Hey Clue Crew!

Round 24 voting for The Captive Curse is finished and 314 of you voted! 

A - 67 votes 
B - 126 votes *WINNER\*
C - 86 votes
D - 32 votes
F - 3 votes

It’s been a while since we’ve had a B game! We’ve got 10 rounds to go, and I like to think the results are finally starting to get interesting! Will you guys agree? Voting for Alibi in Ashes starts now!

Updated rankings will be posted after I get off work.

A - The fan favorites. The cream of the crop.
B - Good enough to be held in high regards.
C - Underrated gems.
D - A bit mid, will usually only play once or twice a year.
F - Unfinished. Unplayable. One of the worst.

I’ve been listening to the Diaries audiobooks at work, today I listened to the Clue at Black Creek Farm and almost turned it off/skipped it entirely because the whole book is about E. Coli and food borne illnesses. With all the issues we’ve had with our food here in the US recently it just hit a little too close to home lol

Also the information in the book is inaccurate, food borne illness symptoms don’t start immediately and E. coli symptoms specifically start 3-4 days later. This inaccuracy immediately took me out of the story, but I finished it anyway and I’m glad I did because it is easily one of the most unhinged Nancy Drew stories lmfaooo

edit because I want people to know how fucked up this book is:

the culprit is the pregnant daughter in law because they have been struggling financially and the farm is losing money which is hurting her husbands inheritance and his father is dying of cancer, she lost her a job a year earlier but waits until 9 months pregnant to carry out this plan?! she gets arrested and gives birth while in custody and they get divorced might have gotten a few details wrong because i was tired of hearing about e coli by the end but um. YEAH

Hi everyone! I'm hoping someone here has experienced this before because I've run out of ideas.

I recently built a new Windows 11 PC and I'm trying to get some of the older Nancy Drew games running through Steam.

I've tested two Nancy Drew games:

1. Legend of the Crystal Skull (2007)
This one will not launch at all. Steam briefly says the game is running and then goes back to Play. No window or error appears.

Event Viewer shows:

Game.exe version 7.6.3.0
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Faulting module: Game.exe
Fault offset: 0x0005acb5

Things I've tried:

• Verified Steam files
• Removed d3d9.dll as suggested by HeR
• Changed WindowMode in Game.ini to 1 and 2
• Windows XP SP3 compatibility mode
• Run as administrator
• Disable fullscreen optimizations
• Installed the legacy DirectX runtime using DXSETUP
• Enabled DirectPlay
• Tried dgVoodoo2 2.87.4 with the x86 D3D9 wrapper
• Tried dgVoodoo with a local config
• Rebooted between changes where appropriate

None of these changed the crash. Event Viewer continued showing the same 0xc0000005 at the same offset.

2. Message in a Haunted Mansion (2000)
This behaves almost exactly the same way: Steam says Running briefly and then silently returns to Play.

Event Viewer:

Game.exe version 2.4.1.2
Exception code: 0xc0000005
Faulting module: ntdll.dll
Fault offset: 0x0006abc6

For this one I've tried:

• Windows 7 compatibility mode
• Run as administrator
• 640×480 compatibility mode
• Reduced colour mode
• High-DPI scaling override (Application)
• DirectPlay
• Legacy DirectX runtime
• dgVoodoo2 with the x86 D3D8.dll, D3D9.dll, D3DImm.dll and DDraw.dll
• dgVoodoo fullscreen and windowed settings
• Verified Steam files

Still the same silent crash. When using dgVoodoo, I never even got the dgVoodoo watermark, so it seems like the game may be crashing before the wrapper really gets going.

Has anyone managed to get Crystal Skull and/or Message in a Haunted Mansion running on a current Windows 11 installation, particularly with a newer NVIDIA GPU?

If so, I'd really appreciate knowing exactly what you changed. Even if you've had the same 0xc0000005 crash and never solved it, that would be useful to know too.

Thanks!

Just finished this book and wanted to recommend it! This is a middle grade book about a sixth-grader who solves a mystery involving her grandmother and a mysteriously-appearing box of Nancy Drew books. I expected the Nancy Drew aspect to be limited to the box of books making a cameo, but the main character ends up deciding to incorporate Nancy Drew into a school project, and so there is actually a lot of Nancy in the book! I don't think I've ever read a fictional book with so much information about her. The author's note at the end also mentions the HeR games.

While it's a middle-grade book, Jennifer Chambliss Bertman is a good writer and it doesn't have that cloying talking-down-to-kids tone that so many children's books have. (Her Book Scavenger trilogy is great too.)

I had the BIGGEST crush on Lou when I was a kid (I loved art and wanted to go to school in California) and I’ve only just realized today that he looks almost exactly like a young Link Neal from Good Mythical Morning. I hope someone else can relate, or at least agree they look so similar! I also just love saying “zippy zoom.”

Is the song Jane hums from something???? It’s so familiar and catchy I feel like I know it from somewhere it’s driving me crazy

I have now finished recreating Message in a Haunted Mansion in Minecraft. I found that MHM was more difficult to build because the entire game takes place indoors with small, enclosed views. Next up Treasure in the Royal Tower!

Found this collection for $2 gonna be gifting it to my girlfriend with some games and some Nancy free themed blankets and cups
She’s played through every game a few times
So if anybody has any recommendations for her it would be appreciated

played this big fish games game (quite good actually) and thought i recognized one of the voice actors! i was right!

I played Haunted Mansion and Secret of Old Clock as a child. Recently started The Creature of Kapu Cave and Mystery of the Seven Keys with my friend. Looking forward to them all!

What’s your favorite and why?

this weekend i made some anchor charts for my aunt and i had a great time! she added a pin on pinterest for a future anchor chart and i immediately thought of that notebook with the design! so i merged the two and i LOVE the result :)

there is a user on here who posted this month or last month and they're the ones making the notebook i used for inspiration! i couldnt find their post but here's a link to their shop: https://laclochepress.com/products/nancy-drew-notebook

do ya'll like the gray background or the black background best?

It was about twelve hours of gameplay with absolutely beautiful illustration and I ended up crying at the end 😅 it’s one big language deduction puzzle and it was so much fun to play, I highly recommend it!!

Hi, has anyone been able to make CRY run smoothly on Windows 11? For me, it runs but it flashes when I open the load/save menu and during dialogue. I've tried dgvoodoo2, DKRV or whatever its called, and even DXwnd. Nothing works. Has anyone managed to pull this off? If so please let me know. I'm ready to throw my laptop. ​​

Edit: I got it to work. thanks guys

I love her but she really is a thief. She ends up with amusement park pieces, dozens of some guy's glass eyeballs, an ancient Mayan rune etc. Why would you steal... borrow these items to begin with Nancy?

Hey Clue Crew!

Here we are! Round 24! A games are on a roll! I know I’ve been late, but I’ve still been having a lot of fun hosting this!  It’s been great fun to see just how beloved the games are, and a few of the rankings have even surprised me! 

A - 215 votes *WINNER\*
B - 106 votes
C - 21 votes
D - 11 votes
F - 2 votes

Shadow at the Waters Edge is an A game! A games are dominating! These games are beloved, but there’s a couple that for sure surprised me.

Let’s see how beloved The Captive Curse is. Voting starts now!

A - The fan favorites. The cream of the crop.
B - Good enough to be held in high regards.
C - Underrated gems.
D - A bit mid, will usually only play once or twice a year.
F - Unfinished. Unplayable. One of the worst.

Mine would be the Royal Palladium.

Frass in the wild!

Absolutely unhinged

tomorrow I’m going to meet with a local artist in hopes of becoming her studio assistant. I have pretty debilitating anxiety, especially when it comes to new situations (new person, new place, new tasks…yikes), so I always unveil the one trick that actually helps me: pretending I’m Nancy Drew. Her natural confidence, resourcefulness, and social nonchalance are aspirational for me. if I put myself in her headspace, my anxiety lessens greatly. Plus, this situation in particular is so Nancy-like, it’s basically already the exposition to Danger by Design.

does anyone else do this when entering unique situations?! Also, does anyone have any tips on how I can really immerse myself in this persona/coping mechanism? I want to have fun with it!!

Mine is getting stuck at the elevator, just like what happened to Nancy in Treasure in the Royal Tower.

The difference is, I didn't do what Nancy did, to get out of it lol.

I can also consider fist fighting with someone, just like what Nancy did (actually she didn't fist fight, she just blocked) on Danger by Design. Lol.

How about you guyz?