Warnings at Waverly Academy

The 21st Nancy Drew game, Warnings at Waverly Academy, was released this month by Her Interactive. This game is loosely based on the Nancy Drew book, The Curse of the Black Cat. Unlike the early Nancy Drew games, the more recent ones are just slightly based on the books, so it is possible to have read the book and not be able to guess who the villain is in the game.

This game was back to basics. I greatly enjoyed how for the first time in a number of games, the player is able to walk through and explore a building in first person. In most of the recent games, a large amount of the game play has been in third person, in which the player has to guide Nancy from above through some means.

The character interaction is much better than in the previous game, Ransom of the Seven Ships. In Seven Ships, the player is only able to talk to a couple of people so it is not hard to guess who the villain is. In this game, the player is able to speak to a number of characters, so it is not obvious.

As in previous games, the player has to play games with one of the characters in order to gain information. I found the two games to be much easier than the ones from Seven Ships. Seven Ships has this horrible coconut throw that is just about impossible to win. I hated it. This game has scram and air hockey, and I was able to win both on just the second try. My first try yielded me the necessary information on how to play each game, so on the second try I was able to beat both of them.

I cheated with online spoilers a few times, but if I had wished to spend the extra time, I could have completed all tasks without help. This game was easier than most of the recent Nancy Drew games. It would probably be a good one for someone to try who has never played a Nancy Drew game.

For people who like the play the game to learn the title of the next game, please stop reading here if you do not want to know the title or subject of the next game that is to be released next year. Remember, you've been warned to quit reading NOW...
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SPOILER ALERT
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The next game is called Trail of the Twister and is set in Oklahoma. Ugh... I was a bit dismayed since that means that the game is based on The Mystery in Tornado Alley, which is set in my home state of Oklahoma and is one of my least favorite Nancy Drew books. I absolutely hate that book...

Why do I hate it? First, it is written very badly. It makes little sense and the plot has a thousand holes. It is stupid. I haven't read it since I read it years ago, and I hardly want to put myself through a bad experience in order to refresh my memory of the specifics. I will, however, mention the part of the book that I object to the most. I found an old post of mine to the Nancy Drew Sleuths group in which I answered the question of whether I felt that Nancy Drew had ever had a "jump the shark" moment.

Once again, be forewarned of spoiler information concerning a dreadful book that you probably don't want to read anyway...

SPOILER

I could mention several, but I would say the main one would be in Tornado Alley when Nancy is sucked into an F5 tornado while in a car, stays conscious while banging around in the car, decides to get out of the car, and is set gently on the ground uninjured and unhit by debris. It is not only stupid and unbelievable, but totally irresponsible of the author to write such utter garbage. I live in Central Oklahoma and was nearly hit (missed by half a mile) by the F5 Oklahoma City tornado of May 3, 1999. I have a healthy respect of tornadoes and what they can do.

I will elaborate a little bit. One cannot survive an F5 tornado without taking cover. The F5 tornado of May 3, 1999 killed more than 40 people. Nearly everyone took cover, which is why so few people were killed by a huge tornado with winds of 318 mph, and some of the people were killed in their homes while taking cover in closets or bathrooms. Many of the people who took cover under highway overpasses had hideous injuries such as losing an ear. It was not pretty.

I drove by a huge pile of mangled cars each day for months after the tornado while on the way to work. Those cars were twisted and torn like they had been in a horrific accident at a high rate of speed. There is no way that someone could have been in one of those cars and survived that kind of tornado, let alone been in full control of oneself and able to get out of the car (!) and land on the ground uninjured. Not only that, but Nancy's friends conveniently arrive right after the tornado passes, and they never check on the other person who was in the car with Nancy. They just leave assuming he is dead (!). If Nancy lived through it, then why couldn't he have lived? It turned out he was dead, but still... (!)

Just thinking about it brings back horrible memories of that book. I shudder.

The good news is that surely Her Interactive is changing up the story significantly like they have other recent games. I hope... I have this lingering worry that Her Interactive will have Nancy sucked into a tornado, etc. Ugh!