranch hands - Shorty Thurmond, the cook.
this man can yap with the best of em and he's thrilled to yap with us - apparently the other hands aren't the best conversationalists. he's real spooked about this whole ghost horse business, and he gives us a campfire-worthy retelling of last night's visitation. we remain skeptical, but Shorty seems to be a true believer.
now to finally exit the building. as Dave will tell us, this is a working ranch and there's lots to see.
here's the fire pit, the pumphouse, and the ranch house's back porch.
there's Dave, the foreman, working on the chicken coop. before we talk to him, though - the minecart cactus planter?! stunning.
but we all know who we're really here for: Dave Gregory, the franchise's first hunk and the stealer of a thousand preteen hearts, all fourteen pixels of him in all their heart-stopping SD quality. he's stressed, overworked, and a little snappy at first which naturally makes him irresistible. he's too busy to tell us very much right now, but he'll have more to say later.
let's head to the stable, where we can meet our last cowboy, Tex Britten.
Tex is the ranch's no-nonsense wrangler, master of horses and monosyllabic responses. he speaks in this hushed rasp that makes him sound like a rattlesnake. he gives us the rules for horseback riding: always have a canteen, gloves, and hat; always saddle your horse correctly; always put your saddle away in the stable when you're done riding. like i said, they take safety seriously around here.
before we can leave the ranch, however, we have to pass Tex's high-stakes horsemanship quiz - ten questions hissed at us while we ride in circles in the corral. this is a quiz we may need to study for, but thankfully, the Rawleys have some good reading material scattered around the living room.
don't worry, book one is on the coffee table. the little educational asides throughout this game were obviously put together with love and it's another reason this one is my favorite.
anyway, before we can do literally any of that, we first need to go back to Shorty and see if there are any chores for us to do. he happily sends us to harvest ripe veggies from the Rawley's small garden.
how do we know if the veggies are ripe, though? luckily for us, we have the power of ~ the internet ~ on our side.
when we're done, we can deliver our bounty to Shorty, who will not be shy about telling us if we've missed anything (he will make us go back) or if we've picked underripe produce (he will yell at us for wasting food). either way, he'll give us our second task: egg collecting.
y'all, i love chickens and this was always my favorite part. <3 that sign means business, by the way - if you antagonize that chicken, she will rough you up so badly that you have to be sent home, and that's game over for Nancy. you have to walk away and come back after a while to give Ms. Hen a chance to leave.
eggs acquired. that red stitching? we did that - the basket broke and we had to do a puzzle to fix it.
at this point we can return to Shorty and receive our canteen, which is enough to let us move on to Tex's western quiz show, but we've also been asked to prep the fire pit for tonight's cookout, so let's knock that out too.
we chop some wood, collect some kindling outside (a major point of frustration for me as a kid - if you know, you know), and grab some top-tier newspaper from near the fireplace in the living room. then we can head over to the fire pit and - oh. what's this in the ashes?
wonder what that's about... anyway, after building the fire and making sure to fill the water bucket at the pumphouse and place it back by the fire pit (safety!) we can pat ourselves on the back for contributing to the Shadow Ranch economy.
we could try to go riding now, but Nancy would remind us that the Rawleys gave us an errand to run: we need to ask Dave for the key to the rolltop desk, which contains an envelope we're supposed to deliver (on horseback!) to Mary Yazzie, a local artist and shop owner.
while snooping around in the rolltop (because of course we do) we come across a couple things. the first is a letter addressed to the Rawleys, from someone named Jane Nash, whom they apparently fired recently.
a motive, perhaps? who knows. the other clue is a set of levers that have something to do with that corner chest, but they're easy to miss (and i missed them at first) so we'll come back to them. first, let's go meet Mary Yazzie.
with all our safety gear gathered, we saddle up on Bob.
and in case you thought this poster in the stable was kidding, we really do have to make sure that we tighten the saddle's cinch every single time we go riding, or else we'll get unceremoniously dumped over as soon as we step up off the mounting block.
with all of these trials behind us, we submit to Tex's interrogation, which isn't too bad if you've done your research or if you're willing to take several stabs at multiple-choice questions. no big deal. off we go!
we've got map travel! we'll learn about more points of interest as we progress, but for now, we head for Mary's Gifts.
