Mystery of the Missing Quote - SOLVED!

THE MISSING QUOTE:
"Joe: Stop playing games and retrieve the letter that you saw inside the carousel.
Frank: Actually, maybe you should start playing games.
Joe: Ya know, Frank, something tells me our advice will never win us any prizes"

We challenged some of the best minds in mystery to find this elusive quote after our game developers confirmed that it was indeed in the game. The sound file was indeed in the game and it looked like it was added after beta to solve some game flow issues. After a few weeks of intense searching, we released the logic for the quote to help the sleuths. And still, no answer was found.

So, we went back to the game makers for another hint. What is comment_17? Maybe if the sleuths knew what comment_17 was they would know exactly what to avoid. They had NO IDEA what comment_17 was... They couldn't find any records of it. Half of the production department had to look at the code and ponder its cryptic meaning.

A while later, they discovered that comment_17 was always set to TRUE. It didn't matter what the player did, the game was told that comment_17 had already been played. And actually, comment_17 doesn't have a sound - it's just a switch that makes it so the Frank and Joe quote can never be played in the game. Apparently, it confused beta testers so we removed it. Rather than actually deleting it from the game, we added a flag that would make it impossible to get to...

Wow that's quite a mystery on our hands. It took a lot of internally to find the quote, but just to prove that it's in the game, although impossible (apparently) for players to hear, here's the screenshot.

So that means, we'll save the Nancy Drew cell phone charm for another contest. Be on the lookout for it soon!

A Day in the Week at Her Interactive

Tuesday:
working on getting the game rated by the ESRB - I'll explain more later

preparing for a presentation to a local girl scout troupe - I'm giving a presentation about how we create games from start to finish

editing the marketing post mortem - what campaigns worked well and what didn't

working with partner companies on bundle packaging - you'd be surprised how many details you need to pay attention to

Treasure in a Royal Tower trailer - talk to Ian about shaving off 12 seconds

Legend of the Crystal Skull survey analysis - with over 1,500 responses, I've got my work cut out for me!

Today's also the first day that I have a roommate in my office. There's a new keyboard clicking noise in the background that I'm getting used to. It's nice to have someone I can bounce ideas off of when I need a creative boost. Of course, talking on the phone is going to be more difficult and playing obnoxious music is out of the question too!

Mystery of the Missing Quote cont.

The elusive quote is yet to be found still, so here are some hints. When you find the quote, make sure you take a screenshot and send it to feedback@herinteractive.com. The FIRST person to send in the screensot with their name and address will receive a limited edition Nancy Drew cell phone charm, notepad, and post-it note.

THE MISSING QUOTE:
"Joe: Stop playing games and retrieve the letter that you saw inside the carousel.
Frank: Actually, maybe you should start playing games.
Joe: Ya know, Frank, something tells me our advice will never win us any prizes"

In order to hear this quote, the game logic states that you need to meet these requirements:
EV_HB_Said_Lady - TRUE
EV_Saw_Whiplash_Article - TRUE
EV_Saw_Heist_Article - TRUE
EV_Saw_Detective - TRUE
EV_Saw_CC_PD - TRUE
EV_Met_Detective - TRUE
EV_Showed_JT_Pencil - TRUE
INV_Remote_Control - TRUE
INV_Rolfe_Letter_V - FALSE
INV_Paper_Yoyo - FALSE
EV_Said_Comment17 - FALSE
EV_Saw_Rolfe_Letter_Stuck - TRUE

Good luck!

What's in a Name?

Game titles, animal names, building names, character names...

This weeks seems to be all about naming things. And boy is it HARD! You might think that we find a book to base the game on and then name it the same thing, but often times, the book hardly has anything to do with the game! So then what do we do?

Just make up a name and use it!

Well, it's not quite that easy... Here are a couple of things we need to think about when we name a game:

1) Does the title have elements of the game in it? For instance, "Secret of the Old Clock" - you expect to see clocks in the game, really old clocks at that!

2) Is the title 30 characters? We only have so much space on the box and any more than that is really a mouthful! Can you imagine "Mystery of the Flying Shoe at Beardshine Mansion" as a title???

3) Does the title reflect the atmosphere of the game? "Clues" and "Cases" and "Capers" tend to be more lighthearted myteries, but watch out for "curses" and "danger" - those tend to be a little scarier. "The Crystal Skull Caper" is a horrible title for "Legend of the Crystal Skull."

4) Is there alliteration in the title? That means we like to repeat the same sound or letter multiple times so it kind of rolls off your tongue. "Message ... Mansion", "Danger... Deception/Design" and "Creature... Cave" are all good examples.

5) Is it understandable to our audience? This means we can't use complicated SAT words, obscure references, or languages no one would understand. "Enigma of the iellato Aranceri" - good luck trying to figure that one out...

6) Have we used these words before? "Secret of the XXX" is getting kind of boring personally.

7) And finally, does the title sound like a good Nancy Drew mystery? "Case of the Crowded Classroom" - isn't a very interesting subject. Now, "The Phantom of Venice" - that sounds exciting!

Quote Trivia

If you didn't have a chance to send in your answers for the quote trivia contest, here are the answers. Or try guessing them for fun. How well do you know your Nancy Drew game trivia???

To see the answers, highlight the line below the quote with your mouse:

1) "Yah, well I don't call this entertainment. It's worse than whatever stuff you cooked"
Tex, Secret of Shadow Ranch

2) "Nothing's the matter with me! I've come to my senses, that's all!"
Mike, The Creature of Kapu Cave

3) "Could you please pick me up from the airport tonight? It's flight 323. Oh, and bring a couple of ice packs. And some clean bandages."
Nancy, Danger on Deception Island

4)"Do you smoke?" "Uh, only when I'm on fire."
Nancy, Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake

5) "Don't let the turkeys get you down."
The Final Scene

6) "I am simply milking two goats with one bucket."
Yanni, The White Wolf of Icicle Creek

7) "Yeah, the men in blue are everywhere. The whole town is freaking out!"
Secrets Can Kill

8) "Ya know Frank, something tells me our advice will never win us any prizes."
Joe, The Haunted Carousel

9) "Just don't vandalize the next house you stay in." "Especially if its ours."
Bess, Message in a Haunted Mansion

10) "Look, just send the oldest, moldiest, worst-smelling cheese you have to that address!"
Hugo Butterly, Danger by Design

11) "Once I saw my Uncle Roger's toupee fly off during a wind storm! Talk about freaky!"
Jane, Curse of Blackmoor Manor

12) "How does it feel to join the ranks with the modern day conquistador?"
Alejandro, Secret of the Scarlett Hand

13) "Let's just say my idol turned out to have... dirty feet."
Lori, Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon

14) "As you can tell, he was darn good at squirreling away JUNK."
Henry, Legend of the Crystal Skull

15) "Words, words, words! You will soon see I am a man of action!"
Dwyane, Stay Tuned for Danger

16) "Va Va Voom - scandalous cuteness of course!"
Lisa, Treasure in a Royal Tower

17) "When I'm rich, if I ever start getting that eccentric, kick me, okay?"
Bess, Secret of the Old Clock

Mystery of the Missing Quote

Two weeks ago, we had a trivia contest with quotes from all the games. The deadline for submission was yesterday and we're choosing the winner today and hoping to post the winner's name next week (they need to approve first). So, now the contest is over, I can share a little information. It appears that one of the quotes is been quite difficult to locate. I applaud all the detectives who made the inference that each quote came from a different game. They guessed that the quote below came from The Haunted Carousel.

8. "Ya know Frank, something tells me our advice will never win us any prizes."

They were correct. While we could have played through all the games and chosen some lines, we also have the advantage reading documents detailing the game. The documentation allows us to find obscure lines we might have missed otherwise.

We pulled the quote from the auto-text document from the game. Auto-text is made from the words that are displayed in the conversation box when you have closed-captioning on. There is a document that tells the software what text to display at all the points in the game, and that is where this quote came from. The quote in its entirety from the document says:

Joe: Stop playing games and retrieve the letter that you saw inside the carousel.
Frank: Actually, maybe you should start playing games.
Joe: Ya know, Frank, something tells me our advice will never win us any prizes

Did that last line make it into the game??? Well, apparently, the documents don't lie. Our game producers have confirmed that the quote is indeed in the game. However, it is really hard to get to...

Yes, that's a challenge. So the FIRST person who sends a screenshot of the conversation displaying the quote (take pictures of your screen using the "Print Screen" button and then paste the image into Word) to feedback@herinteractive.com with their name and address will receive a limited edition Nancy Drew cell phone charm, notepad, and post-it note. IF we receive a winner, we'll post more information about exactly what you need to do to hear this elusive conversation.

And the mystery contintues...