What Happened to the Nancy Drew Fan Base?

THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!! The entitlement I see in the Nancy Drew community is UNREAL. Yes, I will call it entitlement and spoiled, child-like behavior. Last year, before the news about KEY, I assumed the games were done. Everything up to this point has been a gift. This has been such a fun year of reveals, puzzles, and clues. Trust me, having a more positive outlook will feel better than wallowing in the negativity and having outrageous expectations (yes, you CAN choose to have a positive outlook...try it sometime). At least don't be a Negative Nancy (lol) to all of us having a good time. If this video pisses anyone off, it's really just because people can't handle looking in a mirror and **gasp** are not true fans of the series. Idgaf. If you're mad at this video, you're not a fan, you're just a hater. Period.

THANK YOU! The Clue Crew is beyond lucky. Incredible, nostalgic games we can always go back to? Soundtracks that give us goosebumps every time we put them on? A super tight-knit community of people who all grew up loving Nancy? We were spoiled for years and years, and even now, we're still so much better off than most. Does that exempt HER from all scrutiny? Of course not! The radio silence stunk, and I was one of the voices speaking out against it. But now? We have confirmation of a new game coming out this year, we have contests, we have behind the scenes looks, we have CONTACT! And that's more than a lot of indie companies give. Can you point at some that give more/better? Sure, and I can point to a dozen who give less/worse.

All feelings are valid, but I personally just do nottttt understand. HER doesn't deserve the toxicity. The same people criticizing them for being too quiet now complain about too many sneak peaks, or too many updates that "aren't the release date", or too many puzzles that are somehow "insulting." They've done wrong in the past, but this is not it.

Very, very well said (and yes, it did need to be said). We’ve been so incredibly lucky and spoiled with all of the information we’ve been given in regards to KEY! It is so disappointing (and at times, sickening) to read the negative, greedy comments that have been said towards the HER team. They’re a small team, and I do not fault them for taking their time to make a great game.

Thank you for opening my eyes and helping me see beyond my own frustrations. As a faithful ND gamer for 26 years since SCK came out when I was 12, I am grateful to see things from a human perspective and learn how much pressure those developers face.

I understand the hate for Midnight in Salem, but also people should give the company another chance, since it looks like they're really trying to improve, and they're sending fans so much whereas they didn't give people much leading up to Midnight in Salem. And it's not cool to see people continuing to be so negative as though their negativity is original thought or that it will do any good.

This is what I have been trying to say for years yet constantly been shut down by some of the fans. I have always said that the fans of the nancy games fandom has been way too spoiled for way too long. Releasing two games in a year is not easy. The work that goes into that is probably incredibly stressful. We can see from the nancy games itself when some games suffer due to this so I am in the minority of saying I am glad that we aren't doing two games in a row anymore. I personally do not mind waiting for a game if it turns out to be good and from what I have seen from KEY, I think it's gonna be pretty good. I appreciate what HER is doing and trying to do to stay afloat. Glad you made this video! You couldn't have said it better honestly. You also managed to be nice about it. I would have cursed a lot more lol

HER tried to make the series mainstream and scuttled it as a result. Our fanbase has always been niche.

It's hard to empathize with people constantly nagging about the next ND game, a game that will most likely not make profit, when thousands and thousands of game devs are losing their jobs. Game devs are one of the most underappreciated professionals by the consumers. They have to crunch and bite their tongue if they want to eat and pay rent this month and when a game doesn't perform the way it's supposed to, they get shit on by gamers and higher ups, and when it does, they are thrown back onto the hamster wheel. How nice!

So if you are one of those people fuming that the game still doesn't have a release date, debating whether you should or should not send another email demanding an update, maybe consider.. idk... gettin a job?.. playing a different game?.. getting a new hobby?.. literally anything to occupy your free time?..

Thank you for this!!!

I'm so glad that we are talking about this. It really hurts whenever I hear people pressuring my favorite company. The negativity needs to come to a halt! I think that hearing this from your perspective really helps me to see how amazing that they have done. Before, I was disappointed in MID, but I have really turned my head around to know more about what was going on and I wish I was more patient. I hope that others who are still upset with the company will come to see this video and change their minds soon. Everything that they have given us on game 34 DOES NOT disappoint! Thank you HER for everything that you do! And Thank you Gooba for your insight!

I think it's also because a lot of ND fans don't play other video games so they don't know that it's pretty common to wait for YEARS for a game release and usually with only a few updates. Us ND fans are actually spoiled with updates on this game.

i also want to point out just how many people ive seen admit that they are unhappy with the way things have been going simply because they dont like change. absolute boomer mentality and you couldnt waterboard that information out of me. you dont like change? change is so often necessary, no matter what we're talking about, and whether we like it or not. this video explains all of why its necessary here. you can either learn to adapt or be miserable, but dont make us witness to that if you choose the latter. i thought the tantrums stopped when we got older but its clear they didnt for some people.

Personally, as a non-gamer, I've always been aware that the standard for the gaming industry is that it does take years to develop games; however, my frustration is not in waiting years for the next game release. It was the sudden radio silence after the release of MID and lack of transparency by HeR Interactive. All we got for three years were cookie contests and sale after sale on games we already own and games modern laptops can't even play without extensive tech support--and even then, many players still can't get half the catalog to work, even though the games are available for purchase on platforms like Steam. Even if HeR couldn't share anything specific until last year, that's fine, but it would've made a world of difference in terms of PR to least have a broad "stay tuned" message at the end of MID and a statement by the new CEO about how the company changes and new gaming platform would impact the schedule fans had become accustomed to for two decades. With that well-established precedent, you can't expect there not to be frustration and confusion, even if what ND fans were accustomed to is abnormal for the industry. And to be clear, a lot of us are not "gamers" outside of this franchise, so the lack of transparency when the changes happened and the lack of info on what we should now expect when it comes to things like release date announcements makes a lot of us feel like the heartbeat of the company is dead and like we're being treated like an afterthought, despite strongly supporting an indie company that has always been very communicative and involved with its fanbase.

Great vid-I somehow both completely agree with you and completely agree with a lot of ND fans who are frustrated.

As fond as we are of these games, entitlement is never justified, and we have to adapt to the fact that HER as we know it has radically shifted and is still figuring itself out. We have to stop badgering them with hands outstretched as if they're overdue on a payment or something. But that being said, I do think they need to read the room a little- they haven't managed the transition between eras well- it's been years on end of feeling like there's been no back and forth with the community, and that's what I object to. The last year shows real good faith on their part trying to get us back to a feeling of reciprocity, and now that's faded I think the community is devastated again. We need a sense of a solid and reliable HER community built up BY them, if not a release date. And they need to take cues from their own fans when it comes to world building, their new model is very arid and clinical when ND fans play these games for the coziness and vibe that HER carefully crafted over the years.

It's honestly amazing how strong a fanbase ND has without consistent releases, that's what so sad. We're dying for them to let us love them, and I'm worried that a few more years will truly drain the community's reserves of patience.

As someone whos interacted with some of the... more passionate fans on reddit, i do think that openly communicating what we can expect would circumvent a lot of the negativity. Instead we have major social media hype generated for the new title only to be essentially left on read. No trailer, no release date - it feels like they dont even communicate with their own marketing team - why bother generating excitement only to leave longtime fans, with admittedly outdated expectations, feeling ignored and unappreciated. If theyd announced even a generalized ETA, I truly think people would be happier overall.

I think its perfectly fine to be defensive of an indie dev "doing the best they can", but its also perfectly fine to question if they could be doing better to communicate with their loyal fanbase (without being outright negative or nasty).

Thank you for publicly stating this 🙏🏼 I have been trying to put out similar ideas on the Reddit page. I am so grateful that Nancy Drew games simply exist, and Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake, Danger on Deception Island, Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon, Curse of Blackmoor Manor, Secret of Shadow Ranch, and many others are all I will ever need to feel peace of mind and connected to my dreams of a future home. Thank you HerInteractive for all that you do 💗 we will always love you and you will always be worth the wait 🤍

an announcement comes out today and its still "what about the release date?"
then the release date will be announced and the same people will find something to complain about, bet you anything it wont be soon enough

Yo I’ve never played these games but this was in my recommended feed and it was a great watch! Nice work!

As someone who watched my older sister play the Nancy Drew games and would later go on to play the zelda games, they have a tone of games already. I get being annoyed at new gaming directions and games taking long but after waiting years for the Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom I have come to understand, firstly that making new age games is very hard and time consuming and second after the failure of Midnight, t in Salem, heir "coming back" game, understand if the studio wants to take a step back and reassess what fans want from a Nancy Drew game.

I appreciate this video for trying to put things into perspective. The ND fandom has long held such a skewed idea of how the gaming industry works, and it can make for a very frustrating experience when interacting with them. Like yeah, 5 years between games is not uncommon. Outsourcing production to smaller companies is not uncommon (I believe they worked with multiple studios even back in the day) Long periods of time between updates is not uncommon. 

Midnight in Salem was a disappointment, I get that, but it was also an under baked game. It needed more time to have the issues smoothed, but it felt like HeR just wanted to get SOMETHING out the door at that point. Everything we've seen of ND34 seems much more polished, which is a good sign. But it's not going to make the game come out faster if every time something is posted you start having hissy fits because they haven't announced the release date. They will announce the release date when they are ready to announce it.

But honestly, the ND fandom was an odd creature even during its heyday. Some of the posts and comments I'd see back in the day were... truly bizarre.

as a kid I only owned a few of the games and it took me years to finish them, so I somehow was already/always in the mindset that it'd be a while before I'd get to play another 😅 so waiting never fazed me at all I guess

Now that I'm older I've since picked up some of the ones I didn't have before, and I've come to realize that the games can be experienced to a more full degree as a child or young teen than as an adult. I can still admire the games plenty as an adult, (they have great aesthetics and music, and the puzzles are still fun) but as a kid, it was easier to get immersed in the game's environment as if I was really there, and easier to feel the spookiness and suspense. Now that I'm grown up I guess I'm too thick-skinned to feel those things, rip. I also find that as an adult it's easy to slip into a logical fourth-wall-breaking mindset and start analyzing the game mechanics, whereas as a kid I would have just been like "omg this game is so hard wow" hahah. (of course I still try to enjoy them as much as I can even as an adult~!)
Anyway basically I feel like part of what we might be noticing is a "The games didn't change - We did" sort of thing, because most ND fans are grown up now. Even if the games did change a bit, it's inevitable that we changed too over time. (also the internet with all its subcultures and whatnot is definitely not what it used to be back in ND's starting days, and I feel like that's probably influenced the community side of things a lot)


Anyways! I know haven't commented before, but I've been following you two for a while now, so I also wanna say thanks for posting ND content! And also those Hardy Boys games, those were fun to watch too~! You two are so chill that I feel like we're friends and hanging out just by watching your posted streams<3 even though I'm not actually present in the chat, hahah

I’m a very out of touch Nancy drew fan, I love the games, I own them all (I’ve only beaten about 20s) but I’m still excited for a new game, I’ve heard midnight in Salem was a bummer and I’m hoping this new game makes up for it, but I’m still really surprised people got toxic over all of this stuff.

I’m glad her interactive is still trying, I’m still gonna buy each Nancy Drew game as it comes out.

I appreciate the thoughtful video, but I think there's a lot more to the problem than people being upset about less frequent games. From the perspective of one lifer, I don't care about Lani or two games a year. Lani violated her NDA and as far as churning out two games a year goes, maybe that's why they were losing money and maybe they should have shifted focus to longer, more in depth, less frequent games a long time before they decided to do so.

Herinteractive lost my trust when they decided to blame all of MID's problems on switching to Unity. The old in-house team knew how to use it even though Her claimed the switch was why they were all let go. I'm sure the transition wasn't easy as everything they already had was made for a clunky old engine that, based on what those former team members have said, should have been changed long before it was - but that wasn't why MID sucked. It sucked because the CEO decided to spend money on a mobile app that didn't have an audience (as it was for younger kids than ND fans) and didn't even teach any coding as it claimed. It lacked substance, as has everything Her has said or done in the last decade. So MID was delayed and outsourced for cheap. Interesting you would bring up the example of Cyberpunk when those devs acknowledged, apologized for, and fixed the technical problems and Her couldn't be bothered to do any of the above. This is when I stopped following Her on social media because any time there was criticism about MID, their reaction was just "Unity hard, internet mean!!" They were preying upon fans' lack of understanding about what Unity is and how common it is to cover up for their own mismanagement. Now you have a decent portion of the fanbase that STILL thinks Unity equals bad graphics and stuttering.

During those in between years, you did still have a some people missing the two games a year, but I'm quite sure the vast majority of us realized those days are over. Discussions were just "Hmm, I wonder if they'll ever make another game or if they'll eventually just fold." Nobody was holding their breath or anything. The April 2023 marketing campaign kicked off and I expected what was coming, and have unfortunately been proven right. Just the fact that they started it on April Fools Day, knowing there is a trust and goodwill issue, shows they haven't learned anything. I find it pretty rich to be asked to give them grace when they refuse to acknowledge they've come to a place of needing it. And as someone who does play lots of other games, it IS unusual to play for hype over a year out from releasing a game. It IS unusual to act like it's a big deal to reveal your desktop icon. I don't take it as a good sign or a gesture of good faith that Her is doing that - quite the opposite really. After years of crickets, Her should have learned from their mistakes with MID and not even have announced a game until they had information of substance to share. Over a year later and there's not even a plot. It smacks of wanting to see if we'll all still come when they whistle, and I'm a customer, not a dog. If they'd started the whole thing with 6 months to release, it would have been a great campaign.

I sympathize with a lot of issues facing Herinteractive from the fan base - particularly that so many are vocal about wanting to hold onto P&C, which IMO holds the franchise back, and also that there are still loud and frequent cries about going back to the old engine - but that's a problem of Her's own making with the aforementioned scapegoating of Unity. Fans are pretty much evenly split as to whether they prefer more plot driven games or more puzzle heavy games, and that's a hard balance to find. I don't, however, sympathize with them for getting backlash to a poorly thought out marketing campaign at a time when it's crucial for them not to fumble the ball. If the company fails, it won't be because fans were too ungrateful - it'll be because Herinteractive has bad management.

Speaking of toxicity I've seen posts disappear on this channel simply for disagreeing politely with the host's point of view. (I don't have high hopes for this one).

If you really don't know anything about the bad faith that HER dealt in over "Midnight in Salem", the last few minutes of Wizard Kitten's video "An Honest Review of Midnight in Salem" should bring you up to speed. It should then be clear why HER's reputation has been permanently damaged, despite the fact that they were admittedly a great company before Penny Millikan's tenure.

That's not to say you're completely wrong. I agree we shouldn't complain that they're not giving us enough information. To the contrary, they're giving us too much. When they've got a release date, they can let us know. Until then, don't say anything.

Incidentally, HER is not making Game 34 at all, they're outsourcing it to Mi'pu'mi Games, the same as they did with MID. HER is not a game developer any more, they're a label.

For us less active members of the fan base, thanks for speaking up 🫰🏼😌

Totally agree! Everyone needs to take a step back & look at the big picture. I was very convinced midnight in Salem would be the last nd game. I’m beyond excited that it is not! I’m so grateful the her team is gritting their teeth and working on this so hard even though the fan base has been so entitled 😢 I’d much rather wait long for a quality game then have a rushed storyline/game. It gives me something to look forward to! And a note to the fan base, it’s totally normal to be upset that your favorite childhood franchise is changing. I’m sad about that too. But I keep any negative thoughts to myself & try to only use my words to encourage. We are so passionate about these games but let’s use our passion for the better.

This is what I have been thinking for such a long time now and I am thrilled that there are people on the same page!

To be fair, some of us have played the entire ND series more than once...a lot more than once...people don't want flashy new games that take half a decade to make. They want games in the old style that took half a year to make.
Ya, exactly. They SHOULD NOT HAVE SWITCHED to the unity engine. Mistake #1
I mean, somehow they DID crunch out REALLY GOOD GAMES every 6 months. Why switch to unity? Why make things more complicated than they have to be?
But I do agree people need to be patient and grateful. I just think it's strange they would make it so much harder for themselves to create these games

honestly thank you for reminding me to be grateful for the games we have in the ND community. fingers crossed the new one will be another favorite.

Excellent video on the situation. :)

Great video! And I agree, HeR Interactive could probably do without the extra pressure from the fans demanding more and more info on the new game. Maybe it's easier for me because I'm a casual fan of the series and really just like watching people play the games, but patience is a good virtue

Yes!!so thankful ND is still out there ❤❤❤

My daughter and I played these games for years and loved them. Credit goes to all those designers and artists that sweat over getting them made. Totally swept away at how creative they were. Sets, music, characters, storylines were great. The added bonus of blooper reals added quiz questions, trophies, easter eggs just added to the flair and charm. Then Midnight in Salem came out. The dialog box was small and hard to read. There wasn't an observation or checklist with hints option. For a person that gets motion sickness this was the worst game to play. I decided not to buy the game and just said a long wait for one of the biggest disappointments ever. After all this time I am hopeful again.

Great video Gooba! That was very informative! Honestly, this video really puts things into perspective for as to how spoiled we were over the years with 2 games a year. 😂 we were a very spoiled bunch of Nancy Drew gamers. The switch to unity and the opportunity to get more interesting games like KEY is a welcome change, and I can only hope that KEY’s release will bring in a new opportunity for the HeR devs to build off that engine and make it even better!

I’m in the minority for saying this but I don’t think Midnight in Salem was a bad game, in fact, I would argue that MID did things that not many Nancy Drew games would’ve been able to do in the past with the old engine. So being able to be in this new engine, there are a lot of amazing opportunities and I really hope that this is a new time for HeR and the Nancy Drew series

I know nothing about the Nancy Drew games. This is all news to me. And I am 28!

So if you don’t like it don’t buy it. A very cool game will be released on May 7 2024. It’s a Nancy Drew game. Get it or not. 🤷‍♂️

Thank you for this! I don’t know how many times I’ve had the discussion about whether or not HER Interactive is an indie studio or not. I worry all the time that the culture driven by the fans will lead to the shut down of HER Interactive and then after that, what next for Nancy Drew games? I hear people talk about starting their own game studios and making “better” Drew games all the time, but we’ve not seen anything to come close to what HER Interactive has accomplished with Nancy Drew, and my fear is, that Nancy Drew is way too niche for any other game studio to want to touch, especially if they used the decline of HER Interactive as a reason not to make “female puzzle games”. I think that would be the worst part of the whole situation, that this game series that empowers young girls would die out, and that the fans would hold some accountability for that.

I feel as though they did rush it. It’s probably one of the worst games I have played so far. I am curious what happened to the company and why they stopped using the game play template of games 10-21 (those are by far the best set of games!)

it released today! and i bought it immediately. Haven't played very much, maybe an hour or two but already i really like it. graphics are really good, story is interesting, lots of characters and locations, fair amount of puzzles and good ones, UI seems very streamlined, and they fixed most of the problems MID had. I support the company and will continue to. I'd encourage people to get this game, its good!

As a long time Nancy Drew fan, I'll speak on my issue. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." That doesn't fully apply here, of course. Some changes needed to be made, and I think many fans, most, would have been open to changes. Need to modernize the games a bit? Okay, sure. Need to have longer development times? Alright, we can deal with that. But it was, well, offputting to have such drastic changes with no forewarning and essentially radio silence before MID's release. But still, I think many of us were excited, and really wanted to give it a shot. There were definitely some hurt and frustrated feelings surrounding the mass exodus of employees, change of voice actress, and longer development time, but I think the majority of fans went into MID open minded. Pre-orders for MID happened, and then the release date was pushed back again. When we did finally get the game we were excited. Only to be met with, well... that. Changes I think we could handle, as long as they were for the good of the company, the employees, etc. MID was not only a bad game, it was near unplayable for many people. It was literally nausea inducing (I dont even get motion sick, and was struggling with the the new set up), glitchy, with bad graphics, some people couldn't even get the game to play. So, while we could accept new changes, I think, or at least this is the way I feel, we got MID and went "WHY did they try to fix what wasn't broken?" because it was such an obviously inferior game to the previous releases. All of this, and there was never any apology for MID. As another comment mentioned, CD Projekt RED not only apologized for the release state of Cyberpunk, they fixed it and it's now an incredible, near top tier game. MID is from an indie studio, so of course I don't think anyone is expecting them to go back and fix it, but at least acknowledge and apologize for the mess that was given to us, and don't blame it all on Unity, when it's clear there were many other mistakes made.

I'm giving this latest game a shot, because I do still hold this series dear, but honestly, I'm not going in with high expectations. I don't think people should be taking out their frustrations on the poor social media interns, but I also don't blame people for having broken trust that HER created or for going into this game with low expectations.

I will say that I've noticed that over the years, a ton of fans have turned into people that are gripping about the good old days and how they just want everything to go back to how they were years ago and it's getting really old to see them complaining about the new games because of what basically amounts to, change. They don't like the new voice actress, going as far as to call her emotionless and AI generated (the biggest insult) and complain about how they want the new graphics back. Look, I think the character models are uncanny and creepy, especially in Midnight in Salem where Deidre looked down on you from the top of the stairs with death in her eyes but in the newest game, it honestly looks way better. Sure, the eyebrow bone movements are still off buuuut definitely better. The new VA is perfectly fine, no one could've reached the expectations for a new Nancy, let's be honest, and nostalgia definitely are affecting us because we think of her as better but the old VA wasn't exactly really the most emotional either.
I think it's perfectly fine to be critical but I see people saying they should've hired someone better instead of letting the new one improve or get into the role and that they should just go back to how things were. They'd rather regress than give any advice focused on improving what's there and it's really annoying to see.

(...yeah don't get me started on how much people complained about how long the games took to make, maaaan, fan entitlement really makes me sad.)

Wait. 34 GAMES!? That’s insane! 2 a year!? Holy snap. I’m new to Nancy Drew games. But dang. That’s impressive! I’ve been waiting for Dragon Age Dreadwolf for almost ten years now! And that’s just game 4 of a HUGE STUDIO FRANCHISE!

Yeah the gaming industry is slow and if you want a good game it has to be. Game development is TIME CONSUMING.

Well now that I finished #34 I can honestly say that I'd be fine if this game never came out. Marginally better than Midnight in Salem, but meh overall.
Thankfully no one can stop me from playing the good old classics games when I get the ND itch again, but yeah I can safely say that I am not going to care about what HER does in the future. #33 and #34 are just boring (for me, don't clutch your pearls).

Hopefully in 2026 when ND becomes public domain, some new studio will pick up the franchise and make a game that goes back to the roots.

Is it even worth playing MID or should I just skip it. I've played every game but that one

Omfg you ppl are so fucking old

I've been playing OBSESSIVELY since 2004 and have played every game made multiple times.
My mother (74years old) and I (47 years old) play these together. We make a great detective team as we have different techniques, approaches, ideas, etc.
I'll admit, HER interactive has not been viewed kindly by us lately. But your video acted as a Valium, lol. Well, your video and the fact that we're currently (finally) playing the new game.
Thanks for posting this video!
To my fellow fans: here's a Koko Kringle bar for you! 🍫

I came here from the KEY review video which I'm about to go and watch now. I will admit I had not watched this video until today because I thought it would make me mad LOL 😅 but it actually did not. You make some very good points and were also very respectful during your whole assessment. I would agree that it's unrealistic to expect any gaming studio to pump out games the way HeR did and I also am amazed they were able to do it in the first place. You made good points about fans needing to be appreciative of just how many games there are and to be realistic about what any gaming company is capable of accomplishing and sharing now and in the future. I personally lost sight of the games and the company about 15yr or so ago (college and adulting, it happens) but Covid happened and allowed me to find my way back to the series. I remember playing MID for the first time not realizing what had happened with the company and the utter despair I felt when I saw the game for the first time - it did look like the company and games were dead.

Like most, I was absolutely ecstatic to find out they were working on a new game, something we had all thought utterly impossible. It was truly wonderful to feel a part of all of the initial hype and see the community so excited and collaborative. I think there were/are issues at a higher level in the company that made the jobs hard for the dev and marketing teams. Realistically the teams and anyone we associate with their social media are not making the larger decisions or choices and have to adjust and provide based on what they're given/told to do. They didn't decide when to release teasers or how much to share, and I hope I speak for most people when I say we really very much appreciate the social team, with all the work they put into puzzles and content, and the dev team, for all their hard work on the game. I think the hype wave built up and crested too quickly, but that didn't affect my perception of the game itself.

I think it's unfortunate that the higher up decision makers seem so far removed from the fan base and feedback, because there are things repeated from MID that would have been easier to just do differently. I know they need to also appeal to new users, not just longtime fans, but a lot of decisions both before and after launch didn't really do either 🤷‍♀ After playing, it's evident the game itself is unfinished and also lacks fine tuning. As you (maybe unintentionally?) hinted at, this could be because the fan base was so verbal that the execs decided to wrap up the game and release it already. They also might have run out of money or there could be another reason entirely, who knows. I bought the game as soon as possible on their website and, even though I'm personally dissatisfied with it, I would still buy the next game they release to continue supporting the company and also in hopes that the next game is better than the last. I think whoever makes the larger decisions needs to resync with the fan base and be realistic about what the games need to be successful - from a development and marketing standpoint. I hope they will listen more and that they keep making games, becasue the community and series really are something special.

Appreciate both of you, your love of the games, and your dedication to open discussion 🙂

I have player every Nancy Drew game most of them multiple times. The major issue is not the delay or switch in engine its the huge decline in quality. We waited years for MID and it was inferior in pretty much every way. Keys was better and gave me a bit of hope but it is also inferior to the old games. I went back and legitimately their 20 year old games had better graphics and more interesting puzzles and stories.

I could sit here and be blindly geateful we are getting new ones at all but why should i be when they are categorically worse then the previous 30? The previous games had unique and highly detailed set pieces. The last two were basically unity asset store flips. The old ones had a good mix of interesting puzzles that flowed well with the story most of the time. The recent one we constantly got stuck because the order of events was so ridgid and some of the puzzles were nonsensical. I feel we are perfectly in pur rights to criticize a company when our loyalty and money is going to makong inferior versions of the game.

my 4 daughters and I play the old disk run games on our Mac pc in the late 90s fast forward I now have 4 grown daughters and 5 grandchildren, 2 of which are girls, so wanting to buy them games for their PCs but no CLUE where to go or how to buy downloads and since these will be Christmas presents any help will be appreciated.