It’s a Nancy Drew Mystery
Maddie and I recently discussed how unnecessarily difficult children’s video games used to be. We both have distinct memories of asking our parents to help us with the most difficult parts of nearly every video game we tried, after having completely exhausted any efforts a child could possibly put forth.
One game in particular that both entertained and deluded Maddie and I time after time was the American Girl Kit Mystery Challenge! for the Nintendo DS. If you’re unfamiliar, Kit Kittredge was one of the American Girl doll company’s historical dolls, meaning she had an entire life story that took place in the Great Depression era. Sounds weird, I know, but her story was (to me) more interesting and awesome than any other historical doll. In the DS game, you followed Kit’s adventures through her neighborhood solving mysteries for everyone you came across. It was a blast, of course, though as one might expect the mysteries themselves were remarkably difficult for the target audience of the games. It was much more fun to run around in the impressively open world and change Kit’s outfits eight times than it was to get stuck on one of Kit’s uncle’s riddles and rage-quit.
The phenomena of unnecessarily hard children’s games is perhaps at its apex with one of my obsessions as of recent: point-and-click Nancy Drew computer games. Hailing from a one-hit-wonder gaming company called HER Interactive, the games were an integral part of what is now forgotten media from the early 2000s. I personally discovered them through a Youtube video (as I do most things) and my fascination was sparked immediately. They were very similar to the Kit Kittredge game of my past, but more complex, more extensive, and - perhaps most importantly - downloadable on my family’s desktop. In total, there are 34 Nancy games, all part of the same universe, though one is unplayable to the public due to some “controversial content” - a tidbit of information I gathered from one of my favorite places on the internet: the Nancy Drew subreddit. Shockingly, the Reddit community for this fictional sleuth is a profoundly collaborative and positive place. Most of the posts from its 40,000 members are about the many inside jokes formed about the franchise, or people finding old Nancy books, or someone asking for help solving a puzzle from one of the games. I find this all adorable.
The games themselves are pretty incredible, too. They all follow a somewhat similar formula: Nancy stumbles upon a mystery, she investigates three or four shady suspects, and solves some complicated puzzles before inevitably saving the day. All of these games take a few hours to play, depending on your puzzle-solving abilities (or, in my case, your willingness to use a walkthrough). My personal favorite game is Warnings at Waverly Academy, released in 2009, which was somewhat in the middle of the reign of Nancy mysteries. This game takes place at a prep school in New England where students compete to be valedictorian. Needless to say, it’s got some pretty hilarious character dialogue, since the characters in the game are meant to be realistic 2009 teens. It’s great. Of the few games that we’ve played together, Maddie’s favorite is The Final Scene, which sparked her peculiar fascination with Houdini (which you all might hear about someday). This one is incredibly creepy - it has that undeniable 2001 uncanny-valley-ness to it that truly makes my skin crawl. But that eeriness combined with the idiosyncratic storytelling and character design… there’s nothing like it. In a good way (I think).
Getting back to my point, though, these games are for the most part advertised for ages ten and up - which is kind of crazy. This is not surprising to me, since Nancy Drew is obviously a children’s franchise, but you have to believe me when I say those games are not suited for a ten year old. Maybe I’m bitter because I’m eighteen and struggle to finish some of the puzzles without a walkthrough, but I know I’m not alone. There are entire games that fans in the subreddit hate because the puzzles are so hard. Also, the subject matter of some of these games are crazy. The very first game, Secrets Can Kill, was based around the murder of a high-schooler. There’s drug trafficking in that one, too. And political blackmail. Most of the games after that one are based around less severe crimes, although Nancy has a near-death experience in almost every game.
Anyway, this is not necessarily a hill I need to die on, and I do love this franchise. I’ve consumed around half of these games, and someday I will play them all and rank them according to my preference. But for now, I figured I would just introduce this strange interest of mine, so that you’re prepared for me to geek out in the near future, and so I can clarify early on that these games are not for children.
