nancy drew mysteries

where it started

when i was nine, my mom bought me a copy of Nancy Drew: Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake. she was an OG casual game girly - she never had fun if something was chasing her, but give her a low-stakes puzzle game and she was hooked. naturally, she passed that on to me, so we both loved the experience, even when we had to turn to the forums for some hints. it took us a long time to figure out how spoiler text worked - that you could highlight the text to read it - and we felt so silly when we finally did. we spent the rest of my tweens collecting every installment and sleuthing together.

years later, i'd get to do it all again from the opposite side of the age gap - once my sister was old enough for computer games we ripped through the whole series together. i did the puzzles and she did the point-and-clicking and (most importantly) the snarky running commentary. after a misspent lifetime apart, she moved back in with me for a year after she turned eighteen. we played our old favorites on my kitchen table while having a cheeky day drink and it meant more to me than i can express.

suffice it to say that i love these games with my whole soul, and this is my little shrine to them. i think the plan is to sort them roughly by how much i like them, but we shall see.

dare to play...

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

a vintage cover of the Secret at Shadow Ranch book

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. i love it so much that i wrote a, uh... blog post? walkthrough? love letter? it's probably my favorite page on this site to be honest, so i'd love it if you gave it a look. i also went the extra autistic mile and transcribed most of the game's script because i couldn't find it anywhere online.

a round decorative design featuring a crowing rooster

last train to blue moon canyon (2005)

The Hardy Boys have invited you, as Nancy Drew, on a train ride out West hosted by beautiful and prominent socialite, Lori Girard. Lori has gathered the greatest minds in mystery to solve a century-old secret and the haunted train is their best clue. The luxurious train once belonged to Jake Hurley, who set out long ago to find the mother lode during mining mania. Years later, Jake's train was found in Blue Moon Canyon with the engineer slumped over in the car - dead. Jake had mysteriously vanished… Climb aboard, as Nancy Drew, and see if you can uncover the truth at the end of the line in Nancy Drew: Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon! from HerInteractive

curse of blackmoor manor (2004)

All is not well in Blackmoor Manor, a fourteenth century English mansion haunted by a tragic past. You, as Nancy Drew, embark on your first international adventure to visit Linda Penvellyn, your neighbor's daughter and newlywed wife of a British diplomat. A mysterious malady keeps Linda hidden behind thick bed curtains. Is she hiding from something or someone, or is a more menacing threat stalking her? Face your fears to find the truth in Nancy Drew: Curse of Blackmoor Manor! from HerInteractive

another S-tier installment in the franchise.

we join Nancy in an ancient English manor under forgivably silly circumstances - we've been sent to check up on Nancy's neighbor's daughter Linda, who isn't doing too well after her move to England to be with her new husband. what Linda really needs is a therapist, but i guess a plucky young detective will have to be good enough. we soon learn that the spooky shit that Linda's got going on pales in comparison to the spooky shit happening in the manor itself. it's us against the whole Penvellyn bloodline, and it's about to get weird.

we've got astronomy, alchemy, astrology, runes, puzzle boxes, secret doors, automatons, moving gargoyles, dragon statues, and an ancient shrieking parrot named LouLou to give us hints and translate Latin. in terms of sheer occulty goodness i'm pretty sure this game is second only to Legend of the Crystal Skull - we'll get there eventually.

Blackmoor Manor is such a good setting. canonically the place has been added to and remodeled by generations of the Penvellyn clan, and it shows in the sheer abundance and variety of the decor. everything is vibrant as hell and richly detailed. the Penvellyn family is just as fleshed out and you can learn so much about them just from the passive storytelling and notes left around the manor.

an illustration of a colorful parrot perching on a branch

i will say that i don't think it's a storytelling masterclass the way Shadow Ranch is, but only because in this game it feels like the story and the puzzles are on separate tracks. if you facetank the puzzles, you can miss entire scenes that add important context, and that's unfortunate.

the puzzles are soooo good though, especially if you want to do them old-school and have a notebook next to you while you play. there are clues throughout the manor that can be tricky to connect with their respective puzzles and you also can't take most of the clues with you, leading to lots and lots of backtracking when you need to go reference something on the other side of the house. you'll be sprinting back and forth through several secret passageways, which would normally be fun except that you have to do it with only a faint glow to guide you, so it's not very interesting visually. it also takes a good dozen or more clicks to get to some locations, so it can get tedious. again, if you're a note-taker you will probably have fewer problems with this - it just comes down to play style.

the endgame is fun, but a little silly; it leads to a lot of lingering questions if you try to take it too seriously. certainly not the worst ending the franchise has to offer by far.

secret of the old clock (2005)

It's 1930 and Nancy Drew is asked to visit Emily Crandall, in Titusville, a girl whom Nancy knows only through a mutual friend. She and her mother had been counting on the generosity of their kindly but strange neighbor, Josiah Crowley, to leave them part of his estate to support the inn they own. But in his will, everything was left to Richard Topham, his ESP teacher. A contested will, a suffering girl, suspicious psychics — can Nancy solve the mystery before time runs out in Nancy Drew: Secret of the Old Clock? from HerInteractive

we're doing a little time-bending!