I think it is safe to say that I love puzzle games, and will try almost any type of puzzle/adventure game at least once. But when I got Nancy Drew: Secret of the Old Clock tossed onto my desk, my first thought (stemming from a sort of instinctual gut reaction) was, "But this is for girls."
While I couldn’t really help all the factors that caused this reaction, I could rise above it and give this game a chance. After all, overcoming our instincts is what separates us from the animals.
I am so glad that my human intellect won over, because otherwise I would have missed out on an enjoyable puzzle-solving and detecting experience. And it’s not just for girls.
Sure, Her Interactive aimed the first few games in the Nancy Drew series at young girls. They even said "For Adventurous Girls 10 and Up" on the box. But they soon realized that their games could appeal to a much wider audience while still presenting a strong, independent female protagonist to them.
I really don’t care about any of that, because Secret of the Old Clock is a darned fine game, and that is what matters to me.
Because this year marks the 75th anniversary of the publishing of the original Nancy Drew books, HI decided to make their 12th game in the series based upon the very first Nancy Drew book.
In the game you take the viewpoint of Nancy Drew, who has not yet embarked upon her sleuthing career. You were asked to come to the Lilac Inn in the small town of Titusville by one Emily Crandall, who had lost her mother recently and was left the Inn to run with the help of her guardian Jane Willoughby, who really is not the most competent guardian.
Emily believes strange things are going on, and has asked for your help. Can you discover the secrets left behind by Josiah Crowley, a rich eccentric who lived next door? There are clocks to puzzle out, and even a six-hole miniature golf course to play on.
While in the vicinity of the Lilac Inn (and a few other places), you have the typical first-person puzzle solving environment. To move or turn, just click on the appropriate area of the screen where the cursor turns into an arrow. To interact with or pick up an object, click on it when the cursor in highlighted. Some objects require another object to properly interact with them, so you need to go into your inventory, select the object, and then click on the first one when the cursor (which now looks like the inventory object) is highlighted.
While in town, your interface becomes an overhead view of your blue Roadster, and you have to drive by moving the cursor so the car points the way you want and pushing the left mouse button for forward, or the right for reverse. When the car is in front of a building, just hit the space key to park and go in.
In order to make the game interesting for adults and children, there are three different difficulty levels. These don’t seem to change anything about the actual puzzles, but your access to ‘remembered’ information is different. For example, in the ‘Junior’ setting, you are given a task list that helps you remember exactly what you need to do. This feature is unavailable in the higher settings.
The backgrounds are beautifully drawn, and the level of detail of possible things to interact with is fantastic. The people are rendered rather realistically, and the expressions that they make while they speak to you are very good.
The incidental music is a nice period piece, but as you hear it in every location, it does start to get old (pardon the pun) after a while. What is astounding in the sound arena is the fact that every piece of dialogue with every character is acted out, and the talent they use is top notch, with terrific accents and period expressions. The dialogue is always interesting, both to read and listen to.
The dialogue is also good from an accessibility standpoint. Not only does every spoken word show up in the dialogue window, but every sound effect is textually described. I’m not certain, but I think it would be totally possible to play the game with the sound completely off.
Many aspects of the gameplay are like little mini-games that must be won before a certain fact or item become available. When this is the case, you always seem to get an unlimited number of tries to succeed. This is fortunate, especially in the cases of the miniature golf game and the sewing (yes, there is sewing) are especially hard to complete correctly, and you may need several tries before you pass muster on those.
The one major problem I have is with the driving interface, which is very counterintuitive for anyone who has actually driven. However, I believe that it would be easy enough for anyone who hasn’t actually driven (or played to many driving games), so I really can’t hold that against them too much.
Inventory manipulation was only slightly annoying in that, once you had an item selected, and close the inventory window so you can see what you are doing with it, you have to re-open the inventory window in order to put the item back. Fortunately, this only has to happen when you pick the wrong item to use for the situation, so this shouldn’t be too much of a problem.
With Secret of the Old Clock, Her Interactive has continued the fine tradition not only of classic literature brought to life, but of making games all sorts of people can enjoy. It eminently deserves its 4.5 Gem rating.