#but look at this ........ for the first time evar ....... commissions ...........

[kosmical]

MY COMMISSIONS ARE FINALLY OPEN !! dm me here or on twt/insta if ur interested :] for more examples of my art, check out my portfolio. reblogs appreciated :3

[stillhavetodothat]

Replaying Nancy Drew without Cheating - Part 5: Secret of the Scarlet Hand

FINALLY! We have reached a game in which I can probably count on a single hand how many times I have replayed it!! A few days ago I sat down at my laptop, rolled my neck out, cracked my knuckles, and got ready to buckle down: I knew this was going to be the first challenge of my mission to replay all Nancy Drew games without cheating.

And spoiler alert. It was.

Let me start out by saying that I sleep on this game constantly. It’s like I forget it exists. For some reason, of all the games I bought and played as a kid, this is one game that was missing from the collection probably until I was an older teenager. I had played almost every game in the first 10 games many many times over before I even played this game once. As a kid, all the history bored me. Every single game has had some historical element to it (even if it was a made-up history), but for some reason this one just reeeeally stood out to me as extra educational. And I already felt bogged down by the amount of education I was receiving in my elementary classroom.

However, I would like to formally apologize to you, SSH, as you are interesting, fun, hilarious, tough at times, and a little bit dark. You’re everything a Nancy Drew game should be, and I am sorry for underappreciating you the past 20 years.

Was I extremely tempted to cheat in this game? Yes. Multiple times. So much so that I am actually impressed by my willpower, and I am actually very proud of myself for getting through it without a walkthrough FOR THE FIRST TIME EVAR!! Thank god for this blog which for some reason is making me feel held accountable, regardless of whether anyone reads any of it or not.

Here are all the times I was tempted to cheat. Many, many spoilers abound, obviously.

1. In the beginning of the game, when I had to find the addenda to the monolith loan agreement to bring to Alejandro del Rio. I searched for about 45 minutes, sprinting up and down the exhibition hall and up and down the temple steps, to find that damn loan addenda. I wanted to cheat, I NEEDED to cheat, but I gave it another few minutes and found a bench in the museum lobby that I had somehow never seen before. Eurrreka!

2. Looking for fucking Sonny Joon’s username and password. WHY?? WHY DID I SOMEHOW READ EVERY SINGLE OTHER THING ON HIS DISK BUT SOMEHOW MISS THE VERY EXPLICIT USERNAME AND PASSWORD WRITTEN RIGHT THERE?? Not me literally at the computer in the temple trying to guess Sonny’s username (sonnyjoon? sj? kokokringle?) with no success.

3. Trying to figure out HOW Topeka Commission of the Arts was associated with Beech Hill. I KNEW I had to somehow be triggered into contacting Prudence Rutherford (because who can forget a shrill phone contact with a very ambiguous accent?), but could not for the life of me figure out how. I read that magazine interview in Joanna’s office approximately 10 times and spent a small fortune on metro rides around the city of Washington DC before I clicked on the plaque outside of Joanna’s office. The funny thing was, I had clicked on the plaque on the OTHER side of the door at the beginning of the game, but since nothing happened I figured the other one was probably equally unimportant. This was the most frustrating one I think.

4. Speaking of phone contacts, the fact that you can only call Copper Canyon from the hotel and get a error tone every time you try at the museum is MADDENING. It took me forever to talk to Sheila because I could not get this concept into my head. I still can’t.

5. I stg I thought I was going to have to cheat once I was locked inside the monolith, because I have NEVER solved it on my own without a walkthrough. But it was actually not hard? WHY AM I SO LAZY?? At the very least, this project of mine is really teaching me that I need to be more patient.

Here are some other random thoughts on this game:

1. Taylor Sinclair is absolutely hysterical. He is an amazing culprit. Everything out of his mouth is an unexpected riot. He just seems...slippery. I can forgive that HerInteractive gave us the biggest bores in the world in Louis and Lisa, since they then delivered an insane, slightly demented old man who isn’t afraid to kidnap a teenage girl, and then an eccentric, small-mustachioed LUNATIC of an art dealer as the next two culprits. I just...chef’s kiss.

2. Because of how much I love Taylor, I am horribly disappointed that we can’t poke around his office when he runs out at the most convenient time for us to take something off the Poppy Dada piece. Also, why was he running out so suddenly? Was he about to shit his pants from those Oaxaca cookies? Is that the joke? Whatever that was, it was not very well fleshed out.

3. I wrote “spooky Maya” in looping cursive in my notes. Why?

4. Loved the storyline of Henrik van der Hune falling down the temple steps and losing his memory. Brilliant. Also loved seeing Henrik groaning and sprawled on the floor. Brilliant.

5. Is this why I had a crush on Henrik as a teenager? His vaguely sexual landing at the bottom of the pyramid? Why are my biggest Nancy Drew game crushes Dexter Egan and Henrik van der Hune? I am just as disturbed as you are, trust me.

6. Tell me why Her created that surreal maze puzzle on Louis’s laptop in MHM and thought it was such a good puzzle that they had to reuse it for this game?

7. I initially was praising the game devs for staying true to the layout of the city when building out their simplified DC metro map, until I realized that Beech Hill is located up in the northeast, near Fort Totten, but the museum’s address, according to the invoice in Joanna’s office, is in the SW quadrant. Hmmmmmm.

8. “Semper ubi sub ubi” means always wear underwear. I looked it up and I hate to say anything nice about Joanna Riggs but that is a good conversation sign-off.

9. The way I stalked that Shipping and Receiving room waiting for packages to arrive...it hit way too close to home.

10. What in god’s name was this ending?? I forgot how weird this is, these 3 showing up as soon as I get the monolith open. How long were they waiting  while I was struggling to breathe in that thing? They’re just standing there, all in a row, reciting some creepy rehearsed poem with shit-eating grins and unblinking stares on their faces. How long had they been planning this??

11. Taylor Sinclair’s face and him shouting “ConFOUND you, Nancy Drew!” while shaking his fist at the heavens almost makes up for it, though. Taylor Sinclair: the only culprit thus far willing to lock you in a prison of stone - with an ancient mummy forever frozen in a scream - with the full intention of letting you suffocate, starve to death, and not be found for literally hundreds of years. The gruesome scoundrel!

This game is fun. It was a nice surprise. There is a TON to do: it is challenging and there’s lots of snooping and puzzles to solve. There are also a bunch of components that are unique, like Henrik’s hospital stay and Taylor Sinclair’s existence. Writing this, I do realize there are plenty of flaws...the game is finicky and you have to do things a very certain way in a very certain order, some of the tasks are tedious (those temple quizzes), the ending scene is perterbing, and the maze game is an unwelcome reminder of Louis Chandler. Not a favorite, but I appreciate this game for all its quirks and storytelling.

MOON LAKE, I’M COMIN’ FOR YA!