It's increasingly obvious that the folks at Her Interactive are making a strong effort to vary their game locations throughout the United States and to fold each region's culture and history into the plot of the game. This time, we're in the northwest corner of Washington state, right on the Pacific Ocean, where sailors and smugglers have fared successfully for centuries. Will Nancy fare as well? (We all know the answer to that, but it's fun getting to the answer.)
This time, Nancy's on holiday from sleuthing (uh-huh), out for a few days of relaxation and ocean sight-seeing. But her home away from home has been trashed even before she gets there, and Katie (her prospective hostess) is much more occupied with fixing her boat than with escorting Nancy around. That leaves Nancy at loose ends, something that works very well for her. She starts with the vandalized boat and a cryptic warning message, grabs the bit in her teeth and runs with it. (Although the nature of the mystery is a significant question in itself.)
A vandalized boat, a warning message - "Stop meddling, or else!" - antagonistic townsfolk, and a locked lighthouse just begging to be explored. What more could a girl ask for? While we're still not sure what the mystery will be (a trashed boat just seems a little too small-time for Nancy's abilities), we meet several suspects. They include Hot Kettle tavernkeeper Jenna Deblin and her permanent customer Holt Scotto (town curmudgeon), who both have nothing good to say about Katie. Down the road, you meet Andy Jason, youthful proprietor of Whale World. He's a little more friendly (especially to a pretty young gal like you), but his friendliness toward Katie doesn't ring true, and you discover that she and he are close competitors in the offshore tourist business.
What has the town in a tizzy is the whale mentioned above. Its habitat has been declared a protected area (thanks largely to Katie), and right now, its habitat is Snake Horse Harbor. Too bad for anyone who makes a living on the harbor! Andy has an exemption of sorts - he's volunteered to feed the orca while its injuries heal, and he makes sure to load his boat with tourists before each feeding trip.
Everyone has a gripe (including Katie), but who is the vandal? (Katie's boat is only the first target.) And what's the point of the vandalism? Nothing significant is being taken, so robbery isn't the motive.
What follows is the usual entertaining series of puzzles and other mysteries, including a maze. (Dad has a real problem with mazes, and this one is good enough that he got pretty frustrated in it. Evie wasn't much help, but 7-year-old Jesse kept track of the twists and turns well enough to keep us moving forward.) There are codes to decode, books to read for clues, games to win, words to unscramble, toys to assemble, clams to dig, messages to extract from bottles, locks to pick and more.
There are also plenty of opportunities for Nancy to trip up and fail - slippery rocks, treacherous currents, falling masonry, darkened passages, bumpy bike paths (always wear your helmet) and the villain at the end of the game. Not to mention the varied sandwich fixings in Katie's refrigerator - jellyfish and jelly, anyone?
The interface keeps getting better with each game. As in the past game or two, there is no night-time; in fact, Nancy doesn't get tired or sleep at all, and Jenna's cafй is open all the time. That makes the game easier to play, but it also makes it a bit less believable. Most other gameplay features help you maintain reality as Nancy. The people have realistic reactions (and dialogue) and usually don't say the same thing over and over. Nancy's laptop is great for keeping track of what we've learned and what clues we still need to investigate, and this time, we're hooked into the Web. That means we can go online (in Nancy's world) to keep track of the latest town news and to research orcas, knots, nautical terms and even woods. And Nancy's cell phone means never having to chase down a landline to place those crucial calls begging for clues from George, Bess, Frank and Joe.
In the last couple of games, the in-game help (on the laptop) meant that we rarely turned to walkthroughs that other people have written. This time around, the walkthroughs were a little more helpful, because the puzzles weren't quite as straightforward. (So, exactly how many isophase buoys are there in the harbor?) But even when they weren't straightforward, they were still fun, and we got most of them. (The 15-letter anagram was about the hardest, and we don't think we would have figured it out without help. Especially since its solution leaps one of the biggest logical gaps in the game - why would someone hand out three gifts to various people, gifts that combine into a hidden message for Nancy, before she ever arrived?)
It is nice that the mystery wasn't smack-you-in-the-face obvious, but it was a bit confusing wandering around and following clues when we didn't know what we were looking for or why we needed to discover the next answer.
The music is one of Evie's favorite features - in this game especially. We made several trips to the Hot Kettle just to replay the ambient music that accompanies it. And when it stopped, we stepped outdoors briefly and then back in, to get it started again.
There aren't any other particular features that stand out as our favorites, but the overall experience was plenty of fun with very few sour notes. We play these games as a chance to spend time together, and this time around, a good time was had by all. Deception Island fully met our expectations, and we're looking forward to Shadow Ranch.
David, the dad: Got my start in gaming with Steve Jackson Games (paper gaming), first as a tester, then as a developer and editor. Was GURPS and Car Wars system guru for awhile, then edited and developed for TSR (AD&D) and FASA (Mech Warrior, Renegade Legion), before turning to computer games. Spent six years as Origin Systems Publications Manager, then our department spun off into its own little company, Incan Monkey God Studios (IMGS). Since 1997, we’ve been a freelance content and design house, specializing in strategy guides. We created the first strategy guides for MOGs (Ultima Online, EQ: Ruins of Kunark) and now create the best MOG guides (IMHO, of course).
I like to analyze and optimize while playing games, so I much prefer games that require thought rather than action.
Evie is twelve years old and is an avid reader, especially of fantasy. Favorite authors include J.K. Rowling (of course), Brian Jacques, Cornelia Funke and Tamora Pierce. These reviews are her first published writing.
Will is nine years old and loves to investigate, especially dinosaurs and astronomy. These reviews are also his first published writing.
Jesse is seven years old and has just started reading chapter books. He likes Hank the Cowdog and cartoon books, especially Calvin & Hobbes, Baby Blues and Donald Duck.
If you're interested in the (roughly) thousand-year-old triceratops stone in our pic, check out the Dino Art. Some of the accompanying text can be a bit strident, but it's still a puzzle why Central and South American Indians knew pretty precisely what dinosaurs looked like over a thousand years ago.
