Cameo Contest Thoughts

After lots of mullling and pondering, we finally came up with a contest worthy of having a fan's picture in the next Nancy Drew game. It will take a little bit of research, creativity, and thought, but it will be worth it for a chance to have your picture in the next game. We wanted an idea that would allow our fans to learn something in the process and keep the topic based around Nancy Drew. So, she's featured prominently in the challenge and it combines two topics in a fun way. Stay tuned for the newsletter for more details!

Questions I

Today we're answering questions that our fans have sent in. These questions were sent in by Melissa.

How far in advance do you start thinking of an upcoming game?
We usually start coming up with ideas 6 months before the final product is complete. Since we have to finish 2 games a year, we're on a pretty tight timeline, otherwise, we'd probably take a little longer to create a game.

Who was your favorite character to create?
Our designer had the most fun creating Poppy Dada's character. The idea of a teenage artist from the Dakotas was appealing, plus the voice actor delivered her lines with such great finesse! PopPEE DAH-da!!!

What was your favorite game to create?
Our entire company works on creating the game, so you would probably get a different answer depending on who you asked. So again, since I sit relatively close to a game designer, I went and bugged him. He loved creating Curse of Blackmoor Manor because it had a fun story, fun characters (Lou Lou the talking bird), and a great backstory with the Penvellyn family. Not only did he have a chance to design all the trappings of a haunted English mansion including secret rooms and hidden passages, he was able to populate the world with crafty and difficult puzzles for our fans to scratch their heads over!

PS - the November newsletter is coming next week! Look for details on a contest to get your picture in the next game. Sign up!

More or Less Answers part II

More answers that didn't really have any categories:

In Legend of the Crystal Skull, I would liked MORE ______________ and LESS ______________.


1) MORE interaction with characters - the more you talk to characters, the more they come to life. I'll definitely let our script writer know that her characters are realistic to you. A game designer I met once said that games without people are lifeless and empty. You may be surrounded by great puzzles, but you still need a human element. No wonder you want to continue chatting with Henry! Well, I also heard that some of our fans think he's pretty cute...

2) MORE scares - this is a perennial request. It's also interesting that by 'scary' fans don't mean monsters necessarily, but just people jumping out at you at unexpected moments.

3) LESS walking from place to place - this takes too long and distracts fans from the mystery! It also seems like more busywork to run from one place to another - a wild goosechase to make the games longer, perhaps. We actually do this to make the universe seem larger and more complete. Plus, it's also nice to see key landmarks at a destination. Hopefully you'll like the transportation system in the next game.

Thanks for all your answers! They were really informative and an interesting look into our fans' minds.

More or Less Answers part I

We received quite a few comments from our fans for the question:

In Legend of the Crystal Skull, I would liked MORE ______________ and LESS ______________.

Here are a few of the most popular answers and some comments.

1) MORE snooping and LESS puzzles.
This one is quite interesting. We are always under the impression that everyone loved puzzles - that's what made the games difficult. But you're asking for more snooping? What exactly is snooping to you? What activities would you consider snooping?

2) MORE environments and LESS characters
It seems like a lot of people like exploring new scenes and wouldn't mind having fewer suspects. However, when we have fewer suspects, say 3 instead of the usual 4, does that take away from the mystery? We have different teams working on the environments and characters, so they actually have very little effect on each other. This request was also followed by a comment about having more interaction with the characters. Nancy Drew fans love talking to the suspects and we hope to incorporate more of that in our next games.

3) "I would also like some more Sonny Joon doodles because I am a huge fan!!!"
Haha - this was hilarious! It's not really a MORE or LESS statement, but I had to post it. I never knew that Sonny had a cult following - making Sonny show up in some form in the games is now almost an inside joke. I'm glad you guys notice those tidbits.

More to come next time!

More or Less

Reading through the message board reviews of Legend of the Crystal Skull, I realized that a lot of people really liked the game, but they still feel it was missing something. They wanted more snooping, more places to explore, more interaction with characters, more scares, etc. It seems like the game had plenty of puzzles though. However, it's hard for game designers to find the baseline for each of those activities. In otherwords, the amount of time spent on each characteristic of the game that will make the most fans happy. We can't make more of everything, but we have have more of one and less of the other. So the tradeoffs look something like this:

MORE snooping LESS puzzles
MORE characters LESS environments
MORE puzzles LESS snooping

In Legend of the Crystal Skull, I would have liked MORE __________ and LESS _______________ ( you fill in the blank).

While there are some constraints to what we can and can not do given our resources, we'd like to hear from you. What do you think should go in the blanks - send them to feedback@herinteractive.com? We'll post some of the most popular answers.

It's Alive!

We launched The Cody Capers: Cody Pops the Case today! Although this wasn't the massive undertaking that the Nancy Drew games usually are, we still had a lot of work to do. For one, you'll notice that we created a pretty cool website for the game - http://www.thecodycapers.com/. It's full of surprises and we plan on adding more if the game does well.

You see, the Cody game is very different from the Nancy Drew games, and we aren't sure if our fans will be interested in the game - not everyone pays to play games like Bejeweled and PopIt. A lot of people do pay for the simpler, puzzely games though. We'll always make Nancy Drew games, but we need to grow as a company as well. Cody is our foray into the casual/online game world and a way for us to branch out and reach new people who may not have heard of Her Interactive before. Granted the Cody game may not be for everyone; it's definitely addicting fun during quick 15 minute breaks. Many people just don't have the time to invest in solving a complicated Nancy Drew mystery, but they still want to stimulate their brain. And what better way to accomplish a little brain exercise than with a cuddly puppy name Cody who spends his days curled up with a good mystery?

We had a blast making this game and we hope that you guys have just as much fun playing it! This is a special game for us, so it's only available for download on our website for $9.99. If you played the game, email us at feedback@herinteractive.com and let us know what you think!