Nancy Drew Concept Art

This blog will attempt to gather any promotional materials, in-progress work, concept art, or other media created for the Nancy Drew game series under the company Her Interactive in one place. All rights and credit go directly to the rightful owners. This blog falls under fair use: Copyright Disclaimer under Section 107 of the copyright act 1976, allowance is made for fair use for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational, or personal use tips the balance in favor of fair use.

[ndconceptarchive]

One of the wallpapers from Danger by Design if anyone would like to have the same desktop as Sonny Joon.

[artofnancydrew]

Flowers and Birds, by Hsiao Yung; hanging scroll, ink and colors on silk, ca. 10-11 century CE

Hsiao Yung was a nobleman of the Kingdom of Liao (907-1125 CE) which occupied Manchuria and part of North China. An admirer of T'ang art, he would ask the Liao ambassadors sent to the Sung court to buy in China the paintings he liked, no matter how high the cost might be. He studied the masterpieces they brought back to him and became an artist in his own right. Flowers and Birds is a magnificently colored picture showing bamboo leaves, hibiscus and other flowers, with partridges and other wild birds flying or perched on crags. It is a rare masterpiece by a Liao artist. The picture was signed by the artist and bears his seal. Collection: National Palace Museum, Taipei, Taiwan Republic of China Information from here; backup version

Found in: Message in a Haunted Mansion, Nancy's room

[unclewarwick]

Nancy Drew DVD covers

[ndconceptarchive]

Creature of Kapu Cave Concept Art (Part I)

An attempt at cleaning up the image is below; the original from Her Interactive's YouTube channel is above.

A comparison of the finalized designs in color, courtesy of this post by @franceshumber

It feels like different artists drew and colored these images.

[you-have-made-a-fatal-error]

There's! Always! One! I! Miss! Anyway the illustration on the book in Abby's trunk is this playing card design done by C.F.A. Voysey, probably between 1882 and 1913.

[casualgay-mer]

Original SCK unique feature

Ok so there I start my reviews! I will be posting these short paragraphs and then will compile them into something more of volume and comprehension.

So I have been playing the ORIGINAL SCK (OSCK??) - God bless the progressive piracy - and I have noticed something.

In original SCK there is a kind of unique feature of "introductory dialogues". When you meet one of the suspects for the first time you may talk to them about different topics and you will get different answers and different kinds of information.

F.e. with Hal you may talk about Jack, about his career and the way he lives in US and you may take dialogues to different places. Same can be seen in Stay Tuned For Danger, but not as prominent.

Later in games you get the same kind of answers and the same dialogues whatever you say. You just check the phrases off the list, choosing them not really carefully, because you don't care.

In first two games you kinda should!

That just makes the original SCK a little bit more special.

[ndconceptarchive]

We can confirm that this is the case over at ndconceptarchive (through our own various playthroughs of the game and also a couple of reviews that I've found- obviously we didn't write the original code).

In SCK, the dialogue trees are purposefully limited. Some dialogue options are available only once in the entire game and then if you missed them, you have to replay from the beginning (or at least from before that particular I guess).

There is a pretty hysterical example of this where Nancy tells Hulk that she's afraid of manatees:

Tumblr is a place to express yourself, discover yourself, and bond over the stuff you love. It's where your interests connect you with your

(The structure of this game's dialogue is really weird).

[agmagazinescans]

To Do Today: July/August

American Girl Magazine, July/August 2004

[Ko-Fi Donations]

[hannah-in-drewland]

This was the scariest shit in MHM

[ndconceptarchive]

I vaguely remember reading that this was supposedly the model they were developing for Nancy (as in what you'd see in the mirror or during the seance scene) but can't find any confirmation on that. I think it makes sense as to why she's a redhead. If anyone has information on this, please let us know.

[girldetectiveorg]

This is a long shot, but does anyone have the virtual_tour.swf that was on the ResortingToDanger.com website? I've checked the archive and it is not backed up there. Credit will be given. All I need is the swf file.

[ndconceptarchive]

Putting this up as a boost (even if this is an old post). A lot of the files from the old microwebsites do seem to be missing unfortunately. This blog is awesome for the record.

[ndconceptarchive]

Heather McKay

Featured Artist: Anton Bogaty

[nankey-drew]

How to change the background color in Nancy Drew games

The game format that was used from ICE to ASH allows you to choose black or teal as background colors, but this tutorial will allow you to pick any color you want! (Note that I have only tried this on Windows devices, so I am not sure if it will also work on Macs.)

1. Go to your Documents folder, and you will see a folder for each Nancy Drew game. Inside each folder is a Configuration Setting .ini file (for example, CastleMalloy.ini or Captive.ini). Double-click on it and choose to open it using Notepad. Note that you are able to alter several settings from this file, so in case you accidentally mess something up, all you have to do is delete the .ini file and open the game, the file will be generated again with default settings and you won’t lose any saved games.

2. You will see a line starting with “BackgroundColor=“ and a 10-digit number next to it. The code for black is 4278190080 and for teal is 4279252284.

3. Instead of that code, put in the code of the color you want! If you’re adventurous, just type in any 10 digits and see what you get when open the game. Or, if you want a particular color, use a site like this or this to find out the hexadecimal code for the color of your choice. Then, use this online calculator to convert it to a decimal number (the hex codes you will find will start with #, just replace # with FF when using the calculator).

4. Just save the .ini file and ta-da! Here are examples from HAU and CAP (I also messed with the font size for the CAP screenshot).

[magpie-marvin]

Found this photo recently... is this not just the cover to Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon??

[ndconceptarchive]

Super cool! Out of curiosity, where is this image from?

[magpie-marvin]

I saw it on a tiktok posted by rocky mountain CBS (realizing now saying I 'found' it might be a little inaccurate...)

https://www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8hEFXFf/

[you-have-made-a-fatal-error]

so bc the image sourcing thing is basically a reflex now? i found an uncropped version in the Denver Public Library's digital collections-

The Continental summit, Denver, Northwestern & Pacific Ry., the Moffat Road taken by Denver area photographer Louis Charles McClure c.1904-1913

[uncoveringnancydrew]

Visit Original Link

A longer audio clip of the falling klieg light scene.  The stage crew talks more, Lillian yells “and…action!”, and Rick has slightly better acting (at least he doesn’t repeat his line) in this version.

[ndconceptarchive]

I wonder if they removed this version because it would've required more of an animation budget. (The original version with the copy and pasted repeated audio line is iconic in its own way, however).

[ndconceptarchive]

Installation Screens from Games 1-9:

(Found on the Secret of Shadow Ranch installation disk).

[defectivenancydrew]

How to play Nancy Drew games WITHOUT a CD:

This will work for all games except the original SCK, but be advised that it will take up a decent amount of space on your PC if you choose to copy them all. A suitable alternative would be to use a single large-capacity USB.

For games with one disk:

1. Go to Documents and make a file called Nancy Drew Games (or whatever you want). Within this folder make a subfolder for each game you plan on using without the disk and label accordingly.

2. Insert your game disk into your optical drive (your PC’s CD player) but don’t run the game.

3. Open the disk file and copy all of its contents from the disk to the appropriate subfolder you made. (This could take a little bit, depending on the game and the processing capacity of your computer).

4. If you haven’t done so already, uninstall the previous version of the game. You can keep your old save files by moving them to a new folder.

5. To avoid .INI path errors and the like, make a new folder in Documents with the title of the game or its abbreviation or whatever. (This is the last folder, I promise!)

6. Now, eject the disk and run the Setup.exe application from your copied folder. This will initiate the install process.

7. Progress through the prompts until it asks you to choose an install location. Browse to find the folder in Documents that you created.

8. Finish the install and enjoy your game on the go!

For games with two disks:

1. Go to Documents and make a file called Nancy Drew Games (or whatever you want). Within this folder make a subfolder for each game you plan on using without the disk and label accordingly.

2. Insert your game disk 1 into your optical drive (your PC’s CD player) but don’t run the game.

3. Open the disk 1 file and copy all of its contents from the disk to the appropriate subfolder you made. (This could take a little bit, depending on the game and the processing capacity of your computer).

4. Within this subfolder, make a folder titled Disk 2.

5. Remove disk 1, insert your game disk 2, and copy into the Disk 2 subsubfolder.

6. If you haven’t done so already, uninstall the previous version of the game. You can keep your old save files by moving them to a new folder.

7. To avoid .INI path errors and the like, make a new folder in Documents with the title of the game or its abbreviation or whatever. (This is the last folder, I promise!)

8. Now, eject disk 2 and run the Setup.exe application from your copied folder. This will initiate the install process.

9. Progress through the prompts until it asks you to choose an install location. Browse to find the folder in Documents that you created.

10. About halfway through installation, it will ask you to insert disk 2. Click the Browse command in the popup and select the Disk 2 file you created. Installation should proceed to finish.

11. Enjoy your game on the go without the hassle of CDs!

Disclaimer: This method is to be used by those who own the games and wish to play them without the hassle of the disks. This should NOT be used to copy games you do not own or to offer/sell digital copies online. Thank you!

If you encounter any issues with the process, please feel free to message me with questions! It can be tricky!

[you-have-made-a-fatal-error]

How on earth do you identify all the art? What’s your process lol

hA. erm. slowly and also painfully, basically. I don't have an art history background but I loved when artofnancydrew and littlenancydrewthings used to put their art id posts together and wanted to see if I could figure it out myself, so it's just a lot of trial-and-error and a decent amount of patience.

unfortunately most of the in-game images are too small for google’s reverse/search-by-image thing to pick up, boo. so for paintings I generally end up at wikiart because their advanced search tool lets you filter by genre/style/date of creation. they also have a ‘tags’ feature but it isn’t all that robust - most of the artworks are not comprehensively tagged, so i mostly avoid that. honestly, I usually end up searching by by genre (ie ‘landscape’ or ‘portrait’), use the timeline thing to limit the number of results, and then just. scroll through all of what comes back.

I dearly love the RKDimages database (their TAGGING SYSTEM holy mother of dog it’s FUCKING MIRACULOUS). it’s main focus is Netherlandish art, but seriously, give this thing every gold star on the planet, it’s so damned beautiful. all other databases, get on the RKD’s level. holy frick.

other than that? we know HeR used to use the Corel image library but of course i haven’t had any luck actually finding/accessing said image library. that said, I’ve had some luck plugging the term into wikimedia commons, and then there’s this old site which seems to have significant overlap - I’ve found a few difficult-to-place pictures there. once I know the artist who created a painting I’ll look through the rest of their catalogue, see if any of their other pieces were used as well. I keep a spreadsheet of the paintings/artists I’ve found and which game their art was in. like I said at the beginning, it’s just a lot of trial-and-error.

paintings are really the most straightforward things to identify. photographs and tapestries (fucking treasure in the royal tower making me try and id tapestries) are, in my experience, way harder, and basically ruin my life if I spend too much time thinking about them lmao. the photos in last train to blue moon canyon - I’ve used the US Library of Congress’ digital collections, the Getty institute, the Met, a couple other US museum catalogues/databases.. browsing their collections basically. the LOC has a substantive civil war image collection available online, which is cool. but all that said I still came across the Buck Taylor cabinet card via a random link on a site dedicated to old bicycle photography. because fuck me I guess :P and tapestries are hell on earth. because as it turns out, there’s no handy database for tapestry art. at all. RKD has some, Getty has some, but basically I’ve been browsing through museum collections and trying to find decent images that might lead me in the right direction? until i get fed up and lose my cool and need to go do something else for a bit.

[artofnancydrew]

I know this post is old and I dropped off the face of the Clue Crew side of tumblr, deleted earlier this year, and now remade, but...

This was my same process! Some pieces I already knew thanks to art history classes over the years and pop culture recognition (Van Gogh qualifies for the latter, imho. ND introduced me to Mucha as an artist way back when as a kid so his work was easy to spot once that info took root, for the most part. Could kick myself to play MHM for the first time in ages yesterday and spot Mucha in Abby's room the whole time) so that helped in identifying them. A lot of my posts were mostly, "Hey, I recognize that piece!" Others were the result of searching wikiart and then hoping to find a nice gallery photo to use. (I feel like wikipedia and wikiart have gotten better on quality over the years, or that awful pre-restoration Age of Innocence has scarred me, lol. She was so yellow, so flaky.)

It is fun because it is a form of sleuthing—and, well, what would the Clue Crew be without sleuthing?—but it definitely has its drawbacks! The limited quality of the old games makes things look fuzzier and fuzzier as monitor displays get better, so finding the details from blurry images becomes even harder, especially if it is a small image in the background. And I never even touched any tapestries because they were too daunting to try. Kudos to you, @you-have-made-a-fatal-error!

[you-have-made-a-fatal-error]

:o omg hi!!! welcome back!!!

I loved your blog! Seriously when I came across it (all the way back in 2014? 2015? yeesh I've been here forever) it was immediately one of the coolest things I'd come across on the ND side of tumblr. It wasn't until late 2021 that I decided to try any of it myself- honestly the never ending COVID lockdowns in Ontario probably had something to do with it. And then I found it so satisfying that I haven't really stopped! It's not something I'm always working on, but I do keep coming back to it :)

My process is still mostly the same, although I think I've gotten a bit more efficient, just through repetition. But I've never felt prepared to do the art history write-ups you always included - those have always felt just a bit too far outside my wheelhouse.

ack, it's so neat to see you back!

[artofnancydrew]

Thank you so much!

If I'm remembering correctly (because it has been so long, just saw a timestamp on one of my old posts and it was 2015), a lot of what I posted were sourced descriptions from the gallery pages, whatever little tid-bits caught my eye in the process of tracking things down, or that I knew from elsewhere (like Edmund Dulac's Firebird being an illustration for the Russian fairytale; I used to have the most beautiful HQ picture of it until my computer troubles hit, and the site that hosted it has pulled it, presumably because the prints were all sold. Pain, not even the WayBack saved it).

I can't necessarily say if I'll dive back into it all right now when I am still slowly catching up, both with what's been posted since my absence and replaying the games for the first time since... I can't remember when. (I say this, as if I did not spend two to three hours last night digging around for details on a Chinese scroll painting from MHM, lol. I was successful in my efforts, but I need to transcribe what I found and so on. Experience has taught me that auction listings, sale prints, and the like will not always be around for viewing online. And yes, auction websites might be the answer to tracking down the Chinese wall scrolls but even that feels like a matter of sheer luck.)

But I will say it is so amazing to see what all you have tracked down! Finally, there's names I can place on these images! I haven't reblogged everything yet—like Nancy Drew I have been lurking and snooping—but it is blowing my mind to see everyone's posts tracking things down and everything I managed to miss for all those years, both on here and in the games themselves.

[lickieloo]

If anyone can’t get “Danger by Design” or “Creature of Kapu Cave” to work on their computer because when you try to load it (after installing) all you see is a black screen with the music playing I have a weird solution. Try holding down the print screen key and see if that works. I dunno WHY it’s a solution but it helped me. Just find something heavy to balance on top of it while you play. 

[lickieloo]

Reminded recently that on an old laptop of mine this was the only way I could get DAN or CRE to work. Bizarre.

[ndconceptarchive]

That’s so odd. Out of curiosity, was this for a physical copy or a digital download of DAN/CRE? I wonder if that makes a difference or not.

[lickieloo]

Physical! I remember I had been in contact with their tech support and when I told them I had accidentally found that solution he was so perplexed lol

[ndconceptarchive]

Interesting! I remember running into some other issues with the SHA-CRE era of games when it comes to the physical copies so it might be something about system requirements or odd things in the game files themselves. Possibly there are some wonky issues.

We'll try to look into it further on this blog!