Nancy may discover the first in a series of clues to find a hidden treasure. The mystery may start with a strange, potentially supernatural incident. Since there is the potential for overlap between these categories, for the purposes of this analysis, plot refers to how the mystery starts, and the crime categorizations later in this post identify the theme of the investigation itself. Nancy may be on vacation or working at an internship when she stumbles upon the mystery. After shuffling around sticky notes for a while, I grouped the games' plots into four categories: accidental, supernatural, treasure hunts, and undercover. So, instead of a series of reviews for each individual game, I have categorized each game by a number of factors- plot, puzzle type, play time, etc- and compiled the data to discuss the series as a whole, and guide you to games within the series based on your own interests and preferences, rather than the games I consider to be my favorites. These games were a significant influence on my childhood and I continue to replay them on a regular basis. In honor of the anniversary of the first game, I wanted to write about the series, but I knew I could not objectively rate each game in the series due to nostalgia and personal preferences. I played my first Nancy Drew game, Treasure in the Royal Tower, when I was 8 years old. The games present a fantastic role model, feature a variety of educational topics, encourage critical thinking skills, and have engaging mysteries and puzzles.
#NANCY DREW GAME ORDER TRIAL#
To date, the adventure series includes 32 unique adventure games, a remastered version of the original Secrets Can Kill, two games in the ill-fated Nancy Drew Dossier series, and a few trial adaptations of the games for other platforms. This year marks the 20th Anniversary of the HerInteractive series of Nancy Drew adventure games for PC, which started with the release of Secrets Can Kill on December 23, 1998.