Searching for Medallions

Did anyone play Treasure in the Royal Tower this weekend? I sure did for our first marathon in preparation for The Shattered Medallion! Somethings that I noticed for the first time: Professor Hotchkiss never tipped Nancy for all the work she did! Also, even though I know where everything is in Wickford Castle, it would have sure been nice to have a map someplace to refer to...but then, that would defeat the purpose of exploring and running into (and introducing ourselves to) dead ends.

Next week's marathon: Secret of the Scarlet Hand, for Sonny Joon reasons.

Check out this fan art that Faylene emailed to us! It's Sonny Joon!

For those of you who were anxious about the Nancy Drew madness on Facebook, I did not update the brackets chart these past few days because I was not in the office over the weekend. No worries, I was still counting the votes at 1:00pm each day! The chart is currently up-to-date now.

Looks like a few of you solved the weekend puzzle! Good thing it was an easy one, because the message boards are still down and you can't communicate with each other about it just yet. It is a [rail fence] cipher, but the moon walk clue meant for you to count backwards. The answer is [Fate moves in odd ways...like a spider!] which is a direct quote from The Shattered Medallion.

~Little Jackalope~

Weekend Puzzle #232

It's the weekend! Most importantly we begin a game marathon building up to the release of The Shattered Medallion. In this blog post here I list out the schedule of the games I will be playing.

This weekend we begin with Treasure in the Royal Tower, for the fun of searching for missing medallions!

A few reminders: This is the last weekend to participate in the Kindle Contest. Check it out on our home site...it's the hovering side-bar on the left of the page.
Also, the message boards are still down for maintenance, and will likely be back up next week.

Here's your weekend puzzle! Hint: moonwalk this track.

EPEL.ADIVEF

RIAI.YDNEMA

!DSK.SWOSOT

We have a birthday!

~Little Jackalope~

MED Fan Art - Box Covers

For the past several months I have seen several fan art for The Shattered Medallion, particularly for the cover art (this is from before we revealed our official art). I wanted to show you what our fans were thinking and how they creatively perceived the game to be, using only the knowledge they had from the teaser video. The last art design below was made after we revealed the desktop icon.

Do you have any fan art you would like to share? (Perhaps of Sonny Joon?) Post them to our Facebook wall! That's where I see a lot of art come in. Perhaps I will feature your lovely work here on the blog in the future...

~Little Jackalope~

Memorizing the Games

For those of us players who like to replay the Nancy Drew mysteries over and over, we tend to memorize random parts. For example, certain quotes like "Fifty drumsticks, please! Chicken, that is. Cluck, cluck!" or even "You're asking the wrong amnesiac!" Other things we might remember would be where to find an Easter egg or where to locate a certain password, or remembering where to enter 3*72 to turn off an alarm.

Here's something that a few of us have memorized: the tapestry poem in Nancy's room in Message in a Haunted Mansion. "Listen my child..."

Have you been able to recite the poem by heart?

Head's up! Twitter Quote contest is today!

~Little Jackalope~

News & Medallions

There is a lot going on this week at Her Interactive! We just finished the Caption Contest on Facebook (congrats to our winner, Avery!), and we are getting the product page ready for The Shattered Medallion. There is a lot to do!

Also, just a head's up: we will be working on the Message Boards between Wednesday, March 26th and Tuesday, April 1st. It will be back up on April 2nd. (It needed to get pushed back a day). So don't try to log in or post during this time...because it might not work for you.

Work has been slow on the trailer because we have been busy, and as soon as I'm finished with this blog post I will be getting right back to it!

Here's something else to keep in mind: this Friday through Sunday I will begin the Nancy Drew marathon by playing Treasure in the Royal Tower. If you do not have this game, you can order it in our store here. If you do have it, now is the time to install it and get it ready with your notebook and pencil (unless you have the game memorized and don't even need to take notes).

If you are a fan of TRT, I'd like to point out one of my favortist things in our Merchandise Store: The medallion images featured on the round ceramic ornaments! (I also added the purple one to represent Marie's favorite color. This way, you can purchase two ornaments and have a color on each side, getting all four for your collection.)

~Little Jackalope~

Sonny Appearances in March

What did you think of the cover art we released last Friday? Yes we have been teasing Sonny Joon for a while now, and to clarify, yes it is Sonny on the cover art. I personally am really excited because Sonny, to me, turned out better than I imagined.

Our style of the cover art and box layout design is our signature look nowadays: small details hidden around the illustration show minor (or "secondary") important features of the game that surround the center-most important element. There is a picture of George in the top left corner, hanging onto a bridge. To the right is an underwater submerge-able with a character inside, and many competitors are shown at the base. Have you noticed the circle of logos on the ground?

Sonny Joon is centered on the illustration over the shattered medallion pieces because he is the most important part, along with of course, that medallion.

So what do you suppose Sonny is up to in this next game? Why have we made him the center of the art? What is he thinking? More info will come in the near future, and more questions may arise later when the trailer is released.

For now, save this cover art onto your desktop and remember when pre-orders begin! Also, we have made Sonny Joon's concept illustration available in the merchandise store. Who wants a Sonny t-shirt? I DO!!! I will soon begin working on the cover art design for the store, so keep coming back to learn when that becomes available. ;)

A few minor announcements for you:
1. Nancy Drew madness is becoming even more exciting! SHA barely beat our SAW today on Facebook. (Please do not enter multiple times via comments, this is cheating and is unfair to the competition. If we see that you are breaking this rule, we will further exclude your votes. Today I subtracted a few votes whose members posted several times. Please follow the rules. I'd very much appreciate it, thanks!) 

2. The message boards will be down between this Wednesday, March 26th to Monday, March 31st for maintenance. We appreciate your patience while we work on the forums!

Lastly, we have a birthday to celebrate!

 
~Little Jackalope~

Nancy Drew: The Shattered Medallion Box Art

The Shattered Medallion box art has been released! Mark your calendars for pre-orders on April 15th!

Click the image for a larger view!

Here are all the dates to keep in mind for The Shattered Medallion:

-The Her Interactive Team

Marathons in the Spring

I'm super excited because today is the first day of spring! Here's a sample of what our spring here looks like during lunchtime at the office:

On a new note, I've seen questions from you come up inquiring about Nancy Drew game marathons in preparation for our next game release. There are three types of marathons that come to my mind, personally...

1. The Classic Marathon -- ALL THE GAMES!

This is where players see if they can re-play all of the Nancy Drew games before the release date of the newest Nancy Drew game. This pretty much requires that you have all the games (that are available) and can find time to play that many. Play these in numerical order, starting with #1.

2. Similar Games Marathon 

Another marathon you could participate in is a "similar games" marathon. This means any other other Nancy Drew games that may feel similar in game play to the new title. It might be hard for you to determine the style of game play for The Shattered Medallion because, well, you simply haven't played it yet. From my perspective, the games that would most match the game play style or even small similarities for MED are these: Ransom of the Seven Ships, Danger by Design, Secret of the Scarlet Hand, Tomb of the Lost Queen. You can play these in any particular order, but I highly recommend playing RAN last.


3.  Themed Marathon

This one can be very similar to the "Similar Games Marathon". The theme, for example, of The Shattered Medallion is a "medallion". There are other Nancy Drew games that feature medallions, such as Treasure in the Royal Tower and The Captive Curse. If you'd like to broaden the theme to include other games, you could add Secret of the Scarlet Hand and Tomb of the Lost Queen for their relics and antiques and generally old treasures (that are not exactly gold or precious stones).

So what kind of marathon are you most excited about participating in? Many members on the message board put together marathons that you could follow and participate in. I myself would recommend playing all titles that you have not yet played before. But if you have ALL of the Nancy Drew games...may I present to you the option to participate in the Amateur Sleuth Game Marathon!

These are the games I recommend playing before pre-orders for The Shattered Medallion end: Treasure in the Royal Tower, Secret of the Scarlet Hand, Danger by Design, The Captive Curse, Tomb of the Lost Queen, and Ransom of the Seven Ships. I also scheduled in a weekend to re-watch all of our YouTube trailers before the MED trailer is released.

We have a spring birthday!

~Little Jackalope~

Blowing Up Chemicals -- It's a Nancy Drew Thing

We shared this Nancy Drew moment today:

How many of you have experienced the frustration and paranoid fear when you tried solving this puzzle? Each time I play The Haunting of Castle Malloy and reach this puzzle I get nervous. Using the claw to pick up the individual elements without touching anything else is a bit nerve-wracking for me. One little bump with the claw and BOOM!! Explosion. You need to manipulate the claw correctly and perfectly in order to solve this puzzle.

Yikes.

Hey! Twitter quote contest is today! And Round 2 of the Nancy Drew Madness voting on Facebook has begun! You can check out the current standings here.

~Little Jackalope~

Medallions of the Past

Medallions occasionally make appearances in various types of Nancy Drew mysteries, as well as in the books. They are highly valued pieces of ornately decorated stones or jewelry that are a treasure to its owner.

Three medallions were the center piece of the story in Treasure in the Royal Tower, where Nancy had to locate all three medallions that had belonged to Marie Antoinette, and I personally think are  most beautiful. Not only are they pretty, but they served several more purposes in the game. I won't spoil it for you in case you haven't played it yet.

In a more recent game, The Captive Curse, there is a medallion fastened as a necklace. The original medallion necklace was worn by girls who were reportedly attacked by the monster. Because of this story, there are replicas in the Castle souvenir shop. So if you wanted to lure a creepy monster to yourself, just wear a necklace!

Our next Nancy Drew game, The Shattered Medallion, has the medallion right in the title. This is another very important medallion, as you will soon learn. Obviously it is broken into five parts and has a beautiful carving on its face. What do you suppose this medallion's story is? Will it serve a purpose? Will it lure you to your death? Is it symbolic of something?

Only this will I tell you: there is more here than meets the eye.

~Little Jackalope~

Happy St. Patrick's Day 2014!

I unearthed an old sketch I did a few years ago to share with you for today in honor of St. Patrick's day.

From left to right is a coatimundi, an alien, a leprechaun in the alien's hat and spaceship, and a Koko kow from Sonny's sketch on Minette's intern's computer screen.

There are still a few hours left in the day for you to order a physical game for 50% off! Have you played The Haunting of Castle Malloy? It's set in Ireland so it would make a fantastic game to play this week. Or if you are missing any game from your bookshelf collection, now is a great time to fill that gap. With this sale, you could get some games for as little as $5, and I think that is a pretty fantastic deal in our store.

As for the weekend puzzle, it looks like many of you have already cracked the Morse Code to read [Cover art is next to come.] I have already had a sneak peek at the artist's work on this...and I LOVE it. However, your opinion may match or may not match mine. You'll just have to wait and see.

Have you been following the Nancy Drew Madness game duels on Facebook? We are getting close to the second round!

We have a belated birthday!

~Little Jackalope~

Weekend Puzzle #231

It's St. Patrick's Weekend! We have a BIG sale happening right now all the way through Monday, check it out and shop here.

Also, with the reveal of the desktop icon, our fan Karina sketched out a lovely medallion (unshattered) and shared it with us!

Aaaaaaaand here's your weekend puzzle:

Don't forget about the Nancy Drew Madness game duels on Facebook. Visit each day to "vote" on your favorite game!

~Little Jackalope~

MED Desktop Icon

We have revealed the actual shattered medallion! Voila! It will also be the desktop icon. I need to remember to add this to the merchandise store in the near future. However, there are much more awesome images I will be adding to the store....next week. Likely Wednesday. One concept image is done. The second is still finishing up. trailer

Oh boy, we have a long list of things to get ready for, and I can't share with you most of it...but somewhere in this post I have hidden one other project I am about to start.

Oh hey! Have you signed up to receive our newsletters? I recommend it, especially if you are missing games from your mystery collection and want to know as soon as we start a big sale. *Wink*.

~Little Jackalope~

The Artist...is Closer

So we shared this little tease today...

Thought you might like that. (~.^)

Twitter Quote contest is happening now! (Ends tonight.)

~Little Jackalope~

Books & Dates

The biggest news of the day is the part where we released the official dates for The Shattered Medallion:

And yes, this is our main color for the box art. (~.^) Whoo-hoo!

Tomorrow and Thursday we reveal (or tease) more! I'm looking forward to your reactions. You could say we are just starting to pick up the pace in revealing content to you. Somethings are coming up that will be revealed sooner than you think. One of my weekend puzzles (that I hadn't fully explained) has a clue to when stuff will be revealed.

New announcement! For those of you who are collecting the latest Nancy Drew books, we have the fifth one available now on our web site here.

Birthday!

~Little Jackalope~

A Little News Clip

I was excited to come back to the office today and listen to this little news clip here. Check it out! It's a news interview with Stuart, our CEO, about the release of the Ghost of Thornton Hall app for the iPad.

At the end of it Stuart mentions a little tease...this is a true "rumor", but at the moment we are currently not working on this new addition that he mentioned. It *could* be a future potential project we are going to add, but at the moment we are more focused on the GTH app, and the next game, The Shattered Medallion.

As for the weekend puzzle, it looks like a couple of you were able to solve it with brute force! However, it is actually a [columnar transposition] cipher, which I sort of hinted at. (~.^) The answer is [Ladybug, ladybug fly away home] which is directly from Ghost of Thornton Hall.

We have a birthday!

~Little Jackalope~

Weekend Puzzle #230

Howdy all! I have a few things to point out today, and some are just reminders.
First, we have a sale going on for The Deadly Device this weekend!

Also, we will still be posting more game duels for Nancy Drew Madness on our Facebook page over the weekend, so check back every day to participate.

And of course, there is still the Kindle HDX promotion going on. You can enter via Facebook page or our home site! Remember, you can enter as many times as you'd like!

Lastly, here is your weekend puzzle:

Use this: SOHTG

To transpose this: YAGWM - DLUAO - AGBYH - BDFAE - LUYLY

Have a fantastic weekend!
~Little Jackalope~

Classics vs. New Titles

Have you been following our Nancy Drew Madness this week? You can see which games will be coming up in the brackets on the chart. Notice how, roughly speaking, the old classic games are dueling with newer titles?

From my perspective, I can predict winners on some duels easily, and others I await the results. Like Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake vs. Warnings at Waverly Academy. I really like both of those games A LOT, but I'm not sure what the fans' perspective will be. This will be a hard one for me to choose, but I have a good guess which will win.

However, my predictions and votes are of just my thoughts. May the general Nancy Drew fandom as a whole be heard! Remember, to participate, check back on our Facebook page each day (we tend to post around 1pm PST) and read the instructions to either "like" or "comment" to vote on the respective game that is presented to you. I update the grand chart here each time we post a new duel.

~Little Jackalope~

Shadows in Your Face

In honor of Ghost of Thornton Hall now being available for the iPad, we shared this Nancy Drew Moment today:

Was anyone else startled when you opened the showroom door to exit to the hallway and saw a shadow move in front of you? I love those unexpected moments of surprise fear! The unexpected moments are what get me!

Twitter quote contest is today!
Also, there is a new game duel up on Facebook for you to vote on. Be sure to read the instructions in the post. Many Facebook members "like" or "comment" without reading any of it. :-(

~Little Jackalope~

Ghost of Thornton Hall for the iPad!

Hooray! Today is a historic day for Her Interactive! We have launched a full-length mystery onto the iPad! Nancy Drew: Ghost of Thornton Hall used to be available exclusively for PC and Mac computers, but is now available in the iPad App store here. The Android and Kindle Fire versions will release later.

I'm excited! Are you going to get Nancy's scariest case on your device? (I've seen the animation run a lot more advanced than on the computer version...it looks so great!)

Side note: we have a flash sale in honor of Mardi Gras today! It only lasts for a few more hours, so if you don't have Nancy Drew: Legend of the Crystal Skull, it's a grand time to get it!

Not green and pink...that was in Venice.
~Little Jackalope~

Game-to-Game Competition

Have you seen the previous blog post I made earlier? Check it out! I'm not much of a basketball follower, but when it comes to a big competition, I'm totally a fan! I love being a competitor as well as see others compete.

This month, our version of "March Madness" is to go all Nancy Drew-style, of course. Check back each day on our Facebook page to participate and help us narrow down what the fans' choice all-time best Nancy Drew game is!

On a new note: We have another promotion happening! Look at this:

Head over to our home page to enter!

As for the weekend puzzle, it was an [Atbash] cipher, which pretty much means it's the alphabet backwards. The answer is [Colored hair is a must].

We have some more birthdays to celebrate!

~Little Jackalope~

Nancy Drew Madness!

This month, we want to know what you think is the best all-time Nancy Drew game. Each day, we will present to you one of the game duels shown in the brackets below on Facebook. Once the picture is posted, cast your vote!

To choose which game you think is better, follow the instructions on our Facebook page image. Either "like" or "comment" on the respective game to let your voice be heard! You only have 24 hours to vote, then the winning game will be added to the next bracket level shown.

Here is the grand "Nancy Drew Madness" chart:
 

Click on the image for a larger view.

This will be updated each time a winner is declared. Like us on Facebook and come back every day to cast your vote on the next set of dueling games! (And please refrain from cheating by posting multiple comments, thanks!)

~Little Jackalope~