If you don't guess what the mystery is about from the intro scene, then maybe you shouldn't be playing Nancy Drew games.
As you can imagine, it was reluctantly that I installed The Curse of Blackmoor Manor, and I can't stress reluctantly enough, since the game sat unopened on my shelf for a few months. What stirred my interest were some screenshots of the game that I had seen on the official site. It looked good. So I installed it and turned the lights out to try and immerse myself in one of Nancy Drew's unsolved mysteries.
Nancy arrives at Blackmoor Manor at night, at the perfect time to hear some howls and a pair or bright red eyes staring at her from across the courtyard. If you don't guess right away what the whole mystery is about just from this scene, then maybe you shouldn't be playing Nancy Drew adventures.
In the manor, you will meet several colorful and intriguing characters. There is Mrs. Drake, the housekeeper, who has a passion for gardening and even has a few carnivore plants as "pets". Then there's Nigel Mookerjee, a historian who is staying over to write the history of the Penvellyn family. Little Jane, grand daughter of Mrs. Drake, has a passion for games and for snooping around where she shouldn't. In the hallway there's Loulou, the intelligent parrot that will give you hints when you need them. You will also cross paths with Jane's tutor, Ethel Bosinny, who seems to be hiding something. And then there's Linda, who hides behind a curtain and has some nasty mood swings.
The gameplay is quite challenging and it spans across over 20 hours of adventuring, questioning and puzzle solving. For a game aimed at ages 10 and up, I think the developers should have made some of these simpler. I mean, I had a hard time solving certain puzzles (especially a sliding puzzle and getting past the moving rooms), and some of the language is so refined and unusual that it kind of gave me the creeps. Especially ordering from the restaurant... British slang was never my thing.
Anyway, it's a non-linear game since there is no particular order in which you have to gather all the pieces for the final puzzle.
The story has a bit of everything: supernatural beings, secret passages, family secrets, rumors of a hidden treasure. Learning about the past of the Penvellyn family and investigating their interests (heraldry, astronomy and alchemy) is the key to game progression. Read everything you can, use your cell phone to perform web searches, ask Loulou for clues, you will need all the help you can get. And play games with Jane, since sometimes there will be a reward for you.
If something goes wrong - let's say you get eaten by the carnivore plant in the conservatory, for example - there is a second chance option that lets you restart from that spot, just before making the wrong decision.
The ambient music and sound effects are very suitable for the enigmatic course of events, and the voice acting is perfectly synchronized with the lip movement. A lot of detail has been put into the mansion, which gives you a lot to look at, from the large columns in the main hall to the small decorative objects on a mantelpiece.
Spooky things happen in the middle of night so don't be surprised to find a black shadow roaming the upper hallway or some other beast waiting for you in the dark corridors. There is even a mini-game that is actually a ghost hunt. Creepy is probably the best word to describe this game.
I have one big issue with the game though: nowhere in the menus is there an option to change the resolution. It will run in 800x600 (I think that's it) no matter what resolution your PC is set on, which makes it look a bit odd. What's even more odd is that when taking a screenshot (using print screen), these would come out in the right resolution and look great. Now why couldn't gameplay look like that too?
Review text part of Grrlgamer.com
http://www.grrlgamer.com/review.php?g=nancydrewcbm