Interviewing the Twister
You've played Nancy Drew: Trail of the Twister and now you're obsessed with it! You keep replaying the game over and over again to see what little things you missed, pick out all the references we made to our previous games, and ponder of each reference we made on our blog and facebook posts. Yes, you – you are a hardcore fan and we love you for scrutinizing each part of our game! Here's some more fire to feed your obsession! We sit down with the game designer, Cathy, today and discuss how she came up with the idea for the game and a few things we bet you never knew.
In addition to the main villain, we wanted to pit Nancy against a new kind of danger, one that she had no control over: nature. Tornadoes were the perfect fit (what’s scarier than a raging twister?) and Oklahoma an ideal setting. As for inspiration, the design phase coincided with the first year of VORTEX2, the largest tornado research project undertaken to date. Following the research teams online was a great way to get the feel of a real chase team (during both chase days and down days) and learn more about the science of meteorology. People really do put their lives on the line trying to find ways to keep the rest of us safe. I’m glad someone’s brave enough to do it!
The weather. The team (art, production, sound effects) did an amazing job of bringing the storms to life and essentially created a sixth character in the game. When the storm starts to roll in out at the antennas, I really felt like I should be high-tailing it out of there.
Crash often. Seriously. It’s a lot of fun to cause pileups, especially in the base truck, where you can hit more cars before yours is damaged beyond repair.
We had an office competition to expand the popular Koko Kringle candy line that you see in Pa’s store. Coworkers submitted their ideas (candy name and basic description) and then the entire office voted for their favorites. We had 52 options to choose from, but only the top nine made it into TOT. Runner-ups included Fudgy Pudgy Pig (dark chocolate fudge shaped like a pig), Fowl Kissers (tangy chewy candies in the shapes of lips on a chicken beak) and Llama Spit (gooey pistachio and chocolate blend).
- How did you come up with the idea for Nancy Drew: Trail of the Twister? Where did you get your inspiration from?
- What is your favorite part of the game?
- A lot of players have been getting stuck on driving. Do you have any tips for driving?
- What is one factoid you bet our fans didn’t know about Nancy Drew: Trail of the Twister?
- Who is your favorite character in Nancy Drew: Trail of the Twister?
Pa. Though Frosty was close (I loved his enthusiasm), Pa’s practice run of his Grange performance pushed him to the top for me.