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Well, I didn't intend to leave a gap that big between updates. With the weather getting colder and darker, and the woof marathoning TV shows right next to me and all, I've gotten very tired and distractable. Just straight-up feeling exhausted and achy a lot of the time. Still, let's see if I can clear this today and stamp the seal of success on another mystery!

Where were we... ah yes. What was in the box?

( Well, what WAS in the box? )
THE END. No moral.

Next time... well, I'm putting the Hat on hold again, so I can play through the entire Assassin's Creed series in preperation for AC3 coming to the PC at the end of November. So, uhm... I may have thoughts on that! I might not.

Either way, I hope you enjoyed!

Welcome back! Yesterday I parked y'all in front of some puzzles, asked you to solve them, and spent the rest of the day doing other stuff. That worked really well! I should do that more often and soon you will all be playing games for me, and I will lounge around drinking comically oversized mugs of icy beverage! Except you would probably all kill me with axes! I am just joking, of course. Many of you do not have access to logging equipment and would resort to rakes and shovels instead.

Part of what I spent time on was looking for information on this type of puzzle, for my usual trivia tidbits. Nothing at all was found. Oh, I found many books full of "visual wordplay puzzles" but I didn't find a formal name for them, an inventor, or even a time period they were popularized. Maybe this type of puzzle stretches back into the days when rebuses were invented, way the hell back in history. Take heart in the knowledge that egyptian kids probably wanted to punch people over this too. "This language is silly!" they'd exclaim. "Our visual representation of language via symbols just gives me a headache! Let's shuffle around holding our arms in Z-curves with our palms flat."

But enough making fun of history. Let's see those answers, eh? You folks IM'd me, commented, and even emailed and I'm happy to tell you how it went.
( Answers, and the rest of the entry, await! )

Nancy: "So, welcome back! Last time, on Nancy Drew and the Secret of the Old Clock, I had just..."
Bess: "Nancy, we remember how the story was going. You drove around and talked to a banker."
George: "And there was a whole lot of exposition."
Nancy: "Oh. Well. ... Anyway, I turned to leave and noticed something!"

( What did she notice? I MUST KNOW. )
George: "Your voice sounds -really funny- when you're imitating your father, Nancy."
Nancy: "My stomach sounds really funny when I haven't eaten all morning. Let's stop for lunch?"
Bess: "Sounds good to me!"

Man, I hope you all really like Nancy Drew, because there's still like 20 games of her to go. I should note, we've gone from game 07 (Ghost Dogs) to game 19 (Castle Malloy) to game 12 here. Our New Future of Drew continues to stagger drunkenly between titles. That's cool, though. There's not much continuity here.

Oh, what to write as a lead-in... Actually, fellow blogonauts, I've been reading the books! Both some of the older series and some written much more recently, with Nancy on a world tour. It's been really interesting to compare the toolbox of Book Nancy to Game Nancy. Book Nancy works much more on overhearing conversations and social engineering with the people she chats with, the occasional B&E, and lucky coincidences, along with plenty of quick thinking and just plain exploring. Game Nancy is a little more proactive about going places she isn't meant to be, and Book Nancy -never- (in my very limited experience) has to do any slider puzzles. Lucky girl. Book Nancy also rolls with a posse much more frequently, recruiting people to come with her. Game Nancy mostly works alone.

I can't view either approach as -wrong-, just different. Game Nancy works well within the constraints of a first-person puzzle-based narrative, while Book Nancy, with her end-of-every-chapter cliffhangers and conversation-based clue-gathering works within the confines of her style. I'm just really enjoying the style whiplash as I leave a book written in 1959 (revision of a book written in 1930) for a book written in 1995 and all the same people are in it except they're suddenly dressed different and much more casual-chatty and carrying celphones everywhere. Then I come play a game based really loosely on the first four books...

Well, say, speaking of the game. Why don't we peek in on our Intrepid Trio...
( We take you to the Marvin household. )
NEXT TIME: I actually start playing the -game-.