Keep Calm...

It looks like after posting this picture on our social sites yesterday, there has been a large request for this image to appear on the Merchandise Store. Ok. You asked for it. I will work on getting this up soon!

My words of advise to you this week? Keep calm because Ghost of Thornton Hall is one week away from getting into your hands! AHHHH!! For those of you who are waiting, we are playing Shadow at the Water's Edge this week, with The Captive Curse over the upcoming weekend. Then it's just a few more days until GTH!

I've got more fan art to share! Scrapbook design by Olesya!

Also,

~Little Jackalope~

Sold Out!

Well, that went fast! The physical copies of Ghost of Thornton Hall's BONUS EDITION has officially sold out! Of course, if you haven't pre-ordered the game yet and still wan the BONUS EDITION, we still have the digital version available. Or if you really have your heart set owning the physical game, we are now offering the standard edition if you shop now.

Here's your reminder about the dates, if you...
• Pre-ordered the physical BONUS EDITION version: We will be sending out your game game around May 7th. Keep an eye out for your package in the following weeks (depending on the shipping method you chose and also how close you are to Minnesota.)

• Pre-ordered the digital version: You may download on or after May 7th from our site.

• Pre-ordered the physical standard version: Your copy will ship out around May 8th. Keep an eye out for your package in the following weeks (depending on the shipping method you chose and also how close you are to Minnesota.)

For more information on pre-ordering, click here. 
Masks: If you pre-order the BONUS EDITION (either physical or digital) you are entered for a chance to win one of 100 masks. This does not apply to the standard game edition orders.

On a side note, we had a little fun today with words and pictures here:

 

Looks as though several of you solved the weekend puzzle without a problem! This one was simple: find all of the bold small letters in the last Friday post, and re-arrange them (anagram puzzle). If you highlighted the entire post, you would have seen the extra hint: [three words] Your final answer is this: [Watch the Fireplace]. Which means exactly that inside of Ghost of Thornton Hall. It makes perfect sense to me! Mwahaha...

~Little Jackalope~

Marathon of Scares

I was trying to be more creative with my blog title, by re-using similar words from the past...eh...
Anyways, as we continue the Nancy Drew "Scary Game" marathon in preparation for Ghost of Thornton Hall, we finish up Legend of the Crystal Skull this week and begin The Haunting of Castle Malloy for the weekend.

 Three

For those who are following along, do you have a favorite part about Legend of the Crystal Skull? I sort of wish I could toss marshmallows to Bernie the way Reneé mentioned Henry Sr. did. And then I'd eat some marshmallows myself...I mean as Nancy. XD In real life, I've added "try gumbo from a food truck" to my adventure list of things to do. Haven't found a truck with that food item yet, but when I do, it would be a bonus if the server or chef wore a red plaid shirt....haha.

words

A few more things to share! (Insider tip: if you really really want the physical copy of the BONUS EDITION for GTH, I overheard that we only have a few left. If you plan on ordering it, I would suggest ordering as soon as possible, like before the end of Saturday!) Anyways, we interviewed one of our artists, Jayme! Check out the YouTube video for an inside look to part of the creation of Ghost of Thornton Hall:

Weekend puzzle #195 is here, I promise. ;)
~Little Jackalope~

A Beautiful Game

It seems to me as though a lot of fans find Ghost of Thornton Hall to be a beautiful game with an attractive story. Because of this, we have seen a lot more fan art come in or be posted on our social sites like Facebook or Twitter, even though no one outside of the office has played it! I must say that I agree with this game's "beauty" so to speak. While I have played it (multiple times) I do find this game to have one of the most beautiful (if not THE most beautiful) story/art combination for a game ever.

Fan art: a lovely drawing presented on red silk and decorated with black lace and a dead rose. Perfect!

The "ghost" is very pretty in her old-fashioned gown and is intriguing with her lace mask and odd behavior and appearances. The music really helps carry the story and emotions behind it, and the mystery itself is a bit deep. Anyways, I'll let you be the official judges of this game once you get your hands on it. :)

Another fan sent in a letter along with this burnt-edged poem from GTH, I love the script!

Also, another birthday! Yay!

~Little Jackalope~

Fan Art: Scrapbooking

Recently some fans emailed us wanting to show us their Nancy Drew scrapbook work, so we've decided to go ahead and show you here. It was a little tough fitting in all of the images, but here is Sergey's spread:

 Here I spy some GTH art, and some card games, similar to RAID! in CAP:

 A few pages from TMB:

Magazine clipping type and general Nancy Drew content:

Is that chocolate I see?

It also looks like we have a few birthdays today!

~Little Jackalope~

Art from the Games

If I may say so, I personally really like the cover art for Ghost of Thornton Hall. :) So much so that I bought a kindle case from our own merchandise store with this art on it:

And while I was there I also had to get the Sonny Joon notebook design (from Ransom of the Seven Ships) placed on a mouse pad. This same mouse pad can be found on Mason's desk in The Deadly Device.

I'd thought I'd share these because I'm really excited about adding to my own fan collection. XD

While the poem, logo, and cover art are already available in our merchandise store, behind the scenes we are about to begin work on more art that can be found in Ghost of Thornton Hall. It should all be up in time for the official launch date of the game. *Insider secret: we are super close to really, truly running out of the physical copies of the BONUS EDITION. I overheard the team already discussing the announcement of this for later...I hope you pre-ordered your preferred game version already!

Side note: Has anybody already begun playing Legend of the Crystal Skull this week?

~Little Jackalope~

Playing Games with Friends

For my "scary games" marathon, I played Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake and then this weekend played Curse of Blackmoor Manor with my Uncle Dan (ok, he was playing and I was working on the puzzles with him, watching.)

It had been such a long time since I've played CUR and I was surprised that I had forgotten some little details! It sort of felt like I was playing it for the first time, which was awesome! Sheesh, those moving rooms in the dark is so mind-boggling...I love it.

And we spent a good deal of time trying to figure out how to "charm" the gargoyles but forgot about the shortcut we were supposed to use, and then forgot there was one more wand step after those gargoyles. We must have spent an hour trying to figure out that one puzzle! Anyways, after consulting the Message Board, we were able to work out our stuck points together and solve the mystery. I must say, normally I like playing the game by myself in the dark the first time, but replay value is totally worth it enjoying the mystery with another person. You get to look back and say..."Wow, were we clueless or what?" and laugh at the parts we were totally not understanding. XD

Looks like many of you solved the weekend puzzle! Good for you! As seen these were Maritime Flags. Decode them first to get your letters, then use the clue "Reversed" to understand which direction to read them. If you looked very closely at the entire blog post, and highlighted the blank spaces, you may have seen the cipher solution. It's a [rail fence cipher]. So if you read the letters correctly, you'd get [Hidden Passages]. And they are just that. Perhaps they will be in an upcoming game? Perhaps I am pointing you to something you will need to look for? I can't say...

~Little Jackalope~

Weekend Puzzle #194

If you are following along with the "scary games" marathon, we are finishing up Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake tonight and playing through Curse of Blackmoor Manor this weekend, woot! Has anyone finished DOG already for this week? I'm still working on it tonight. XD

rail fence

We have a bit of urgent news, we are already running low on the physical Ghost of Thornton Hall BONUS EDITION! (If you have already pre-ordered yours, or if you plan on pre-ordering the digital version, no worries!) Best act quick if you had your heart set on having the box to put on your shelf.

Time for your weekend enjoyment, besides the game marathon, I challenge you to solve this puzzle related to GTH. Enjoy!

Have a great weekend, sleuths!
~Little Jackalope~

Dessert & Charlotte's Lace Mask

Today our luncheoning group went out to try a fancy lunch at a nearby restaurant, which served a three-course meal. I just wanted to point out that these adventurous outings are good for a person, especially when that person has never tried a crème brûlée. I tried it for the first time, and I loved it! For those who aren't sure exactly what this dessert is, it's pretty much vanilla pudding in a cute little cup that they sprinkle sugar on top and lightly blow-torch so that it turns into a light shell crust. Also known as caramelizing. The torched sugar tasted like a perfectly browned outside part of a toasted marshmallow. Yum!

Lookie! When we returned from our long lunch outing, these had arrived!

The 100 Charlotte Masks! On or after May 17th, we will be picking 100 random winners from everyone who pre-ordered Ghost of Thornton Hall (physical or digital) from our site before May 14th. I still need to figure out how to swipe one of these for myself... (~.^)

~Little Jackalope~

"Ach! The Lights!"

"Turn them back on!" as Jacques would say in Treasure in the Royal Tower as Nancy (you) flick on and off the switch in the circuit breaker.

Come on Jacques! One of the best ways to enhance your game-playing experience would be to turn off the lights! If you have played Shadow at the Water's Edge, you would totally understand this Nancy Drew Moment:

But in some cases, like the scarier mysteries, perhaps playing with the lights out would not be such a good idea if you'd rather not be more prone to jumping out of your chair and potentially hitting something with flailing arms as you scream at the top of your lungs.

...

Just a thought.

~Little Jackalope~

A Lovely Spring Day....with Tacos

Yet another Taco food truck stopped by today in the next-door parking lot, so of course I rushed over for elevensies to get tacos...which looked like a glorious mess and therefore I didn't take a picture. But they were amazing! A couple hours later I went back for a second lunch to try the gorditas, which are fried and one was stuffed with onions, another with meat, and the third with sweet potatoes. Going on food adventures is really interesting and adventurous. I'm still waiting for a food truck to come by with gumbo like from Legend of the Crystal Skull. Seriously, where is Granny's Cajun Cookin' around here with a fake Shorty Thurmond serving crazy spicy food? XD

Anyways, when I returned to the office, I had to stop to take a snapshot of how pretty it is in the spring here:

Sounds like several of you have finished MHM and have begun DOG! I love DOG...
~Little Jackalope~

Day Six for Pre-Orders

The pre-orders continue for GTH! Sounds like several of you solved the GTH weekend puzzle, some of you only mad it half-way, and a few were thinking there was supposed to be more to it... *insert evil grin*.

Here's what you do to solve it: First identify all of the missing letters (if you need help with this, simply watch the first half of the official trailer for Ghost of Thornton Hall. It's all dialogue from this video). The missing letters spell this: [Every third color]. Using this information, count [every third colored letter] to get this final answer: [See what he sees and leave]. Which is a reference to something inside Ghost of Thornton Hall that wouldn't make sense at this moment...but will once you have played it. ;)

The scary games marathon continues! How many of you have played Message in a Haunted Mansion (either this weekend or anytime in the past)? One of my favorite parts of this game was getting to see a ghost in this mirror:

And of course, anticipating every spooky or startling sound...

This week I shall begin Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake...and dream of having a basement someday of my own so that I can decorate it like Mickey Malone's speakeasy...but instead I will serve sodas from the spigots and ice cream from the fridge behind the counter. And my friends will play Scopa at the card tables. And I will have a dog named Xander who just hangs out waiting for someone to drop their ice cream...

~Little Jackalope~

Weekend Puzzle #193...and a Marathon!

Day four of Ghost of Thornton Hall pre-orders! From what I've been hearing/reading lately is that some of you are doing game marathons before GTH becomes available, this is awesome! However it's a little late to attempt to play 27 games before May 7th, it might be more doable to play all the "scary" games before then.

Let's see, 3 full weeks between here and May 7th, and 4 full weekends...and I personally count 7 games to be "scary" or "creepy", so that's 1 game on weekdays, and 1 game each weekend... anyone want to join me?  I'm starting with Message in a Haunted Mansion first. :)

But for the rest of us who have a little more time on our hands...and who want an insider clue from GTH, you can try solving the weekend puzzle here, enjoy!

It's a birthday crazy weekend! Happy birthday to all these wonderful super sleuths!

~Little Jackalope~

Day Three: GTH Pre-Orders

Well here's an interesting office story for you that happened 15 minutes ago: The doors to the office were open when I decided to go downstairs for a couple minutes. When I came back up, the doors, of course were LOCKED! After 5 minutes of futile attempts to knock and rattle the door in hopes that perhaps there were a few people still here...didn't work...I thought for a moment. I knew of a few artists in the back corner who would still be in this late! I then snuck up the back staircase (which are locked, too) and knocked for a bit there...it worked! Thank you animator Scott for letting me in! XD

Now I know better to bring my keys with me when I go downstairs late in the afternoon...

Anyways, we have more fans excited for Ghost of Thornton Hall! Check out their drawings!

It appears as though we have a lot of April birthdays!

~Little Jackalope~

Day Two of GTH Pre-Orders

Hooray! It's day two of pre-orders for Ghost of Thornton Hall! There was too much excitement yesterday in the office to express everything that happened, so today I'll share this with you: yesterday we received our print proofs for the boxed game art! Check it out! We posted it on the wall for the entire office to see:

And I also got a copy of the single DVD sleeve for display on my own wall:

How cool is that? So excited!
I also had to take a few moments to read every one's thoughts on the Message Board, too. Sounds like a lot of intrigued sleuths out there!
~Little Jackalope~

Pre-Order Ghost of Thornton Hall!

Whoo-hoo! Today is the first day you can pre-order Nancy Drew's 28th adventure: Ghost of Thornton Hall! Oh, and watch the trailer we have been working on for a few weeks:

Wha-hoo! SO EXCITED to finally share this!! What do you think? Maybe, just maybe scarier than SAW? I'd describe it as "Beautifully intriguing"!

 

Aaaaaaand since today is the first day of pre-orders, we went ahead and clarified details if you have any questions. Check out our Dare to Play Blog post here on pre-ordering information. I'm going to celebrate with a cup of cocoa topped with whipped cream. Oh yeah, bringing out the good stuff!

 It sure has been busy here in the office! The buzz around here is exciting, phones are ringing, the team is chattering, people watching the trailer, it's hard to describe how exciting everything is!

There I go. I'm at a loss for words. I'm that excited.
~Little Jackalope~

Eve of GTH's Trailer

Oh boy. Oh boy. Oh boy! The trailer will be launched tomorrow!! Also pre-orders will begin. I noticed that a few of you were concerned about the trailer launch being on the same day as pre-orders. No worries! If you are still hesitant about pre-ordering the game, you can watch the trailer tomorrow, or the next day or the next, or anytime once it's launched....and then spend a full month deciding if you want to pre-order Ghost of Thornton Hall. The pre-orders only begin tomorrow, but it lasts until May 13th -- this means you do not need to pre-order right away. (But the number of physical copies are indeed limited, so if you plan on getting the hard copy, the sooner you order... the better!)

Tomorrow I'll give you the entire low-down on all the information about pre-ordering, so come back to learn more! Also, if you have any urgent questions concerning pre-ordering, you can contact us at customerservice@herinteractive.com or techsupport@herinteractive.com.

As for the weekend puzzle, there was indeed a typo on my part, it appears there was an extra "n" and extra "t". Here's how you find it: highlight the entire blog post with your mouse (if you are on a computer) and find all the invisible characters and letters. (If you are viewing by phone, simply read the light pink letters and characters).

You should get this: ["Ghosts don't have to be real to haunt you" - Rentaro]. Who made a very good point. What did I mean by this, you may think? Well...are the ghosts only in your mind....or are they "real"? That is for you to solve in Ghost of Thornton Hall. That and, uh, *cough* find Jessalyn *cough*. That's important, too. XD

We have birthdays this weekend! Lots of birthdays! Hooray!

~Little Jackalope~

Revealing Office Secrets...

Ok, if you"are keeping track, we revealed two more items onGthe 13 hints for 2013 notebook list this week, here's the update:

#1 Rhyme referredhto the lyrics inothe "I'm Nancy Drew" music video weslaunched this week on our YouTube Channel.
#10 Bonustrefers tosthe BONUSdEDITION contestowe are having for those who pre-order the game...

Voila! That's right, we willnrandomly'select 100 luckytwinners who pre-order Ghost of Thornton Hall (physical or digital) duringhthe pre-order period (April 9 - May 13)ato receivevCharlotte Thornton'seblack lace mask! This one is eventbetter than theoone you may have seen me wear already.

Oh, and inbcase anyoneewas curious... the March 8th weekend puzzle answerrwas hintingeat this asawell, notljust the designton the coveroart. ;)

Onlyha few moreadays until pre-ordersuand wenlaunch thettrailer! Subscribe to our newsletter to get all the latest news inyone spot,oand if you areuas"excited-as IRam forethe trailer...younmight be doingtwhat I amatoday: watchingrour older videosoand trailers and fun stuff on our channel. XD Ya know...just getting ready an' all for the big premiere...

I didn't forget about the weekend puzzle! It's here...um...somewhere...
~Little Jackalope~