nancy drew 8: the haunted carousel
Jan. 15th, 2024 02:14 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
porticoout of the woods of pennsylvania and up the coast to the jersey shore, it's time for
nancy is called onto the case by the amusement park's owner, who is (you guessed it!) a friend of her dad's. in paula santos' defense, she does seem like a good person and a fair boss. no comment on her decision to bring in her friend's teenage daughter to solve the case of who is messing with her park. the messing is as follows: someone stole a horse off the the (antique!) carousel, then it started powering up and spinning on its own (that's the full extent of the haunting), and finally the roller coaster came to a halt in the middle of a ride, leading one guy to claim damages in the range of a million dollars, at which point paula closed the park and called in the teenager.
the folks remaining at the park during the shut down are (clockwise from UL): harlan bishop, overenthusiastic security guard with a shady past; ingrid corey, park engineer who puts a lot of stock in nutrition and vibes; elliot chen, perpetually behind art director; and joy trent, bookkeeper and recently bereaved daughter of the park's previous co-owner.
the game balances behind-the-scenes investigation with rides and games. for instance, nancy needs a couple items that she can only get from the vending machine on the park's midway, which means she has to play each of the midway games (in one case after repairing it) at least once. she also has to catch the brass ring on the carousel. i love that aspect of it. plus, the park has been around for over a century, and you have to navigate that history.
the game's b plot is joy's grief. joy has always resented the park, apparently to the chagrin of her father, who adored it. not only was he the co-owner, but he designed a lot of the animatronics at the park. after his death, joy discovered a strange robot in his office with a note that it was destined for her. the robot (miles) is meant to help heal joy's grief--both old and new--by helping her to remember the things about the park that she loved when her mother was alive. nancy, whose mother also died when she was very young, offers to help with miles' riddles. why joy's father thought that a riddle robot would be a thing joy would ever pay any attention to is a mystery to me, so really it's fortunate that nancy waltzed into joy's life.
there are a few major changes in this game! it's the first one where nancy has both email and a cell phone. she can't SEND email, but she can receive it (sassy detective has shifted to newsletters, thankfully), and you no longer have to dart down the random phone numbers you come across because nancy automatically enters them into her phone.
i don't know what the moral of this one is. uh. read everything you come across in a video game and you'll learn that carousels go counter-clockwise everywhere in the world except for england, where they go clockwise, (apparently) so that children get practice mounting a horse from the left side, which is proper. (i haven't fact checked this)
nancy is called onto the case by the amusement park's owner, who is (you guessed it!) a friend of her dad's. in paula santos' defense, she does seem like a good person and a fair boss. no comment on her decision to bring in her friend's teenage daughter to solve the case of who is messing with her park. the messing is as follows: someone stole a horse off the the (antique!) carousel, then it started powering up and spinning on its own (that's the full extent of the haunting), and finally the roller coaster came to a halt in the middle of a ride, leading one guy to claim damages in the range of a million dollars, at which point paula closed the park and called in the teenager.
the folks remaining at the park during the shut down are (clockwise from UL): harlan bishop, overenthusiastic security guard with a shady past; ingrid corey, park engineer who puts a lot of stock in nutrition and vibes; elliot chen, perpetually behind art director; and joy trent, bookkeeper and recently bereaved daughter of the park's previous co-owner.
the game balances behind-the-scenes investigation with rides and games. for instance, nancy needs a couple items that she can only get from the vending machine on the park's midway, which means she has to play each of the midway games (in one case after repairing it) at least once. she also has to catch the brass ring on the carousel. i love that aspect of it. plus, the park has been around for over a century, and you have to navigate that history.
the game's b plot is joy's grief. joy has always resented the park, apparently to the chagrin of her father, who adored it. not only was he the co-owner, but he designed a lot of the animatronics at the park. after his death, joy discovered a strange robot in his office with a note that it was destined for her. the robot (miles) is meant to help heal joy's grief--both old and new--by helping her to remember the things about the park that she loved when her mother was alive. nancy, whose mother also died when she was very young, offers to help with miles' riddles. why joy's father thought that a riddle robot would be a thing joy would ever pay any attention to is a mystery to me, so really it's fortunate that nancy waltzed into joy's life.
there are a few major changes in this game! it's the first one where nancy has both email and a cell phone. she can't SEND email, but she can receive it (sassy detective has shifted to newsletters, thankfully), and you no longer have to dart down the random phone numbers you come across because nancy automatically enters them into her phone.
i don't know what the moral of this one is. uh. read everything you come across in a video game and you'll learn that carousels go counter-clockwise everywhere in the world except for england, where they go clockwise, (apparently) so that children get practice mounting a horse from the left side, which is proper. (i haven't fact checked this)
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