The Beginning of Busy

I'm going to try my best over the course of the next few months to limit my use of the word "busy", because for me and some other team members here, this is the beginning of our busy season. Approaching the launch of Nancy Drew: The Silent Spy we have a lot of things to get ready for its red-carpet entrance.

Things to include in getting ready for SPY's arrival:

1. Cover Art for the box
2. Web page
3. Write up character bios
4. Collect screenshots
5. Write up the game description and key facts
6. Official trailer
7. Get ESRB rating
8. Create strategy guide
9. Prepare soundtrack for the store
10. SPY merchandise images for the store
11. Reveal the color scheme

These are just a few of the big things! There are a lot of details and steps that are hidden under each one of these tasks, and it sure takes time for each project. I'll try to keep you updated with as much info as I can share about where we are at in our tasks.

For now, we are currently working on the cover art and color scheme. Next week I will be working on a SPY video...but I can't tell you which one...because there are sort of few fun extras to come. ;)

Side note! It's National Parent's Day! Alibi in Ashes is 50% off (digital or physical) if you use the code found on our Facebook page, but it's only good for today.

Tomorrow we announce the winners of the Where's Sonny? Contest! Stay tuned!
Also, there is a Twitter quote contest going on today, if you would like to participate!

~Little Jackalope~

Forecast: Last Sonny Day

The Where's Sonny? Contest is almost over! Tomorrow (Wednesday), July 31st is the last day to post your travel photos with Sonny to our Facebook page, and we have already seen lots of awesome photos so far.

Where have you gone with flat Sonny? I have been to the space needle in Seattle, the Woodland Park Zoo, as well as all over San Diego (even though I'm not entered into the contest). It looks like Sonny has really been all over the world! I've seen photos of fans posed with him in England, Russia, Australia, Scotland, Uganda, Indonesia, Bosnia, Italy, France, and of course, all over the U.S.A, just to name a few places. Boy, does Sonny sure know how to get around!


Oh! And the Sonny Joon art will be available in the merchandise store by the end of this week. ;)

~Little Jackalope~

Early Puzzles from the Archive

I was digging through my really old photos I took from over a year ago. These were from Ghost of Thornton Hall, and they are the early design sketches for some puzzles. Although these have been changed a bit since the early design, can you identify them from the game?

As for the weekend puzzle, looks like several of you were easily able to pick up this Drop Quote puzzle and solve it with ease! (Drop Quote can be found in The Captive Curse and Alibi in Ashes, as well as potentially coming back in future games!)

Here's the solution:
(Click on the image for a larger view).

Also, we have a birthday!

~Little Jackalope~

Interview with Stuart + Weekend Puzzle #205

We interviewed our CEO Stuart! Watch his video here:

Now that you have heard from Stuart, what specific things do you wish to see happen for Nancy Drew in the future? I know I'd certainly like to be able to play a Nancy Drew game on a tablet...!

Weekend puzzle! Let's see if your skills from The Captive Curse and Alibi in Ashes have trained you well enough to solve this puzzle:

We have a weekend birthday!

~Little Jackalope~

Prizes from Sonny

Howdy all! Today I am writing today's blog post from my phone. Why? Because at this very moment my computer is taking full control (so slow!) to render out an Interview video, which will likely go up tomorrow, we'll see!

Have you taken a picture of yourself with flat Sonny? This weekend is the last weekend to post your pictures to our Facebook page to enter the Where's Sonny? Contest!

I thought to take a moment to share with you what the three prizes are:

The first prize is that the winning picture will go into The Silent Spy!
The second prize is one of the three Nancy Drew Diaries books (in hardcover) autographed by everyone in the Her Interactive office!
And my favorite prize of all: a Sonny Joon magic mug from our Merchandise store! It's silly to imagine watching your black mug turn white with Sonny slowly appearing, posed as if saying "Surprise! Here I am!"

Learn more about the contest here or post your pictures now to our Facebook page!

~Little Jackalope~

Game Timeline: The Silent Spy

There is sooo much secret information about The Silent Spy that I would love to share, but it must remain a mystery, or else it wouldn't be a mystery. Isn't that what intrigues Nancy and fellow sleuths? Wanting to know information that is kept hiding; now that is what makes us curious! You know something is up, that something exists, that something is going on in secret, and you want to search everywhere to find out the truth...

We have been working on SPY since sometime last year! Each game takes about 9 months to create, and we work on at least two at a time, with only 3 months where they do not overlap, but begin on the third. Make sense?

- Nancy Drew: The Silent Spy Teaser -

We have known the characters, locations, and story for a long time...but only three months before the game hits the official release date is when we really start revealing it all. These are my favorite months, because I get to see the game in its final stages, when it is playable and also when we begin working on the cover art along with all the other little details.

Here's all the information we can share for now:
- Title: Nancy Drew: The Silent Spy
- Acronym: SPY
- Game Location: Scotland
- Story: Kate Drew's accident was a lie (Nancy's mom). The silent spy awaits. You are needed in Glasgow urgently.
- Release Date: Fall 2013

We have a birthday!

~Little Jackalope~

Nancy Lives For.....Forever!

Let me jump right into the weekend puzzle solution. To horribly trip you up in solving it was to leave out a missing letter (sorry!). While there are several word combinations that can come from these letters...

O E R T L A P S N I E

The correct anagram bust is this: [Alien Poster]. Which is coming soon!

I was thinking earlier today about how awesome it is that Nancy Drew gets "second chances" when she makes a mistake. Really, if you accidentally made an error, or are simply having fun watching Nancy get eaten by a plant, or maybe blowing up the glass bottles from mixing chemicals, you as the player have an infinite number of "second chances".

This is why this graphic below conveys the true beauty of Nancy's 9 lives infinite lives. She only lives again, and again, and forever! No matter how many times she "dies".

Also, dear Essie has broken her collarbone, and we hope and pray she gets better! Hang in there, Essie! You are strong and brave!

~Little Jackalope~

Videos, Contests, Sonny Joon

So today is filled with a bunch of random notes.

First random note: Today's the last day to post a caption to our Facebook Caption Contest photo (we pick a winner tomorrow).

Second Random note: We are working on a new employee interview video for this week. Who do you suppose will get the spotlight this time?

Third random note: A red Panda. With flat Sonny. Enough said.

Fourth random note: There are a lot of great fan photos of flat Sonny posted to our Facebook page! Sonny has visited castles, cathedrals, fairs, rodeos, and so many more places! One of them is of Sonny at Campo Santa Maria Formosa, in Venice Italy! Sound familiar? He's at a costume shop!

Fifth random note: The blog puzzle was missing a letter: E
My bad. This is the complete letters list, I will let you try solving it before I fully reveal the answer tomorrow:
O E R T L A P S N I E

~Little Jackalope~

Friday Fun! Plus Weekend Puzzle #204

I love Lickie Loos. Did you know that tomorrow is National Lollipop Day? In honor of this, we are having a sale on the game where Lickie Loo lollipops first appeared and Nancy first tasted them: Trail of the Twister! Head over to our Facebook page to find the secret code to get 50% off your physical or digital copy. And then have Nancy eat a gazillion lollipops and candy bars in that game. Hehe. 

Oh! And while you are visiting our Facebook page, be sure to add your creative caption to the Caption Contest photo of Sonny and me!
 
Check this out: One of our awesome fans made a great video musical tribute to our games!

Aaaaaaand here is your weekend puzzle! I'm going to make this difficult by not mentioning how many words are here:

O E R T L A P S N I

We have several birthdays today!

~Little Jackalope~

Jackalopes and Secret Meetings

Yesterday we had a top secret meeting. Only a few people in the office even knew about it. I was one of the lucky ones to attend. My job was to write everything up on the whiteboard. Words. Places. Actions. Themes. Sentences half-formed. Lots of "hmmm..."s were said by the attendees. The rest of the time they would just stare at the board, piecing different sounds together, explaining what each word meant to them. We were in a brainstorm meeting. These meetings are rare. These meetings are when ideas first begin. When we left, nothing was finalized.

Once the meeting was over, I pulled up my camera, took one last look at the board, snapped a few photos, and erased EVERYTHING. Nobody outside of our office would be able to peer in and see what we wrote up on the board...

But that was yesterday. Today, on a lighter, less mysterious note, our Designer came over to show me off her new, inherited piece of lovely decoration:

A mounted Jackalope!! It was so soft...

~Little Jackalope~

What IS that thing?! Mr. Skinbag.

I have seen many comments and questions about the critter seen in Ghost of Thornton. One of the "scares" in the Showroom is when a ugly-looking creature slides across the floor past you, or even at you.

This is a naked mole rat. A giant one. One of our artists, Filmer, had a lot of fun creating him. The artists lovingly called him "Mr. Skinbag" because he is hairless.

Honestly, whenever I see him scurry at me on the screen, off-screen I want to pick up my feet from the floor so that he won't escape the showroom by climbing up my legs. *Shudders*.

~Rendering of Mr. Skinbag with whiskers and teeth~

Hope that satisfies your curiosity! Haha, Mr. Skinbag...I still laugh at this odd little guy.

Birthdays!

~Little Jackalope~

Joon in July

With only two weekends left this month, that is all the time we have left for our fans to take pictures of themselves with flat Sonny and post to our Facebook page (or email to us) to be entered into the contest here. I've already looked at all of the entries so far, and there are some fun shots!

Today I had someone take my picture with flat Sonny in the main conference room. This picture isn't for the Where's Sonny? contest, but rather for the Caption Contest for Facebook coming up on Thursday. Come back then to participate!

Back to Sonny: because of all this Sonny talk, I'm just starting to work on more Sonny Joon merchandise, to be added to our store once the Where's Sonny? contest ends. Want to take a peek at what my screen looks like right now?

Yup, Sonny is going on a pillowcase. This isn't available yet. As you can see, I'm still working on it.

Head's up: tomorrow, instead of a Twitter Quote contest, we will have another Trivia Day on Twitter. Think you know your Nancy Drew games? Test your knowledge in tomorrow's fun questions!

Birthday!

~Little Jackalope~

The Middle of Summer Spying

I suppose if you have already played Ghost of Thornton Hall, as well as all of the other Nancy Drew mysteries (which games are you still missing?) there isn't much else left to do this summer, right?

Weeeell... you could always find a shady spot to rest and read a new Nancy Drew Diaries book (I'm currently reading the third one), or work hard to treat yourself to the new merchandise items in our store to add to your collection, or you could travel places and take pictures of yourself with flat Sonny to enter into our contest, or you could simply read this blog each day. Because right about now is a grand time to start teasing you about our next game!

At this very moment as I type this blog, there is a small meeting going on about some audio files for SPY. I snuck into the game build to listen to a few, and it sounds intense! It's kind of tough navigating through the half-built environments because we don't have a playable build, yet. Sometime this week, though, we will, and we will be able to give it a try.

Many puzzles are already built and are currently being tested these next few days, so we are able to play a few, as we start to make sure they are difficult enough yet easy enough to understand. We began our first concept illustration for the cover art, too. No hints to share yet!

I can't share any pictures with you at the moment, but I can sure doodle!

Looks like many of you were able to solve the weekend puzzle. Hooray! Here is the solution:

1. If Secret of the Old Clock is game #11, then choose 1. If not, choose 19. [Not = 19]
2. If the white water bottle in the merchandise store shows the River Heights Police Badge, choose 3. If not, choose 13. [Yes = 3]
3. If the third Nancy Drew Diaries book is called Mystery of the Midnight Flyer, choose 25. If not, choose 15. [Not = 15]
4. If Loulou is listed as a character on the Curse of Blackmoor Manor character profiles page, choose 19. If not, choose 20. [Not = 20]
5. If Tomb of the Lost Queen has its own music soundtrack available for download, choose 12. If not, choose 20. [Yes = 12]
6. On the main page for Ghost of Thornton Hall is a list of Key Features. If one of those keys features says “hunt for ghosts” choose 5. If not, choose 1.  [Not = 1]
7. If Ellie York from The Deadly Device works the day shift, choose 18. If Ellie works the night shift, choose 14. [Night = 14]
8. If Tomb of the Lost Queen has a snake on the cover art, choose 4. If not, choose 25. [Yes = 4]

Take the numbers and convert them to letters (A = 1, B = 2 and so on). Your final answer would be [Scotland]. Which is the location The Silent Spy is taking place in. (We've been aware of this desired location for years now, since many fans post there location "wish lists" on the Message Board). Did anyone try solving the puzzle by answering with all the wrong answers?

Also, we have a birthday shout out for a fan's cousin! Happy 15th birthday, dear cousin!

~Little Jackalope~

Weekend Puzzle #203

Hooray for Fridays! Today we launched some new Nancy Drew merchandise in our store! Check these out:

Now you can own an official Nancy Drew clock, as well as other collectibles like a trivet or pencil caddy. Pick the image you want for each item and add to your collection!

Time for a weekend puzzle. Enjoy, super sleuths!

1. If Secret of the Old Clock is game #11, then choose 1. If not, choose 19.
2. If the white water bottle in the merchandise store shows the River Heights Police Badge, choose 3. If not, choose 13. 
3. If the third Nancy Drew Diaries book is called Mystery of the Midnight Flyer, choose 25. If not, choose 15.
4. If Loulou is listed as a character on the Curse of Blackmoor Manor character profiles page, choose 19. If not, choose 20.
5. If Tomb of the Lost Queen has its own music soundtrack available for download, choose 12. If not, choose 20.
6. On the main page for Ghost of Thornton Hall is a list of Key Features. If one of those keys features says “hunt for ghosts” choose 5. If not, choose 1.  
7. If Ellie York from The Deadly Device works the day shift, choose 18. If Ellie works the night shift, choose 14.
8. If Tomb of the Lost Queen has a snake on the cover art, choose 4. If not, choose 25.

Also, we have a birthday shout out!

~Little Jackalope~