Did you get a chance this past weekend to watch all of the official trailers on our YouTube channel? Some are definitely different and they have evolved quite a bit over the years. Do you have a favorite trailer? This is an easy question for me to answer...I personally like GTH and SPY's the best, but I am biased. XD
Here are the last few trailers, including the teaser for The Shattered Medallion below. After you watch these, come back tomorrow to watch the official trailer for The Shattered Medallion! You can subscribe to our channel to stay updated on our latest uploads, too.
Pre-orders begin tomorrow for Nancy Drew's next mystery! Head's up: we only made so many physical BONUS EDITIONs...so if you have your heart set on getting the boxed version, I suggest ordering early (or sometime this week) to be sure you will get your copy.
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.
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. :-(
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~
This week we are gearing up for the release of Ghost of Thornton Hall for the iPad (and later Android tablets and the Kindle). It launches on Tuesday in the App store! Whoo-hoo! One giant leap for Her Interactive! I'm excited! Finally, a great Nancy Drew game will be available to take along in my bag to show off to random people, and would give me something to do on long driving trips.
Speaking of driving trips, I was out of the office these past two days and out of town. I wish I had a Nancy Drew game to replay with me. I would have liked to play Tomb of the Lost Queen again. Mostly because it has been on my mind with this sale and all:
Are any of you missing this game? It's a great one! I love it!
Anyways, here is your weekend puzzle:
Xlolivw Szri rh z Nfhg!
We also have several birthdays to highlight from this past week and upcoming weekend:
I love it. For those of you with tablet device that have a lock screen, you may understand how creative it is. I set my "lock" screen to the "It's Locked!" picture of the crypt in the game, and then set my home screen to "It's UNlocked!" which is what shows up after you enter the password.
Is anyone else excited for GTH to come out for iPad? It's releasing next Tuesday!! (For non-iPad users: not to worry, it will be available for the Kindle Fire and Android tablets later.)
As for the weekend puzzle, it sounds like everyone got the [zodiac and moon symbol] references and counted the proper letters in each name. The end result would be this: [Eleven Sevens]. I'm seeing some great guesses to what this means, and some of you have come close, but haven't counted properly...
To show her thanks for winning the cookie contest last year, Rozanna sent us some fan mail. Only this fan mail is really creative: she used magazine clippings and Her Interactive-themed pictures to decorate with! Check it out:
Also, we just shared the date for when we are releasing Ghost of Thornton Hall for the iPad!
We have been working on The Shattered Medallion for a while now. The artists have a big deadline this Friday, an animator is animating the Artist and the Production team has already assembled some puzzles. We are testing these puzzles now. In fact, as I type, this very moment some people are testing a second round of puzzles in our testing lab.
This is one of the doodles I drew last year, around the same time we were testing out Ghost of Thornton Hall. Has it really been a year since we started testing GTH? Wow, time flies!
After I finish up this post, I'm diving into the latest game build to see how the game is functioning...and perhaps try out those puzzles!
"The Artist is coming..."
By the way, we have a Twitter Quote contest happening right now! Head over for a chance to win a digital guide!
Often do we get scared when something spooky happens or something creepy appears in a game, but then there is that thrill feeling that we experience in wanting to be scared, and wanting to see something so fascinating! I can't speak for everyone, but some people (myself included) enjoy seeing "ghosts" and crazy things happen before our eyes.
Lately, it's been a little quiet here at Her Interactive. The artists, however have a big date coming up soon where they need to finish a lot of pieces for the next game. I just might sneak into the files to see what they are up to. I believe I saw a picture of some sea life on one artist's computer as I was walking by...
We have a lot to share with you today! First off, we will be out of the office these days:
The winners of the cookie contest have been announced! Visit the Dare to Play blog here to see who won! (Thanks everyone for participating!)
Today is the first day of snow for us here in Bellevue/Seattle, and our Lead Tester and Designer made a snowman this morning:
Now for the conclusion of this year's "13 Hints for 2013"! While I left a few in the dark and up to you to ponder, I am finally revealing what they all meant (except for 2, really). Here is what the completed list looks like:
At the beginning of the year, we posted the music video "I'm Nancy Drew"
We have begun to add "Badge" images for each game in the merchandise store. So far, only SCK and STFD are up, but there will be more to come: a different badge for each title!
We posted the Lost Files of Gummy Bear Theatre video to YouTube
We added many new Nancy Drew Moments to our social media sites
Video Interview with Creative Director, Tim posted to YouTube
The Clue of the Whistling Bagpipes (ND Book) helped to inspire The Silent Spy
The talented actress of Prof. Hotchkiss returned to voice Harper Thornton in Ghost of Thornton Hall
Secret: It's still unofficial, but the big hint is in Creating a Character...
Excitement: We have a tease below for something in the future...
Charlotte's Mask was given away to 100 lucky fans who pre-ordered the BONUS Edition of Ghost of Thornton Hall
The pre-order contest for SPY was for the Kate Drew Spy Kit
Nancy Drew will be going "undercover" again in 2014
Fell, as in Alec Fell, a character from The Silent Spy
Here's your tease to #9:
"Fire so red, night so black. Dear, sweet Charlotte, please come back!"
Some of you have already noticed, but we posted a new video to our YouTube channel on Saturday! It's the start of a new series where we share with you real-life tips and examples on how to be like Nancy Drew, or to put "Drew" as a verb, "How to Nancy Drew".
We already have a short list that includes picking locks, finding secret rooms, and dusting for fingerprints, but we are always up for suggestions! Comment to this post below (or in the Blogs & Tweets forum on the message boards) with any and all ideas of the different Nancy Drew skills we could show you. What sort of things does Nancy do while on a case?
On another note, it looks like several of you correctly identified the weekend puzzle in the previous post, which says [New old character]. This is a reference to next game, and the discussions, comments and rumors I see are fun! Some guesses are valid, but it isn't the exact *someone* I'm secretly referring to. Another guesser is spot on.
There is something we do/do not do when building up the suspense. Might I suggest looking at GTH and SPY again? Something is either there or totally not there...
Does this make any sense? I hope not, because whatever I'm talking about is still a secret!
~Little Jackalope~
Yesterday was daylight savings, and we switched our clocks backwards an hour. I always get confused which way the light switches... does the sun stay up longer or go down sooner? Turns out the sun sets earlier in the winter. It's been really dark outside for a few hours already, it sort of feels like The Captive Curse outside, with the foliage and darkness.
Speaking of darkness, some fans dressed up as ghost Charlotte from Ghost of Thornton Hall this last Halloween! Check them out!
It appears as though the weekend puzzle has been left unsolved. I have given you this type of puzzle before, but this time I left out that little hint to nudge you in the right direction, just to make it harder. (I'm so mean!) Here's that hint: chances are, you may have forgotten that letters and numbers once shared the same space. Today's technology has changed since Jake had locker troubles.
Hey all! It's Friday! I've got some fun things to share with you...
First, I just wanted to share this picture taken by Twitter Fan, Kim. She has the magic mug featuring the Her Interactive logo on it from the Merchandise Store. I think it's awesome! But then again, I AM partial to all Nancy Drew Merchandise... Kim puts soup in her mug, yum!
Also, I'm working on a small project that will be posted next week. In the meantime, I'll share with you some pictures of it:
Yep, I dressed up as ghost Charlotte from Nancy Drew: Ghost of Thornton Hall. Remember! If you dressed up as a game character, share it with us on our social media pages (list to the right). We'd love to see your creative costumes!
Also, don't forget about the Pumpkin Carving Contest! This weekend would be an excellent time to get out those tools and carve some creative Nancy Drew pictures!
Yep. We have now sold out of the BONUS EDITION physical copies for The Silent Spy.
Also, many of you have received emails about your pre-order status. If you are confused what this means, please read this note from our Administrator on the Message Boards.
Check these out! We had a little fun and put together some outfits inspired by Charlotte in Nancy Drew Ghost of Thornton Hall. Great sample pieces to put together a Halloween costume!
For those fashion-savvy social-sharing fans out there, we just started a Polyvore account! In case you wanted to check out our sets. ;)
Do you have a favorite Nancy Drew box art? There have been some classics in the past, and some striking new ones these past few years. I particularly like Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake, Shadow at the Water's Edge, Ghost of Thornton Hall, but my #1 new favorite hasn't even been shown yet! Soon, and all in good time it will be revealed.
Looks like several of you correctly solved the puzzle! Here's the solution:
Covert the keyboard characters ^, !), !#, @, !, !, !), $ into [their respective numbers on the keyboard]. Which is [6, 10, 13, 2, 1, 1, 10, 4]. Then go back to the blog posts on the given dates, and find the hidden [messages]. Next, count [that many letters in the secret m3essage to get your final letters].
The final word from searching the blog is this [REVENANT]. Some of you on the Message Boards hit the nail on the head with it's definition, but it's meaning is further away than you think. However, it's voice is creepy... were "you paying attention?"
Birthday!
~Little Jackalope~ Tomorrow is important... I'm going to be having crazy fun...
With all the excitement we had over our last game, Ghost of Thornton Hall, it was quite easy to forget the old secrets hinted at for this year. Remember the old post 13 Hints for 2013 in January? There was one hint that I forgot to answer for GTH...
Next
Hint #7: Talent. This vague hint given at the beginning of the year was referring to Harper in Ghost of Thornton Hall. The actress who voiced Harper was the same person who brought life to Professor Hotchkiss in Treasure in the Royal Tower, Legend of the Crystal Skull, and more recently, Tomb of the Lost Queen. She's been a favorite to many since the early days, and we were excited for her performance as crazy Harper.
is
Now, there are at least two more hints from January that point toward the next mystery: The Silent Spy. One I can reveal at the moment:
#
Hint #6: Whistling. While our Design team comes up with a brand new story and mystery for Nancy each game, they do their research ahead of time and take a look at inspiring Nancy Drew books. One inspiring book for the design of The Silent Spy was, of course, "The Clue of the Whistling Bagpipes". This book has Nancy traveling back to her own country where she plays bagpipes at a few points to communicate across a distance.
13.
Here is where we stand with our 13 hints/clues checklist:
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).
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.
