Nancy Drew: The White Wolf of Icicle Creek

Rating ESRB: Everyone Genre adventure Publisher Her Interactive External Links Official Site

Having played Danger by Design, I was expecting this to be a similar game with a different wrapper. The mystery-solving and storytelling aspects are the same, but I got quite a few changes that I did not expect. I certainly hope that future titles in this series, as well as all of the preceding titles, have their own personal quirks that are not in every other game. If this is the norm, or at least a large trend, it’s a great way to keep spice over a broad continuum.

Since Nancy is detectiving her way through the wild winter wastes of Canada, there is a temperature gauge that shows how cold it’s getting. Spend too much time exposed to the elements and frostbite kicks in. You won’t get too far in most cases, even with a fur-lined coat and fuzzy boots. But rest assured, someone around the Icicle Creek lodge knows the secret to keeping warm.

Even on Junior Detective level, some of these puzzles are absolutely mind bending. I found myself slamming my head into my desk during the sauna puzzle since you didn’t have much time to complete it in the first place and many of the pipes would switch positions for absolutely no reason. It’s one of the most random timed puzzles that I’ve ever encountered. Perhaps that is largely due to my lack of experience with such games.

I found myself aimlessly trying to make sense of patterns that didn’t make sense. Even challenging puzzles have some kind of rhyme or reason to them, and the sauna puzzle didn’t. It slows down the forward progress of the game to almost nothing, and may be the cause of many hard drive deletions.

Moving on to a non-game aspect of this release, the generous and attentive programmers have put in a starting screen for all Nancy Drew games in order to minimize desktop icons. Each chapter that you have installed will be highlighted on the main board and all one has to do is pop in the play disc and click on the corresponding game.

If you’re barreling your way through the series, keep your eyes and ears out for guest appearances and references from earlier mysteries. If this is your first shot at sleuthing, Nancy Drew style, be sure to flip through some of the earlier titles. Regardless of your progress, you’ll find this case to be worth your while.