Every Nancy Drew PC game ranked from best to worst (because I accidentally deleted the old one)
Hey there! I screwed up and deleted my old Nancy Drew game ranking from 2015 (updated 2019). So here it is, reproduced in its entirety. Thanks to the nice person with the burner account for bringing this to my notice!
So! Ever since I completed the tedious undertaking of ranking all the Nancy Drew suspects, I’ve had people asking me to do a comprehensive ranking of the games themselves (like two people, but that still counts as people). So here it is, finally.
Standard disclaimer applies: these are my opinions and my opinions only. They’re completely subjective and based on my own personal likes and dislikes. There are games I hate that I know people love, and games I adore that I know people can’t stand (lots of them, even!). I in no way claim this ranking as definitive. You do you.
Oh, and Dossier games aren’t included, and spoilers for everything, obviously. Edit, June 2015: As I’ll update this every time a new game comes out, expect changes to occur. I’ll add some liner notes at the bottom of the ranking to justify these adjustments. With that out of the way? LEGGO BITCHES.
33. SECRETS CAN KILL (#1, 1998 and 2010)
For the purposes of this list, I’m ranking the original 1998 masterpiece and the 2010 remaster together, though honestly one is barely better than the other.
Long before she before she aged from 18-year-old girl to 18-year-old woman, before she travelled to England and Japan and the 1930s to pester people about their dead mothers, Nancy took on the humble task of solving the murder of a Florida teen at the request of her horrible Aunt Eloise (I’m inferring horribleness, but all we have to go on is her abiding friendship with Mattie Jensen and that living room, so Aunt Eloise must be a thoroughly asinine human being). SCK is the original Nancy Drew PC adventure, or “cybermystery” as they were then hilariously called, and holy shit, it is bad.
There are two broad categories in which its badness manifests. First, and more easily forgiven: the rough edges of a rookie series about three games away from finding its groove. Nancy doesn’t have a personality yet, as such, and seems to lean mostly on barking the last few words any given suspect says back at them until they crack. Yes, if you believe it, Nancy has actually gained social finesse over the years. Similarly, calling Bess or George or Ned for a hint has them screaming non-sequiturs into the phone and abruptly hanging up; perhaps this was a pro-social trait in turn-of-the-millennium River Heights. The story of the game is similarly bizarre. Long-time patrons of the series will know that the titles have undergone a sort of bell curve of darkness, with Jake Rogers’s murder and the Nik Blahunka era of bioterrorism and matricide representing opposite ends and a lot of light-hearted “I’m dressing up like a monster and causing minor household accidents” in between. Even keeping that in mind, the saga of a teenage sociopath getting beaten to death over drugs and blackmail feels assonant and weird. The whole mystery has a coked out afterschool special vibe that’s really out of step for a Nancy Drew game.
But I could happily forgive all of this if the original SCK were not such a perfect, crystalline time capsule of all the hideous technological limitations of 1998. Generic-looking 2D animations laid over sparse 3D renders? Heavily compressed background music that feels like it loops every six seconds, like a monkey inside your computer is pressing play on a HitClips over and over and over? And, the coup de grâce, that fucking extra CD you need to pop in and out every time you want to enter the high school (where 75% of the game is set). If you need a approximation of the feeling this elicited, please see here.
The remaster avails upon a decade plus of technological advancements to do away with the worst of these issues, but that only drags the game across the line into “playable.” Her has also effectively rejigged the game into one long-ass, boring-ass puzzle, so there’s not much enjoyment to be drawn there. In the end, SCK is kind of like an outlaw’s skeleton: it merits display as a morbid historical curiosity, but once you’re in the same room with it, you just feel kind of sad. 32. RANSOM OF THE SEVEN SHIPS (#20, 2009)
The SCK entry is long because, sure, it’s bad, but there’s a bunch of mitigating factors: it was the late ‘90s, computers were still powered by hamsters on wheels, and Her Interactive didn’t know what the fuck to do with this new licence they’d miraculously landed. I will not be granting the same leniency to RAN, because there is no fucking excuse for this game to be as bad as it is. I can’t even fathom the discussions that took place. “Let’s eliminate the entire cast of suspects, and replace them with a single NPC who cycles through a series of unconvincing accents!” “What if we hide critical game-advancing inventory items behind a series of mini-games which rely completely on chance, and if you lose them, monkeys mock you?” “How many shitty flash game-style user interfaces can we fit into one game?” “What’s a suitable marquee puzzle in a game about Spanish conquistadors? I know! A Sudoku! Only there’s no numbers and you can suffocate to death.” Literally the only redeeming thing about RAN is its gleefully absurd twist ending, because as much as it’s half-assed and makes absolutely no sense, it’s a sign of life from a team I was sure had fallen asleep behind the wheel. Like oh, RAN, you made me feel something other than smoldering boredom and eye-twitching rage. Good for you! 31. THE WHITE WOLF OF ICICLE CREEK (#16, 2007)
ICE is sort of my Nancy Drew pet hate. Like, the badness of SCK is taken for granted because of its age (and most people haven’t played it since it requires, like, a literal phonograph), and RAN is critically accepted as a terrible game. But I think a shocking amount of people really like ICE, and I’ve never gotten an explanation for it that satisfies me. I think it’s entirely because there’s a wolf in it? And like, straight up, wolves are both adorable and majestic so I get the instinct. But holy shit, I have never seen a Nancy Drew game so dead set on hurling obstacle after obstacle at you to keep you from completing any actual detective work. Like, you can’t explore outside of the lodge too long or you’ll perish of hypothermia, and you’d better not stray too far because you’ve got three square meals a day to make back at the kitchen, and hey, solving mysteries is for squares; why don’t you go up to Yanni’s room and collect his jizz towels for laundering instead? Chuck in an uninspired story, a bland group of suspects, some gnarly interfaces including a depressing 2D snowmobile chase finale, and a handful of truly agonizing puzzles (Fox and Geese x3, Jesus fucking Christ), and you’ve still only got the tip of the iceberg (lol) of everything I hate about this game. 30. THE SHATTERED MEDALLION (#30, 2014)
From what I gather, Nik Blahunka is something of a polarizing figure within the Nancy Drew fandom, and I totally get it. He’s an acquired taste, and his stories were prone to meandering existential tangents about thoughts and feelings, and his dialogue can get a bit cutesy and self-impressed. When he reins in his worst instincts, though, I’m firmly a fan. I think his work in SAW and GTH and SPY was pretty and mature and sad, just the right amount of sentimental and literary, and games like CAP proved he was capable of playing it straight and delivering something very much like the classic Nancy Drew look and feel. Basically, I really like what he did with the later games, and I’m excited for the new writer but I’m sad to see him go.
All that said, Blahunka was someone who benefited from a judicious editor. If left unchecked, his shit had the same vibe as a stranger at a bus stop handing you a newspaper covered in paranoid scribblings about the Illuminati. It just kinda went all over the place and made no sense and tried to do a million different things at once and had no coherent thesis whatsoever. If you can’t see where I’m going with this: welcome to Pacific Run!
Seriously, what is this game even about? It’s an absolutely dreadful depiction of a reality show (as I contested here and as thegoldengardenia broke down even more excellently here). The characters are ciphers who speak entirely in riddles. The central plot, about Sonny and his grandfather and the Annunaki, makes no fucking sense. The game itself is laid out so that it’s never clear what you’re supposed to do next and you can miss half the story by doing shit in the wrong order. It’s a confusing mish-mash of poorly executed parts that somehow add up to an even worse whole. George Fayne drops off a bridge in the first fifteen minutes and spends the rest of the game dipping in and out of consciousness in a painkiller haze. Would that the rest of us were so lucky. 29. THE CREATURE OF KAPU CAVE (#15, 2006)
Basically, this game is a series of never-ending busywork tasks, and if you squint your eyes and tilt your head, you’ll notice there’s an incredibly dull story playing out in the background at whisper level. I almost give this game props for how left-field its central mystery is – it rests on the deliberate explosion of the population of a certain kind of insect which feeds on pineapples, for some reason having to do with property deeds which eludes me at the moment because it’s equally convoluted and boring – but in the end, the whole thing is too opaque and confusing to even register unless you’re paying really close attention. If that’s not convincing enough, there’s also one of the worst endgame sequences in Nancy Drew history, and the fact that the game’s playability rests entirely on a fortunate glitch that cuts the bullshit tedium of it all (along with CRE’s overall play time) in half. CRE and ICE were the one-two punch that almost made me drop the series entirely, convinced that Nancy had hung up her magnifying glass indefinitely for the more relaxing pursuits of making shell necklaces and preparing carton omelettes.
28. MIDNIGHT IN SALEM (#33, 2019)
Against all odds, here we are. Midnight in Salem, the Duke Nukem Forever of the Nancy Drew series. It would be exhausting to note all of the many factors that swirl around any discussion of this game – the mass layoffs, the Lani Minella firing, the new engine, the disintegration of the company’s rapport with its fans – all of which are critical to interpreting Midnight in Salem as a whole. It forces me to use a special rubric: “was this a game worth waiting five years for?” The answer is no. It feels unfinished. The controls are awkward, the graphics are patchy, the character animations could politely be described as Mattie Jensen-esque. While I didn’t personally experience technical issues, glitch reports abounded. But I will say this for Midnight in Salem: at no point was it a chore. There are many earlier games with parts that are legitimately not fun (I won’t give my fox and geese spiel again but you know I’m thinking it), and whatever else I think of it, I was invested in MID the whole time. This is largely due to the story, a well-paced, interesting mystery about thefts and poisonings and deception against the backdrop of the Salem Witch Trials, and a large stable of characters who, while none are mind-blowing, all carry their share of the narrative weight. The story saves this one. If this ends up being the final Nancy Drew game, it might have been better, but it could certainly have been much worse.
27. THE HAUNTING OF CASTLE MALLOY (#19, 2008)
The good: an excellent, undeniably atmospheric setting in Castle Malloy. The great hall with the blown open walls and the visible moon is gorgeous, and areas like the bedroom in the tower and the hut in the bogs feel spooky, isolated and sad. The music does its part too, seguing as it does between upbeat reels and jigs and more mournful, contemplative pieces.
The bad: a truly grating presence in Kyler Mallory, one of the worst client-suspects ever to sit around feebly while you do every single piece of heavy lifting for her. Some baffling story threads, like Donal’s patronization of a non-alcoholic juice bar or Kit’s castle development subplot that goes nowhere. And a bunch of truly agonizing puzzles and tasks: if you’ve never known the feeling of returning what’s supposed to be your last sheep to the pen just as one of its mates escapes, or spending hours rotating colourful weasels only to be no closer to finishing than when you started, then you’re a luckier dude than I. I don’t think I’ve ever solved that Ogham runes puzzle without a walkthrough.
The inexplicable: it’s generally accepted that Dwayne’s Caribbean Vacation is the most random, OTT ending Her Interactive has ever thrust upon us, but Feral Old Woman On A Jet Pack has to be pretty fucking close. I’ve gone back and forth on this ending forever, but I’ve come to really enjoy its absurd campiness. I’m sad they haven’t made Fiona a recurring character, zipping around the world to follow Nancy on her journeys and hurl vegetables at her from on high. 26. TRAIL OF THE TWISTER (#22, 2010)
We’ve established that a focus on completing errands over solving mysteries won’t get you very far in this ranking, and TOT is chore fucking city. I go easy on it because most of the puzzles TOT throws at you are pretty fun, and the central mystery is bizarre enough to be novel (though, like CRE, to what end?), but there is some seriously unforgiveable hoop-jumping in this game. I have to suck gophers up with a vacuum? I have to do this mouse trap puzzle four fucking times (while trying not to accidentally eat the cheese thanks to the stupid interface)? I have to take pictures of clouds? I’m already defensive enough about my masculinity when playing these games. Don’t make me take pictures of clouds. That just makes me want to play GTA and kill shit (jk nature photography and murder should be enjoyed by people of all genders without reservation).
Basically, TOT is the unfortunate combination of mediocre and forgettable – maybe the most forgettable Nancy Drew game ever, actually? – and that lands it here. 25. SECRET OF THE OLD CLOCK (#12, 2005)
I remember hating CLK when it came out, which seems laughably overstated now. Still, I see how I got there. CLK birthed a lot of the worst recurring features of the series: a clunky driving interface, a tedious currency system, the fishing mini-game that would return with a bloody vengeance for CRE. It’s another busywork-heavy game, and the amount of bake-me-this-pie-bring-me-this-item-sort-these-things-for-me is out of control. By the time I’m making my 85th pass over Jim Archer’s wife’s dress, I’m contemplating my own mortality at a level rivalling only Jim Archer himself. Speaking of whom, fully half the characters in this game are total garbage and since the graphics team is trying out a new look and feel for the suspects, none of them looks very good either.
All that said, CLK is an uneven game, not a bad one. The storyline about Josiah Crawley and his clocks is classic Nancy Drew kitsch, the 1930s gimmick is cute and doesn’t overstay its welcome the way you might imagine, there’s some fun musical choices and the city of Titusville is a trove of in-jokes and snappy dialogue. If this game had one-tenth the mini-golf, we’d get along fine. 24. MESSAGE IN A HAUNTED MANSION (#3, 2000)
Controversial? From what I gather, MHM is a fairly beloved game, in no small part because it’s one many older fans claim as their first (not everyone is fortunate enough to get eased into the series by Hector “Hulk” Sanchez and his enlightened views on gender, I guess). For me, it’s still got a little too much of that strange early-era Nancy aftertaste. Everyone talks weird and Nancy doesn’t quite sound or act like herself yet. The suspects are waxen mannequins who flail around like they’ve been electrocuted. No one has much of a personality (except for glam Y2K throwback goddess Abby, long may she contrive fake séances amen), and Rose and Louis are bottom two humans of all time, fictional or non-fictional, on Earth and other planets.
But we’re firmly in the “inconsistent” section of this ranking, rather than the “bad”, and MHM has a bunch of stuff to recommend it. Despite, or perhaps because of, the technical limitations of the game, the unsettling atmosphere holds up surprisingly well (that “I see you” scared the shit out of me as a kid, straight up). The Victorian mansion that provides the game’s setting has a lot of character. And it’s almost worth the price of admission to chat with Hannah Gruen, who’s been let out of her sex dungeon by Carson for a rare phone appearance. 23. WARNINGS AT WAVERLY ACADEMY (#21, 2009)
Nancy Drew returns to high school for the first time since Paseo Del Mar, only this time, it’s the social media era and everyone’s an asshole. It’s hard not to see WAC as Nancy Drew’s treatise on girl-on-girl bullying, and in that regard, it’s a bit lacking. The game doesn’t quite capture the nuances of social warfare in a digital era. On top of that, the game is absolutely plagued with pointless errands, as these supposedly hypercapable valedictorian candidates palm off every possible task they can onto you so they can sit around and do fuck all in peace. Still, Nancy’s undercover, which is always fun, and there’s some interesting tasks, a cloak-and-dagger secret society, an absolutely absurd twist involving a pair of twins and some fuckery around Edgar Allan Poe to keep you entertained, so it’s not a total wash. 22. ALIBI IN ASHES (#25, 2011)
ASH is a game with a fun little story and lots of interesting themes that’s undone by some tragic game mechanics. In terms of the narrative, there’s a lot of cool stuff going on. “Nancy Drew as suspect” was an inevitable formula, but is cleverly executed and handled – I totally understand the RHPD’s instinct to let Nancy handle the case, even when she’s the one in custody (poor dudes have probably never had to solve a crime in their lives). While the notion of suburbia’s picture-perfect gloss hiding a dark underbelly is hardly an original one, the choice to portray River Heights in this way feels surprising and subversive. ASH also boasts the single best roster of suspects in any game, a group of caustic bitches in constant competition to see who can clown Nancy and her boring keener friends the hardest (Toni Scallari probably wins, but it’s seriously neck and neck throughout).
ASH lets itself down on the gameplay end of things, though. The decision to start the story in medias res is a noble one but just ends up feeling like the first twenty minutes of the game are missing – the Clues Challenge is haphazardly introduced and then hand-waved away, never to be thought of again. The end sequence is absurdly convoluted and requires either a walkthrough or a healthy handful of Adderall. And the “multiple protagonists” mechanic upon which the game hangs its hat is a fun idea but an absolute botch job in practice, a constant gauntlet of who-has-which-item memorization and time-consuming partner switching. 21. STAY TUNED FOR DANGER (#2, 1999)
Awww. I have a real warm spot in my heart for STFD, an utter relic of its era. You can tell it’s 1999 because a daytime soap with ratings cachet is an actual viable concept. I love media that deals with soap operas as a subject matter (there’s a story about a failing soap in my short story collection, actually) and Her has a lot of good instincts around the theme: form should always mirror function, and STFD is stocked with a thriving cast of diabolical cartoon characters with absurd motives. There’s arrogant playboys, cruel bitches, spurned lovers, dotty old spinsters. It’s a fun group, even as they never come close to resembling actual human beings, and the game clips along nicely. It’s a real joy to play.
That said, I can’t in good conscience rank the game much higher than this because its age really shows. They’re still working out a lot of kinks in the Nancy Drew formula, and a lot of the atmospheric touches feel off – the voice acting is clunky and poorly directed, the music is bland and forgettable, and the less said about those CGI heads, the better. Still, it’s a real pity the game has been discontinued, although younger fans can surely look forward to Lillian Weiss’s Seeing Red-esque HBO comedy-drama about Rick Arlen any day now. 20. DANGER BY DESIGN (#14, 2006)
I always love when Nancy Drew goes to Europe, because Her treats the continent with such an awed reverence – this impossibly cultured place of high art and exotic cuisine. It’s all over Nancy’s trip to Paris, one of the first times Nancy ever left continental America. DAN is far from a perfect game: it’s totally forgettable, and if it hasn’t become clear by the time you’re rummaging through Prudence Rutherford’s furry bustiers and rabbit masks that the game has absolutely nothing interesting to say about the fashion world, I don’t know what to tell you. Still, it’s a charming enough little romp, and worth playing for its affecting backstory about a codebreaker for the Allied war effort and her troubled relationship with the city she loves. Bonus points for the wonderfully creepy touches of the masked Minette and her refurbished moulin on the city limits. Very rude. 19. THE PHANTOM OF VENICE (#18, 2008)
Another forgettable European entry from Nancy’s middle era, VEN vibes very similarly to DAN with a bit more of an experimental flair. Usually, this just ends up in frustrating tasks and haunting existential questions: if you steal something that was already stolen, are you still a thief? Where are these clubs where you can dance in a cat suit to generic electro beatz? Why do I need a German dictionary if I’m in Italy? But the things that work, work well – it’s the first time Nancy ever dips into the super-spy world of government agencies and microdots (ground she would cover more thoroughly five years later in SPY), and it’s a lot of fun to uncover the codes and piece together the workings of an intricate burglary ring. All that plus Margherita Faubourg sunning herself on a terrazza? Sign me up. 18. SECRET OF THE SCARLET HAND (#6, 2002)
Readers may be surprised to see SSH take a powder before LIE, its modern counterpart which does a lot of the same things less successfully, but I have my reasons. By virtue of Nancy’s status as intern, it’s the first game to lean heavily on completing chores over solving mysteries. It’s not nearly as flagrant now that games like CRE and TOT exist, but it set a precedent and I need to dock points for that. Additionally, there’s something interesting about Nancy having to summon the pieces of the jade key from around the globe, but in practice it means huge portions of the game are spent talking on the phone and waiting for packages to arrive, which aren’t the most scintillating things in the world.
Still, there’s way more good than bad going on here: there’s a fun and diverse cast of characters, the atmosphere of the fictional museum is absolutely superb, and the Ancient Maya provide an excellent backdrop for the mystery’s modern goings-on. The game ticks off ‘amnesia’ as a plot point – any series as long in the tooth as Nancy’s was going to have to go there eventually, so it’s good they got it out of the way early. SSH also introduces a million and one iconic things to the Nancy Drew canon (Sonny Joon! Prudence Rutherford! Koko Kringles!), and the end sequence is one of the most gripping and disturbing they’ve ever done. 17. GHOST DOGS OF MOON LAKE (#7, 2002)
While all of the games of Nancy Drew’s golden era are excellent in their own right, it’s inevitable that I would fail to vibe with at least one or two of them, and that’s the case with DOG. Don’t get me wrong, there’s a lot to like here. Malone’s cabin and the speakeasy are beautifully drawn environments, and Eustacia and Vivian are as fun a pair of phone contacts as I can remember (try not to meditate on how old they would be now). But there are some drawbacks as well. DOG would probably benefit from a less spartan cast of suspects. The game occasionally spends too long on tangents that aren’t interesting, like bug collecting and bird photography, and I’ve had that stupid forest memorized for so long that’s easy to forget how pointlessly labyrinthine and imposing it is. The game also sets the bar high with an excellently creepy opening sequence and peters out after that, never delivering on the tension of the ghost dogs again after those first moments. Surely they could have chucked in another attack midway to spice things up? Still, thanks for making me fluent in Roman numerals. That’s always a cool party trick. 16. LABYRINTH OF LIES (#31, 2014)
By virtue of its recent release, LIE is a game whose reputation in the Nancy Drew canon hasn’t settled yet, but if I had to guess, I would imagine its mixed response and the lack of critical consensus will mean it probably gets lost in the shuffle of other, more successfully executed Blahunka-era games. And I get that: much like MED, it’s not really a convincing depiction of a museum, a play or a criminal enterprise. But I’m willing to forgive that for what I perceive to be the current of magical realism that snakes through the game. Sure, the incredibly complicated and ornate version of Hades that lives below the stage makes no fucking logical sense, but I never really felt like it was supposed to? Instead, the whole thing acts like a metaphor for Nancy’s own descent into the underworld of crime to solve the mystery. It’s an ambitious story and one that never quite reaches the fences it swings for, but I respect the effort, and the whole thing is worth it for one of the best image-rich final sequences the series has ever delivered. I love marauding Rottweiler Thanos stalking you around Hell, and I absolutely die for Xenia’s fanworthy final scenes as Empress of Hades. Pity her stage debut got curtained halfway through because that girl knows how to chew the fucking scenery. 15. THE SECRET OF SHADOW RANCH (#10, 2004)
And here’s where I lose a huge part of the audience. As far as I know, SHA is the audience pick for Best Nancy Drew Game Ever, or at least is tied with CUR for that honour. Unfortunately, SHA is just not all that to me, and a lot of it comes down to matters of personal taste. I’m not that interested in horses. The cast of characters does absolutely fucking nothing for me. A game set in the American Southwest sounds excellent but SHA never really taps into the surreal beauty of the place so everything just looks scrubbed out and brown. Shorty’s tasks, like picking vegetables and collecting eggs, are stabworthy. A perfectly good cake is ruined by a marzipan applique, like who the fuck likes marzipan? Even still, the game is almost completely redeemed by the most note-perfect historical backstory the series ever did, a tragedy-soaked tale of heartbreak in the Old West. I hope Dirk and Frances are ballin’ out of control in heaven, because they had a hard go of it in the mortal world. 14. TOMB OF THE LOST QUEEN (#26, 2012)
One of my favourite things about Nancy Drew is the fast food versions of world culture it delivers to my laptop. Like, I know when I boot up SAW, for example, that I’m not actually going to Japan, I’m going to a budget PC adventure game’s version of Japan. In that same vein, we have TMB, a game hilariously timed to release during the Arab Spring which nonetheless depicts Egypt as a barren land of sand, hieroglyphics and cursed mummies – and honestly, I wouldn’t have it any other way. Sure, the game highlights some questionable archaeological practices and a lot of overlong dialogue, mostly courtesy of Professor Hotchkiss (it’s funny stuff, but there’s so fucking much of it). But “ancient Egyptian tomb” is such an obvious fit for Her Interactive and Nancy Drew that it’s stunning it took them 26 games to get there. It’s not a particularly ground-breaking or notable installment in the series, but it’s a lot of fun to splash around in the beautifully rendered chambers and solve the meaty but rewarding riddles contained within. Nancy wouldn’t be on the ground for the Egyptian Revolution anyway – Nancy doesn’t do politics, except when she’s voting for Mitt Romney, I’m sure. 13. LEGEND OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL (#17, 2007)
I used to have an outsized love for CRY, which seemed like a revelation after the mediocre DAN and the dreary CRE and ICE, but those strong feelings have settled into a low-level admiration for one of the most solidly competent entries in the Nancy Drew series. It’s not a perfect game – the fuckery with the punny gravestones makes me want to light myself on fire, the loquat mini-game with the wasps triggers a million of my phobias, and by the end of the game, those glass eyes seem fucking endless. But gosh, I like a lot here. The cutaway segments featuring a reluctant Bess are utterly charming, the ramshackle Louisiana mansion with its massive graveyard and constant rain oozes personality, and it’s nice to transport ourselves back to a time when Professor Hotchkiss hadn’t yet overstayed her welcome. 12. THE HAUNTED CAROUSEL (#8, 2003)
One of the last games to fall before the top ten is CAR, which should in no way be taken as an indictment because I fucking love this game. The runtime is a bit short and the environments are limited, but I think amusement parks are such evocative settings and Captain’s Cove is delightfully drawn. The artistic direction in this game is off-the-charts phenomenal, the backstory of the park itself is wonderfully weighty and romantic, and the entire subplot about Joy’s father and Glory, Jesus Christ I can’t. The Nancy series is often at its best when it embraces magical thinking, and the entire Miles the Magnificent Memory Machine story is pretty and earnest and sad, sad, sad. Truly excellent stuff. Huge testament to the series that there are ten better games than this. 11. DANGER ON DECEPTION ISLAND (#9, 2003)
A bit of regional bias slipping through here: I’m a Pacific Northwest boy through and through (Vancouver born and raised), and DDI nails the fuck out of the strange, grey moodiness that pervades West Coast life. The most atmospheric Nancy Drew games tend to take place indoors, but DDI does excellent work outside, weaving a world of orphaned orcas, secluded beaches, dilapidated lighthouses and cavernous inlets. There’s also a nail-biting end sequence, a gorgeous musical score, a bomb cast of suspects, and the bad bitch of Nancy Drew past and present, Hilda Swenson, deposed hermit mayor of my heart. 10. CURSE OF BLACKMOOR MANOR (#11, 2004)
As critically lauded as CUR is, it’s actually taken me a while to vibe with it. It’s a technically great game, for sure, but my love for it wasn’t as instantaneous and wholehearted as it was for, say, CAR or DDI. But every time I play this game, I find twenty new things to like about it, and I’ve slowly been converted to a believer. CUR moves from strength to strength, between its wonderfully eccentric cast of characters, the gorgeous environments of Blackmoor Manor, some of the most simple yet diabolical puzzles Her Interactive has ever contrived, genuinely spooky scare sequences, and the palpable sense of rich history you feel while uncovering the manor’s secrets. And, not for nothing, the Ballad of Brigitte is the most inspired piece of diegetic music the series has ever featured. Loulou can go do one, and those glowsticks are a pain in the ass, but everything else here is Nancy Drew at the top of her game. 9. LAST TRAIN TO BLUE MOON CANYON (#13, 2005)
As I stated at the outset, this ranking is more indicative of my own personal idiosyncrasies than anything else, and TRN is a great example. Murder on the Orient Express was my favourite book growing up (I had my mystery phase when everyone else had their YA phase) so a mystery set on a train was always gonna get my dick hard. Still, that’s not enough to get a pass for me (I love reality TV, too, and look how that game turned out) so it’s good TRN has a million other dope things to recommend it. The train itself is gorgeous and wonderful to explore. The suspects are a motley crew of bitchy sociopaths, helmed by Paris Hilton knockoff Lori Girard, whose early doors disappearance gives the game an interesting structure – after it becomes apparent that Lori has not been kidnapped, TRN moves into a more meandering, self-directed experience. On top of that, you get the excellent sense that the suspects are actually interacting with each other off-screen, which is surprisingly uncommon and welcome. Finally, the end sequence is unconventional and super fun. I firmly believe that the Nancy Drew series should hit on every possible gaming cliché at some point, so why not mine carts? 8. THE DEADLY DEVICE (#27, 2012)
Fourteen years have passed, and Nancy Drew has decided we’re finally sturdy enough to make our first foray back into the glamorous world of murder. So let’s ground ourselves, slip on our favourite rubber gloves, and wade waist-deep into the electrocution death of Niko Jovic in DED (why not DEV? These acronyms make no fucking sense). God, I like this game. Usually, the Nancy Drew games that go off-kilter and sciencey with their mysteries, like CRE and TOT, tend to end up a little dry and boring. Not so with DED, which paints the world of Technology of Tomorrow Today vividly, grounding its story in the humanity of interpersonal conflict and ideological difference. There’s some interesting philosophical stuff about the ethics of commercial science, a lot of fun puzzles, and a real sense of experimentation and discovery. I remember the first time I played this game, I was super stoned and doing the 3D printing puzzle, and just as I locked it into place, the excellent soundtrack soared and I was like “Jesus Christ. I am science right now.”
Bonus points for the game box showing an elderly man in the throes of violent death. That’s pretty fuckin’ metal. 7. THE CAPTIVE CURSE (#24, 2011)
Surprise! I don’t see people being stoked on CAP a lot, but I really think it’s an underrated delight. It’s the modern-era game for the classic-era enthusiast. If you’re into Nik Blahunka’s writing tics, there’s some long Renate monologues and a superfluous subplot about the fraught state of Ned and Nancy’s relationship to keep you fed. But other than that, it’s just pure gleeful fun from beginning to end. Sure, the monster plot doesn’t really make any sense, but who cares? Suspend your disbelief and get swept along by the gorgeous atmosphere of the formidable Castle Finster, the stirring German folk tales, the fun characters, and the clever dialogue. I always think Nancy Drew games are at their best when you strip away all the accoutrements. Get rid of the currency system, the driving interface, the alarm clock, the blipping from dot to dot on a map of a subway. Put Nancy in a single, contained, gorgeous environment, chuck in some dope puzzles, give her an outlandish mystery to solve and a night to solve it, and excellence will ensue. I really love CAP and think the fandom should give another chance to this unfairly overlooked game. It does almost everything right and very little wrong. 6. THE FINAL SCENE (#5, 2001)
Maybe because they were the first two games I ever played, but I’ve always conceived of TRT and FIN as two halves of a whole, and it’s true that they share a lot of great things in common. Most saliently, perhaps, both have an excellent sense of place-as-character. You learn as much about The Royal Palladium as you do about any of the suspects, and there’s a real joy in uncovering its endless hidden rooms and secret passages. The kidnapping plot gives the game a sense of urgency and allows Nancy to dispense with her already meagre social graces – no time to fuck around with pleasantries, because if you do, Maya dies. Much better instead to be a total dick to everyone, consequences be damned. FIN also showcases the vibrant suspects and wonderful music typical to this era in the games’ history, and the golden age of magic is a resonant and apt backdrop for a Nancy Drew case for a million and one obvious thematic reasons. Finally, there’s a real effortlessness at play. The game clips along from the start – you’ll have time to breathe at the end.
Or, it must be said, during one of the endless, uninterruptable phone conversations. Those, I could probably do without. 5. TREASURE IN THE ROYAL TOWER (#4, 2001)
Sure, TRT shows its age. The games’ graphics and storytelling have become more sophisticated in the almost fifteen years (!) since TRT’s release. But for my money, TRT is the first Nancy Drew game to ever slam the ball out of the fucking park. The first three games were practice runs – there are hints of what the series would become, for sure, but all of the pieces never quite fell into place at the same time. But TRT makes a case for the series’ continued existence a decade and a half and 28 games later. Wickford Castle is an excellent setting, full of ornate hallways and dead ends. The harpsichord-heavy soundtrack is bespoke and memorable. The historical subplot with Marie Antoinette is aces. There’s a killer cast of suspects, including the dotty Professor Hotchkiss and the wonderfully taciturn Dexter Egan. And gameplay and lush environments merge seamlessly with an ease the series still has trouble repeating to this day. Think of the entire sequence from climbing out of the stopped elevator and crawling through the vents to the trashed library, to finding Dexter’s secret room with its framed butterflies and melting candles, to patrolling out into the blizzard and experiencing the haunting solitude of Ezra Wickford’s abandoned, snow-laden garden. It’s meaty detective work, and the game rewards you by taking your breath away. TRT was the first game to really show what the series was capable of, and I’m a huge fan. 4. THE SILENT SPY (#29, 2013)
The first of a trio of Blahunka-era games about family and grief to appear in the top five of this ranking. SPY is an incredibly polarizing game, and I understand why. Shit is H E A V Y. This game does not give you a fucking moment to come up for air. The entire premise is “Nancy Drew heads to Scotland to solve her mother’s murder” and that’s about as light as it gets. I’m totally amenable to the argument that there’s an understated simplicity in the “lol it’s not really a haunting!” Scooby-Doo plotlines of games like MHM, CAP, etc. The game also takes considerable liberties with the Nancy Drew canon, which I can understand people being averse to if they read the books or are particularly attached to a certain iteration of the character.
But with all that said? It works for me. This game walks an impressive tight rope, with its convoluted tale of domestic terrorism and spy intrigue, weighty emotional backdrop, and cast of cagey and dishonest characters, but for my money, it never really falls. For all its theatrics, I think the game is anchored by a palpable sense of emotional honesty – some of the conversations between Nancy and Carson feel devastatingly real. I think it would be very easy for this game to feel cynical or maudlin or sloppy, but it never does. There’s a real beating heart there, not only about coming to terms with death, but celebrating life.
Oh and lots of cool gadgets and zip lines and spy shit, too. That’s pretty fun. 3. SEA OF DARKNESS (#32, 2015)
It’s very possible I’m overrating SEA because I’m enthralled by its newness, but there’s seriously so much about it that’s absolutely excellent. It’s a masterpiece of atmosphere – between the Heerlijkheid, the ice caves, the lighthouse, the pub and Magnus’s adorable wee cabin, Skipbrot is as singular a setting as the series has ever created. The snow and perpetual night cast an agreeably eerie pall over proceedings. The music is out of this world. The suspects are lots of fun, a flawed group with lots of juicy personal demons to uncover. There’s a canonically queer character for the first time ever, like did we ever think we’d see the day? It’s a star showing for new writer Katie Chironis; you can actually see the moment she fully takes the reins from co-writer Nik Blahunka and the rambling asides stop and the tight characterization begins. The game has a few flaws (the cloying Ned storyline that rests on the bizarre notion that Ned and Nancy have never exchanged ‘I love you’s, the pub minigame that might as well be in tongues, an overabundance of sudoku puzzles but my favourite game is SAW so try me bitch), but they’re so easily overlooked when the rest of the game is this strong. 2. SHADOW AT THE WATER’S EDGE (#23, 2010)
I should probably be candid here and admit that I’m engaging in a little emotional dishonesty. SAW is my favourite Nancy Drew game. If you forced me to play one Nancy Drew game, over and over, until time stopped, it would be this one. The reason I place it second instead of first is because I feel some niggling commitment to objectivity, however small, and SAW has glaring flaws.
Some of the puzzles, like the giant Sudoku, are incredibly tedious. There are times where there’s nothing to do but sit around waiting for cryptic text messages you have no idea to expect, or make phone calls you haven’t been prompted to make. The game’s depiction of Japanese nightlife per a completely desolate pachinko parlour is pretty laughable.
And yet, I love it. I love it all. The story of the fractious Shimizu family, their inability to calculate their grief, and the struggle between tradition and modernity, obligation and freedom, and what these things mean? It’s excellent. It’s really sad. It’s really well-drawn. I like all of the characters so much and get sincerely emotionally invested in their plight, every time. The atmosphere of the ryokan is also second-to-none, and the perfect setting for all the spooky, mirror-smashing, door-slamming shit that goes down. There’s some really ingenious atmospheric touches, like a soundtrack that takes fairly standard “look we’re in Japan” musical tropes and makes them disturbing and atonal through distortion and degradation. The haunting scenes are stellar. I don’t know. There’s a lot of obvious flaws here, but it’s maybe appropriate to consult the Japanese concept of wabi-sabi, the beauty in imperfect things. I sincerely believe all the best art has flaws, and that’s at the root of my love for SAW. I embrace the game, warts and all, and cheerfully claim it as my favourite Nancy Drew game of all.
1. GHOST OF THORNTON HALL (#28, 2013)
For my money, the reason the modern horror games are scarier than the rest is because they know the source of real horror. A dude jumping out at you in a mask, that’s not horror. Real horror lives in sadness, in anger and betrayal, in the mistakes of the past. The reason GTH is so successful as a scary game is because there’s such a pervasive sense of sorrow at Thornton Hall. People have died here who shouldn’t have. A family has been destroyed. The house has seen so much trauma it can literally no longer stand on its own. There are ghosts that live here, whether you can see them or not.
So we’ve established that, predictably for someone who wore as much eyeliner in high school as I did, I like my games a bit miserable. With that in mind, GTH is my holy grail. It’s an excellent character study, a meditation on the various members of this wounded family as they desperately try (and fail) to hold their lives together. The inciting incident, Jessalyn going missing days before her wedding, is killer, and the gameplay is top notch. The ending is one of the bleakest Nancy has ever done, with the option to make it bleaker if you’re a real masochist. And for my money, Clara is the best villain the series has ever had, a broken woman who sacrificed her own soul in a moment of cruelty and has spent the ensuing decades cutting herself off from her own humanity to make the pain stop. Excellent, excellent stuff.
Fun GTH play-along game: every time Charlotte’s ghost appears, take a couple of hard hits of carbon monoxide. Play this game as it was meant to be played.
Liner notes, June 2015: I’ve added Sea of Darkness to the list and swapped around some of the top contenders. Most notably, CAP falls from 1 to 7, which seems like a much steeper drop than it is (I consider all of the top 10 excellent and any of them is in the running for number one on any given day). This has a lot to do with my recent replay of the series – the dialogue in CAP is a lot more verbose than I remembered, and it can drag the action down in parts. Additionally, a lot of its cachet for me was that it was a modern era game with the sensibilities, story, and atmosphere of a classic game, and I feel like SEA eclipsed it in that regard so its novelty is no longer so profound. I also nudged SAW up a bit for sentimental reasons, and GTH assumes number one for its impressive aesthetic and emotional scope.
So that’s that! Thanks a bunch for reading and I hope you had fun! And if you didn’t, I hope I didn’t offend you too terribly with my interpretation of things – though really, if you’re the kind of person who gets worked up by someone else’s opinions on Nancy Drew computer games, I don’t know what to say. Take up macramé, maybe. Something relaxing to do with your hands.
Previous versions: 1.0: 1. CAP; 2. GTH; 3. SPY; 4. SAW; 5. TRT; 6. FIN; 7. DED; 8. TRN; 9. CUR; 10. DDI; 11. CAR; 12. CRY; 13. TMB; 14. SHA; 15. LIE; 16. DOG; 17. SSH; 18. VEN; 19. DAN; 20. STFD; 21. ASH; 22. WAC; 23. MHM; 24. CLK; 25. TOT; 26. HAU; 27. CRE; 28. MED; 29. ICE; 30. RAN; 31. SCK.
