Playing for Second Chances

One of the fun things about playing a Nancy Drew game are "second chances". While they are very appreciated at the times where you fail at something or do something wrong, these second chance sequences can also be entertaining.

Have you ever purposefully made a mistake or purposefully done something wrong in the game just to see what would happen? A few examples would be these:

1. Curse of Blackmoor Manor: Down in the conservatory where the plants are, if you click on the giant carnivorous plant more than once.
2. Message in a Haunted Mansion: in the front hall, up on the staircase, you choose to unravel the chandelier rope for no particular reason.
3. The Final Scene: up on the balcony, when you look over the ledge to try to get something that is slightly out of reach.
4. Danger on Deception Island: Making a bad sandwich and giving it to Katie when she says she is hungry.

I love this moment:

The reaction I receive when I did something awful... is priceless. What is your favorite second chance sequence?

Instead of a weekend puzzle this weekend, I have another "tease" for you to ponder over and discuss among yourselves. It has to do with our next game, and will also be going into the merchandise store once I am finished formatting it:

We have a birthday!

~Little Jackalope~

Future Game & Past Game Art

Hooray for Mondays! Another week to do awesome things at Her Interactive has just begun. For me, this will be working on formatting this image below for the Merchandise store. (I'm almost done.)

 I did get a little distracted hunting through old archive files. In which I found this awesome pencil sketch! Check it out, do you recognize this friendly face?

As for the weekend puzzle, simply use the [alt code] to discover the message. To do this, open up a document where you can type into it. Hold down the "Alt" key on your keyboard and type the number provided, then let go of the "Alt" key. You will get this answer: [Off limits area? Not to Nancy!]

We have a few weekend birthdays!

~Little Jackalope~

Historical Reference: Theatre

We have a Caption Contest winner! After the judges read through all comments on Facebook, it was narrowed down to Rachael G. of Australia for her caption:

Gray: "So you don't think wrapping ourselves in foil and paper clips to create little faraday suits would protect us?"

Congrats Rachael! (Thanks for participating, everyone! Stay tuned for more caption contests in the future!)

I continued to do some archive-digging today and found some interesting things in our art folders. Our artists always start out with some direction from our design team, and then reference real images and items and places before they begin on the artwork for the game. This way it adds to the realism of the environment. I can't show you too much of what we are referencing here for Ghost of Thornton Hall, but I can show you some photos from the past.

Check it out! As one of our many references that we collected for creating the theatre in The Final Scene, we looked at the American Conservatory here:

I thought this looked really cool! I researched a little more on this gorgeous theatre to compare to our game, and the Royal Palladium looks like it's falling apart compared to its awesome reference. Can you imagine sitting in the house as a guest of a terrific show here?

Head's up! New poll on your right -->
~Little Jackalope~

A Sudden Decision

We had another top-secret walk-through meeting today for Ghost of Thornton Hall. I'll try not to spoil it for you, but a small mention came up of a few second chances that we have done in the past. This instance is where you, as Nancy Drew, must make a quick-second decision to... well... do something.

A couple of examples that came to my mind were the ones from The Final Scene and The Haunted Carousel.


In The Final Scene, there is a moment where you are walking back stage and you see dust falling from above as you hear something coming from that direction. You are left with a few decisions: continue forward, stay put, look up, or move backwards. If you don't move fast enough, your head will soon be hurting and it's lights-out Nancy.

 

Same thing in The Haunted Carousel; you receive a note to arrive downstairs, but it's a dead-end. At this point something big from above comes flying down at you!!

Perhaps a word of advice to culprits and villains in the future: when it comes to Nancy, giving her a 2-second warning does not improve your chances of hurting her. Giving her a smack on the head from behind is more risky, but definitely a more accurate, and guaranteed hit.

Also, Happy 18th birthday to Andreea!!!

~Little Jackalope~

Classic Guides

One of our long-kept secrets is that we had half-created information and pictures ready to put together strategy guides for The Final Scene and Message in a Haunted Mansion. o.O These have been in our office for some time, but that is all I will share with you. We have other secrets that we keep as well...

Today (yes, today exactly) they have become available for digital download purchase! Yay! For those of you who have never ordered a digital guide, here is a great tip about these: When you are in a game, say for example Tomb of the Lost Queen, and you need a little guidance how to solve a puzzle (like the amulet sorting in the tent), you can hit the Windows button on your keyboard, which pauses your game right where you are, so that you can take a look at the guide page, then click on the game at the toolbar at the bottom of your screen to get right back to the part of the game you left off at.

I have done this before, and it is super easier to use than the physical guide. *Special note: all newer games' guides are in color!

Head's up! Twitter Quote Contest is going on today! Head over to participate for a chance to win a digital guide to Shadow at the Water's Edge!
~Little Jackalope~

Nancy's Second Chances

Hope you all had a great 4th of July! One comment in response to the previous blog post said:

And I thought "This is so true. Nancy is always destroying things or blowing stuff up...on accident that is." I totally didn't mean for you to go and blow up a bunkhouse or photo lab, set fire to the kitchen or go setting off alarms. That would be bad, since there is no "Second Chance" button to go back before the incident. Ouch. But if you are playing a Nancy Drew game, I would encourage you to push it to the limits and try out what would happen if you attempted to reach the gear over the balcony without help in The Final Scene or didn't switch the correct wires at the roller coaster in The Haunted Carousel, or even press all the incorrect buttons up high above the tomb ground in Tomb of the Lost Queen.

Some of those Second Chances are rather fun to experience, and sometimes they are funny. Someone here in the office enjoys the second chance in Secret of the Scarlet Hand where you can drop the monolith dials. "It's too heavy!" Ah, good times, and some of them: good scares. My current favorite is at the end of The Final Scene if you do not rescue Maya in time. The first time I saw that happen I gasped really hard, and might have jumped a bit. XD

We have some big things planned to come soon, and some clever detectives discovered a little bit of one of the projects, of which we will reveal later....unless you find it, too. ;)
~Little Jackalope~