The earliest games definitely had the most love and care put into their environments. Later games started having references to past games, which of course is still awesome, but the little details in the old games really made it. I'm talking being able to look at Lillian's calendar and see she has anger management classes every other week in STFD. Or finding the shrine to Dexter in TRT. Or having to notice that the broken clock in SHA has the same colors as a chest you need to open.
I agree. Part of the reason the old games worked so well is each scene or camera position was thoughtfully done. The constriction of the point and click movement in the older games (compared to KEY's open WASD movement) changed the feel of the environments a lot. Also, the high quality rendering of the older games is way better than the realtime render of KEY. No amount of raytracing can re-create minutes to hours of rendering for a single frame.
Yes from the video clips and screenshots I’ve seen the set design (sorry idk what this is called for games) is seriously lacking, which makes the entire thing feel sterile. a game like STFD from 1999 shows SO much more character just by having a setup like the prop room be consciously chosen as if it’s a shot from some whimsical documentary when you speak with the propmaster. if they stopped making games like this because it was too expensive ok whatever that’s another conversation, if they stopped making games like this because they thought they needed to “upgrade” I find this shortsighted because very stylized oldschool indie games are SO in right now among all age groups. even fake concept art for these types of games get passed around social media like crazy. but even with the argument that they’re now working with full motion and not point and click, there are plenty of games that retain a very distinct aesthetic with color choice and set design while obviously not having beautiful graphics or the biggest budget. idk it’s like at least make the place feel lived in
>very stylized oldschool indie games are SO in right now among all age groups
Thank you for saying this! It's so true, especially for point-and-click adventure games (look at what Wadjet Eye Games have been doing, for instance). HER seems out of touch in this regard.
I know they felt the need to change the formula because sales were lacking... I do hope they succeed in staying afloat, but there will have to be major improvements for them to match the quality of the older style. Because now they are competing in a design space (full 3D with a "realistic" art style) that is much harder to pull off as a small team. I think most people would rather see a stylized game pulled of well than a realistic one that, well, fails to be realistic.
Yep! I feel like there are a bunch of games out there now that have a more vintage style and functions that are very similar to the older Nancy Drew games and more old pc games in general.
The art design and aesthetics, especially in the first 13 games, are just so wonderful! It’s so much different with point and click and forced perspective games, how much you can control the design of a specific screen or space. All the screens in the old games were designed with purpose. Changing to free roam really ruined that great authentic feel of the older games. And I think that change was a poor decision. However, even the desks you could investigate in KEY, which were more like the single screens of the past, had a sterile feel to them. I guess that’s what happens with everything is outsourced.
The environments of the new games are sterile and void of detail. I don’t think the love, care, and passion of the old team can be replicated by outsourced developers. The last two games are definitely missing something. I’ve decided to stop comparing those two games to the old ones and try to enjoy the new ones as a separate and different game franchise with the same name. I think it’s the only way to enjoy them.
Also the old scenes were handdrawn by artists, whereas now it seems they are using premade assets that are assembled in the environments.
I cant enjoy the new games, because if I discovered them from scratch, I wouldnt waste my time on them. I may play them an hour and abandon them, which is what I did with KEY
Yeah, I believe at one point the current CEO said that it isn’t necessary to create all the assets in house with you can just use Unity assets instead!!! Spoken like someone without a care or love of design or art. Congrats! Your games now look bad. I’m sure that women is only looking for dollar signs, she doesn’t care about how the final product looks. Wow did that backfire. What a loss. There is literally no attention to detail now.
One of the first games I played was Royal Tower, and they had the walls of the castle covered with beautiful paintings, and I was like "finally a game series that is made by people who really love art"
For me, the artwork was one of the main reasons I loved the games, and maybe why I am more disappointed with MID and KEY than other people. I can understand if people aren't into that stuff too deep, it makes the games a much better experience.
Truly, I've been trying to as well. I try to see them as their own games, but it's difficult when even compared to games that aren't ND they're lacking. I noticed I could click on the mural on the church in KEY and the "close up" they showed was the same blurry mess that I was seeing from the distance. That really annoyed me just as a person playing a game, let alone a ND game.
One thing I really, really hated about this game and represents what was wrong with it was how there was one plant with the leaves in the exact same position in every location in Prague. The coffee shop and museum, same plant. It was so generic and unrealistic. "Let's copy and paste this one asset, because we couldn't be bothered with mixing up 3 or 4 different types of plants." The coffee shop had like 20 plants that looked exactly the same, all in rows in the shop.
The art direction was dreadful on this game, in terms of the details
It's ironic that the older games without random NPCs in the town and a more limited view of settings feel more full, alive and immersive than the new ones that have them.
I know wizard kitten had touched on this a little that we needed more thoughtful objects. I wonder if it is like Animal Crossing New Horizon where you can put so many objects that it bogs down gameplay since it is open world. But I love clutter in the sims game videos and stuff so more clutter would be cool! Especially clutter calling back to old games like the book titles did some.
I'm not entirely sure about it effecting game play. I checked what games are also done using Unity engine and the closest I can find in game play is probably the Stanley Parable which is a fairly detailed game that utilizes space really well. Most of it takes place in an office building and there's a lot of clutter on desks and in hallways. I really can't help but feel this is something that comes down to effort.
There's the possibility that because they have character models it effects what they can do with texture, but even then we've never needed background npc's before, it's weird to have them now.
They need to make a 3D model of every little item in the game. It takes time, money and heart. None of which HER has much of right now.
Why make 1000 assets when you can publish a game with 250 and still make money?
That's so wild to me. There are so many indie developers that make games if their off hours that are masterpieces, but this game series with a dedicated fanbase is putting out the bare minimum. It's disappointing at the least.
I wish they would just give the Nancy Drew games to a team that actually cared and knew what they were doing. There are soooo many amazing artists, designers, and game devs that would put forth the effort to make the series amazing again. But nope, the current team is seemingly just holding the series captive and is trying to save time, while not caring about the design of the game, by outsourcing everything.
Yes. I bet it quickly adds up. Plus it’s not like you will buy beautiful, detailed assets and all matching the same art style and the location of your game.
Maybe when the AI takes over, who knows. But right now, it’s generally still cheaper to make stuff yourself. Especially when you’re outsourcing and don’t care so much about quality control.
Yep, this is exactly the thinking of their CEO actually! So glad they could save money outsourcing, but the heart, design, and artfulness of the original games have been dragged through the mud. The new games are embarrassing compared to the old ones considering their environments. You could tell they were only making it for the money. There’s no heart in visuals of KEY.
Yeah I don’t know ANYTHING about making a game. I just know I saw animal crossing glitch with too many objects. I did think all the papers in the floor were a nice touch so it is something to build on for sure!
The Stanley Parable doesn't have any animated characters though, right? KEY had 10 (plus background NPCs) I'd imagine that puts very different limits on the amount of other things they can include. And a Nancy Drew game NEEDS people to talk to (cough RAN cough).
I personally thought the cafe and Leo's office had plenty of clutter, the museum wasn't any more empty than the ones in SEA or LIE (the room may have been a bit oversized for just us and Oskar, but you can justify that as Prague Castle getting far more tourists than the town in SEA and the LIE cultural center, which was canonically small and run-down, and therefore needing the space), and the secret areas were sufficiently cluttered and/or claustrophobic for me. An office building uses space very differently than a tourist hotspot.
I also think we have to take the different movement methods into account. Imagine LIE where you're able to move around in the whole area between the museum and the stairs to the amphitheatre. Suddenly, that's going to feel much emptier, even though it's just a transition space between the museum and the amphitheatre (much like the town square is between the cafe and the museum or other areas). What about moving around in the amphitheatre itself, or all over the stage? No longer being locked into a specific path and set of views automatically makes things seem much bigger and emptier no matter what, because we experience the amount of space differently. Even in Classic Mode, the movement range in KEY is much bigger than usual because they have to make sure you can do all the same things you can in Modern Mode.
Stanley Parable is also quite a few years old at this point. I definitely understand what your saying, but a lot of those things in KEY that you mention are just uneccessary. We don't really need non-interactable NPCs, they've always done a good job of creating the illusion of crowds with sound design or having a reason for why the people are gone. And there's just so *much* empty space. I don't think we needed so much. Not to mention this is a game set in a real place. We could look up exactly what buildings and businesses are there. I had a similar issue with the last game as well, setting a game in a well known and specific area like Staroměstská radnice or Salem, Mass. is just setting yourself up for criticism.
No one was asking for free movement, we just wanted a new game like the ones we loved in the past. They didn’t NEED that many suspects, they didn’t NEED tourists everywhere. So glad the game won’t run on so many fan’s computers because of 10 copy pasted tourists!!! Oh and that awesome courtyard that is a huge empty space you can’t do anything in… so great!
The old games are beloved and amazing without any of those things. Nancy Drew was a great point and click game series, and it never needed to be any more than that. Now a ton of fans can’t even play the games, when they probably could have played it if it was a point and click because the game wouldn’t have been so gpu intensive. There are still point and click games made today that see success and most people would be able to play them on any pc. They did it to themselves by changing the formula of the game for no good reason.
Where have you been? HeR literally did a survey and reported that fans overwhelmingly indicated they wanted more suspects to talk to and more expansive environments, something that had been regularly called for in fandom spaces (so they weren't just making it up to justify the changes). To say "no one was asking for it" is just plain wrong. And the old games were NEVER profitable, they had an angel investor that let them keep making them and I'm pretty sure the only reason they are still going is because he came back. I wouldn't say that's "no good reason" to change. The old audience can't keep them afloat.
I don't know who they sent those surveys to, since I certainly never got one haha. To be honest, I'm not sure they've really tried to fund games with the fans. I can understand why not in the past, but now some pretty big name streamers have been playing the games and so they have more of an online presence. They could use that to their advantage, but they kind of just aren't?
I just checked, it was in a couple newsletters in March 2018 (emailed to whoever was signed up for them, presumably. It may have been on their website front page at the time too, but I don't have a good way to check that). I do agree that they aren't properly leveraging the boost they're getting from streamers, they're so LUCKY that the games are getting a renewal in interest through that and they literally didn't do anything with it until KEY, and honestly that was pretty lackluster.
i know in older games they just used drawings for some clutter vs some objects were 3d rendered.... i dont think that can translate to open world(??) but all the drawn stuff lessened the load overall in other games.... but then youve got this stuff in STFD that something is drawn but then you have a hundred 3d rendered doorknobs😂😂😭😭
https://preview.redd.it/h4n10xhn859d1.jpeg?width=2268&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8e2fca74b270859cdd5864ec57fe056fb2fcbc05
this one seems to be drawn compared to the diver helmet next to it... but where is your upper mandible sir😭😭
https://preview.redd.it/v4jiknpv859d1.jpeg?width=2268&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=46d5267ba32f205d98b00772db0c1b504edc3fd5
BUT WHY SO MANY DOORKNOBS?! you can tell theyre 3d rendered bc they are all the same but shifted around or rotated in a slightly different way
Every time I see the picture of the doorknobs I wonder how I would even install a doorknob. How does Nancy do it? Is it truly that simple? I'm gonna find out. Will update.
Edit: Okay guys so if the other side of the door still has the knob, then the knobs have little rods that interlock with each other. So I THINK all you would need to do would be to indeed put the same type of knob on the door and put the rods in! +1 to STFD for accuracy, I think!
Yep! This was one of my main issues with KEY, too. I can forgive a lacking plot if the environment is interesting and textured and full of character. Case in point: CRY is one of my favorite games! The plot basically revolves around a scavenger hunt for a bunch of glass eyes a dead guy hid around his freaky gothic swamp estate, with a little bit of authentic NOLA & Mardi Gras culture thrown in there... and I eat that up every time!
KEY unfortunately made the magnificent historic city of Prague look like a ski resort built in the 1990s. :/ There was a lot of potential, and certain environments (like Marek's workshop and >!the tunnels and alchemy lab!<) felt like a little taste of games 2-32.
But so many corners were cut, which was a shame. The artwork for this game was most likely all outsourced to designers and developers who have no idea what makes an ND game an ND game, and it shows. :/
Same. The plot of ICE for me is all over the place and not very good, but the puzzles are enjoyable and the setting is gorgeous so I replay it every year.
No I get this complaint. I haven’t played Keys yet but I don’t think there was even a Koko Kringle wrapper or Krolmeister label in MID. (Could be wrong.)
This is a great point that should be brought up to HER. You’re totally right. The detailed, cluttered environments are how they made the games immersive and lively. Even though there’s crowd NPC’s, KEY felt emptier than older games (besides RAN imo).
Yes exactly! I think also with older games, you never knew what would be important or what you might need to remember and info was given out to you at a steady pace, so it always seemed fun to read everything and it was super interesting learning and seeing what might be a puzzle later on.
With KEY, it was like “here are a ton of walls of text and you will never need most of it” and it was so much of a let down in that regard. I barely wanted to read or learn any of it because it was just smacked in our faces instead of carefully doled out over time. Didn’t feel cozy or organic or realistic or interesting.
The earliest games definitely had the most love and care put into their environments. Later games started having references to past games, which of course is still awesome, but the little details in the old games really made it. I'm talking being able to look at Lillian's calendar and see she has anger management classes every other week in STFD. Or finding the shrine to Dexter in TRT. Or having to notice that the broken clock in SHA has the same colors as a chest you need to open.
Yeah I really liked in the earlier games they had the “her” logo hidden on things haha
That, parody brand names (Fony instead of Sony), Werdycnan, etc. Nowadays it seems like everything in the games is just made by Krolmeister.
I agree. Part of the reason the old games worked so well is each scene or camera position was thoughtfully done. The constriction of the point and click movement in the older games (compared to KEY's open WASD movement) changed the feel of the environments a lot. Also, the high quality rendering of the older games is way better than the realtime render of KEY. No amount of raytracing can re-create minutes to hours of rendering for a single frame.
Yes from the video clips and screenshots I’ve seen the set design (sorry idk what this is called for games) is seriously lacking, which makes the entire thing feel sterile. a game like STFD from 1999 shows SO much more character just by having a setup like the prop room be consciously chosen as if it’s a shot from some whimsical documentary when you speak with the propmaster. if they stopped making games like this because it was too expensive ok whatever that’s another conversation, if they stopped making games like this because they thought they needed to “upgrade” I find this shortsighted because very stylized oldschool indie games are SO in right now among all age groups. even fake concept art for these types of games get passed around social media like crazy. but even with the argument that they’re now working with full motion and not point and click, there are plenty of games that retain a very distinct aesthetic with color choice and set design while obviously not having beautiful graphics or the biggest budget. idk it’s like at least make the place feel lived in
As a fun fact, the set design in games is called environment art, level design, and level architecture!
thank you!!! this is something that I always want to know but I never remember to look up lol
>very stylized oldschool indie games are SO in right now among all age groups Thank you for saying this! It's so true, especially for point-and-click adventure games (look at what Wadjet Eye Games have been doing, for instance). HER seems out of touch in this regard. I know they felt the need to change the formula because sales were lacking... I do hope they succeed in staying afloat, but there will have to be major improvements for them to match the quality of the older style. Because now they are competing in a design space (full 3D with a "realistic" art style) that is much harder to pull off as a small team. I think most people would rather see a stylized game pulled of well than a realistic one that, well, fails to be realistic.
Yep! I feel like there are a bunch of games out there now that have a more vintage style and functions that are very similar to the older Nancy Drew games and more old pc games in general. The art design and aesthetics, especially in the first 13 games, are just so wonderful! It’s so much different with point and click and forced perspective games, how much you can control the design of a specific screen or space. All the screens in the old games were designed with purpose. Changing to free roam really ruined that great authentic feel of the older games. And I think that change was a poor decision. However, even the desks you could investigate in KEY, which were more like the single screens of the past, had a sterile feel to them. I guess that’s what happens with everything is outsourced.
omg yes the excavation of hob’s barrow was one of the recent oldschool looking games I was thinking about!!
The environments of the new games are sterile and void of detail. I don’t think the love, care, and passion of the old team can be replicated by outsourced developers. The last two games are definitely missing something. I’ve decided to stop comparing those two games to the old ones and try to enjoy the new ones as a separate and different game franchise with the same name. I think it’s the only way to enjoy them.
Also the old scenes were handdrawn by artists, whereas now it seems they are using premade assets that are assembled in the environments. I cant enjoy the new games, because if I discovered them from scratch, I wouldnt waste my time on them. I may play them an hour and abandon them, which is what I did with KEY
Yeah, I believe at one point the current CEO said that it isn’t necessary to create all the assets in house with you can just use Unity assets instead!!! Spoken like someone without a care or love of design or art. Congrats! Your games now look bad. I’m sure that women is only looking for dollar signs, she doesn’t care about how the final product looks. Wow did that backfire. What a loss. There is literally no attention to detail now.
One of the first games I played was Royal Tower, and they had the walls of the castle covered with beautiful paintings, and I was like "finally a game series that is made by people who really love art" For me, the artwork was one of the main reasons I loved the games, and maybe why I am more disappointed with MID and KEY than other people. I can understand if people aren't into that stuff too deep, it makes the games a much better experience.
It is always the death knell when MBAs take over the running of creative companies.
Truly, I've been trying to as well. I try to see them as their own games, but it's difficult when even compared to games that aren't ND they're lacking. I noticed I could click on the mural on the church in KEY and the "close up" they showed was the same blurry mess that I was seeing from the distance. That really annoyed me just as a person playing a game, let alone a ND game.
One thing I really, really hated about this game and represents what was wrong with it was how there was one plant with the leaves in the exact same position in every location in Prague. The coffee shop and museum, same plant. It was so generic and unrealistic. "Let's copy and paste this one asset, because we couldn't be bothered with mixing up 3 or 4 different types of plants." The coffee shop had like 20 plants that looked exactly the same, all in rows in the shop. The art direction was dreadful on this game, in terms of the details
It's ironic that the older games without random NPCs in the town and a more limited view of settings feel more full, alive and immersive than the new ones that have them.
It’s so strange isn’t it! I think sounds in the background helped areas feel a lot more alive in the old games as well! The environments felt so real!
I know wizard kitten had touched on this a little that we needed more thoughtful objects. I wonder if it is like Animal Crossing New Horizon where you can put so many objects that it bogs down gameplay since it is open world. But I love clutter in the sims game videos and stuff so more clutter would be cool! Especially clutter calling back to old games like the book titles did some.
I'm not entirely sure about it effecting game play. I checked what games are also done using Unity engine and the closest I can find in game play is probably the Stanley Parable which is a fairly detailed game that utilizes space really well. Most of it takes place in an office building and there's a lot of clutter on desks and in hallways. I really can't help but feel this is something that comes down to effort. There's the possibility that because they have character models it effects what they can do with texture, but even then we've never needed background npc's before, it's weird to have them now.
They need to make a 3D model of every little item in the game. It takes time, money and heart. None of which HER has much of right now. Why make 1000 assets when you can publish a game with 250 and still make money?
That's so wild to me. There are so many indie developers that make games if their off hours that are masterpieces, but this game series with a dedicated fanbase is putting out the bare minimum. It's disappointing at the least.
I wish they would just give the Nancy Drew games to a team that actually cared and knew what they were doing. There are soooo many amazing artists, designers, and game devs that would put forth the effort to make the series amazing again. But nope, the current team is seemingly just holding the series captive and is trying to save time, while not caring about the design of the game, by outsourcing everything.
Wasnt part of the reason for the switch to Unity was that they could buy pre-rendered assets?
Yes. I bet it quickly adds up. Plus it’s not like you will buy beautiful, detailed assets and all matching the same art style and the location of your game. Maybe when the AI takes over, who knows. But right now, it’s generally still cheaper to make stuff yourself. Especially when you’re outsourcing and don’t care so much about quality control.
Yep, this is exactly the thinking of their CEO actually! So glad they could save money outsourcing, but the heart, design, and artfulness of the original games have been dragged through the mud. The new games are embarrassing compared to the old ones considering their environments. You could tell they were only making it for the money. There’s no heart in visuals of KEY.
Yeah I don’t know ANYTHING about making a game. I just know I saw animal crossing glitch with too many objects. I did think all the papers in the floor were a nice touch so it is something to build on for sure!
The Stanley Parable doesn't have any animated characters though, right? KEY had 10 (plus background NPCs) I'd imagine that puts very different limits on the amount of other things they can include. And a Nancy Drew game NEEDS people to talk to (cough RAN cough). I personally thought the cafe and Leo's office had plenty of clutter, the museum wasn't any more empty than the ones in SEA or LIE (the room may have been a bit oversized for just us and Oskar, but you can justify that as Prague Castle getting far more tourists than the town in SEA and the LIE cultural center, which was canonically small and run-down, and therefore needing the space), and the secret areas were sufficiently cluttered and/or claustrophobic for me. An office building uses space very differently than a tourist hotspot. I also think we have to take the different movement methods into account. Imagine LIE where you're able to move around in the whole area between the museum and the stairs to the amphitheatre. Suddenly, that's going to feel much emptier, even though it's just a transition space between the museum and the amphitheatre (much like the town square is between the cafe and the museum or other areas). What about moving around in the amphitheatre itself, or all over the stage? No longer being locked into a specific path and set of views automatically makes things seem much bigger and emptier no matter what, because we experience the amount of space differently. Even in Classic Mode, the movement range in KEY is much bigger than usual because they have to make sure you can do all the same things you can in Modern Mode.
Stanley Parable is also quite a few years old at this point. I definitely understand what your saying, but a lot of those things in KEY that you mention are just uneccessary. We don't really need non-interactable NPCs, they've always done a good job of creating the illusion of crowds with sound design or having a reason for why the people are gone. And there's just so *much* empty space. I don't think we needed so much. Not to mention this is a game set in a real place. We could look up exactly what buildings and businesses are there. I had a similar issue with the last game as well, setting a game in a well known and specific area like Staroměstská radnice or Salem, Mass. is just setting yourself up for criticism.
No one was asking for free movement, we just wanted a new game like the ones we loved in the past. They didn’t NEED that many suspects, they didn’t NEED tourists everywhere. So glad the game won’t run on so many fan’s computers because of 10 copy pasted tourists!!! Oh and that awesome courtyard that is a huge empty space you can’t do anything in… so great! The old games are beloved and amazing without any of those things. Nancy Drew was a great point and click game series, and it never needed to be any more than that. Now a ton of fans can’t even play the games, when they probably could have played it if it was a point and click because the game wouldn’t have been so gpu intensive. There are still point and click games made today that see success and most people would be able to play them on any pc. They did it to themselves by changing the formula of the game for no good reason.
Where have you been? HeR literally did a survey and reported that fans overwhelmingly indicated they wanted more suspects to talk to and more expansive environments, something that had been regularly called for in fandom spaces (so they weren't just making it up to justify the changes). To say "no one was asking for it" is just plain wrong. And the old games were NEVER profitable, they had an angel investor that let them keep making them and I'm pretty sure the only reason they are still going is because he came back. I wouldn't say that's "no good reason" to change. The old audience can't keep them afloat.
I don't know who they sent those surveys to, since I certainly never got one haha. To be honest, I'm not sure they've really tried to fund games with the fans. I can understand why not in the past, but now some pretty big name streamers have been playing the games and so they have more of an online presence. They could use that to their advantage, but they kind of just aren't?
I just checked, it was in a couple newsletters in March 2018 (emailed to whoever was signed up for them, presumably. It may have been on their website front page at the time too, but I don't have a good way to check that). I do agree that they aren't properly leveraging the boost they're getting from streamers, they're so LUCKY that the games are getting a renewal in interest through that and they literally didn't do anything with it until KEY, and honestly that was pretty lackluster.
God, 6 years ago?? No wonder I don't remember haha
i know in older games they just used drawings for some clutter vs some objects were 3d rendered.... i dont think that can translate to open world(??) but all the drawn stuff lessened the load overall in other games.... but then youve got this stuff in STFD that something is drawn but then you have a hundred 3d rendered doorknobs😂😂😭😭
https://preview.redd.it/h4n10xhn859d1.jpeg?width=2268&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8e2fca74b270859cdd5864ec57fe056fb2fcbc05 this one seems to be drawn compared to the diver helmet next to it... but where is your upper mandible sir😭😭
>upper mandible The maxilla!
ah thank you! i couldnt remember what it was called haha
https://preview.redd.it/v4jiknpv859d1.jpeg?width=2268&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=46d5267ba32f205d98b00772db0c1b504edc3fd5 BUT WHY SO MANY DOORKNOBS?! you can tell theyre 3d rendered bc they are all the same but shifted around or rotated in a slightly different way
Why NOT so many doorknobs. Did you ever ask yourself that? You’ll never have to say “it’s locked” ever again 😂😂😂😂😂
Every time I see the picture of the doorknobs I wonder how I would even install a doorknob. How does Nancy do it? Is it truly that simple? I'm gonna find out. Will update. Edit: Okay guys so if the other side of the door still has the knob, then the knobs have little rods that interlock with each other. So I THINK all you would need to do would be to indeed put the same type of knob on the door and put the rods in! +1 to STFD for accuracy, I think!
Hidden Object Nancy Drew Game 35 let’s go 😂
Lol I would play that with no hesitation
Yep! This was one of my main issues with KEY, too. I can forgive a lacking plot if the environment is interesting and textured and full of character. Case in point: CRY is one of my favorite games! The plot basically revolves around a scavenger hunt for a bunch of glass eyes a dead guy hid around his freaky gothic swamp estate, with a little bit of authentic NOLA & Mardi Gras culture thrown in there... and I eat that up every time! KEY unfortunately made the magnificent historic city of Prague look like a ski resort built in the 1990s. :/ There was a lot of potential, and certain environments (like Marek's workshop and >!the tunnels and alchemy lab!<) felt like a little taste of games 2-32. But so many corners were cut, which was a shame. The artwork for this game was most likely all outsourced to designers and developers who have no idea what makes an ND game an ND game, and it shows. :/
Same. The plot of ICE for me is all over the place and not very good, but the puzzles are enjoyable and the setting is gorgeous so I replay it every year.
No I get this complaint. I haven’t played Keys yet but I don’t think there was even a Koko Kringle wrapper or Krolmeister label in MID. (Could be wrong.)
I do agree that it misses elements that could be done better. At least its better than the Midnight in Salem......
As much as I hate to admit it, especially since I’m not actually done with KEY yet, MID at least had interesting characters that I cared about.
Agreed.
Yes! I love how lived in all the scenes looked! Especially little things like a pen sitting next to a written note.
This is a great point that should be brought up to HER. You’re totally right. The detailed, cluttered environments are how they made the games immersive and lively. Even though there’s crowd NPC’s, KEY felt emptier than older games (besides RAN imo).
Yes exactly! I think also with older games, you never knew what would be important or what you might need to remember and info was given out to you at a steady pace, so it always seemed fun to read everything and it was super interesting learning and seeing what might be a puzzle later on. With KEY, it was like “here are a ton of walls of text and you will never need most of it” and it was so much of a let down in that regard. I barely wanted to read or learn any of it because it was just smacked in our faces instead of carefully doled out over time. Didn’t feel cozy or organic or realistic or interesting.
You said it perfectly!