Dear Nancy: It’s about time someone developed a game worthy of your literary acclaim. Reading your books as a child, I never thought I would someday be solving your mysteries from a computer screen instead of a paper page. You age well, and The Haunting of Castle Malloy stands as one of the best Nancy Drew games I’ve played in my short career of reviewing.

When you asked me to come to Castle Malloy with you, I was thrilled. I was ready to don my favorite kilt and learn the musical language of the Bohran, but then, surprises of surprises, there was a mystery waiting for us on the castle grounds. It seems your friend Kyler can’t keep a man in the house. Her groom Matt up and disappeared, leaving you, the maid of honor, and me, your clumsy sidekick, on the case of the cold-footed fiancé.

Now, there were several theories floating around Castle Malloy as to why Matt-the-fiancé took flight. Kyler thought he was hiding, playing a joke. Kit, his crappy best friend said Matt left when faced with the altar. (Kit also is in love with Kyler, so you gotta wonder how credible his opinion was. The most enjoyable hypothesis was that of Donal, the caretaker.

Donal, a native Irishman, looked older than the Irish folklore he constantly jabbered about. He was a bit senile but full of info we needed. According to Donal, a band of fairies took off with Matt because he was a dirty Brit, and we would never find him. So off we were, tracking a runaway groom and getting a romantic, destination wedding back on track.

We had no trouble exploring the castle and the grounds using your top-down interface. Your little bag of goodies came in handy as I collected a menagerie of objects to use later, and multiple save slots came in handy when I needed to checkpoint-style save my progress. The magnifying glass cursor responded to items I could take or interact with, making finding clues and key pieces of evidence an easy task. One concern though, Nancy: The puzzles in Castle Malloy were so complex, and I could only access one item at a time, making scrap paper necessary for success on any level.

Playing at both the Junior and Senior levels, I noticed there were not many differences between the two degrees of difficulty besides the checklist and hints from the fortune-telling machine. I didn’t get any freebie puzzles because of my lower skill level, and although you didn’t know it, Nancy, I had to pull out the walkthrough a few times for some help.

The puzzles hiding in Castle Malloy are all largely mechanical and require the manipulation of pieces and parts. Others include finding passwords and collecting flowers for an enchanted bouquet. Kyler’s great uncle was some sort of tinkerer, and he integrated his hobby with landmarks around the Castle Malloy grounds. As Kyler’s maid of honor, we certainly kept busy during our stay, Nancy, but solving the mystery at the end made all the footwork worth it. Sure we had to walk all over a strange town in Ireland and listen carefully for effects noises; however, the nifty second-chance option let us make all kinds of mistakes without facing too many consequences.

Travelling with you was fun, Nancy, but it seems this adventure may be enjoyable for older gumshoes or younger detectives with help. I love puzzle games, but I suffer from being horrible at them, so a good walkthrough on hand if you are stumped is always helpful. Despite the homework of the game, everything else in The Haunting of Castle Malloy was solid. Graphics are clean and the environments reinforce the theme of a foggy and frightening Ireland evening. I really enjoyed my stay at Castle Malloy, Nancy, and I would recommend the game to anyone with a penchant for solving mysteries.