Previously on Nancy Drew: Stay Tuned for Danger: Dude! Someone tried to kill us! Well, actually, the bomb was meant for Rick, but of course Nancy was the one to disarm it. We also found a suspicious plaid shirt and the access code to get into the building at night. And you know Nancy Drew never met a building she didn’t want to enter without permission.
So it’s nighttime and here we are at the WWB building. Unlike our previous visits, though, we have to sneak around to the side and go in through the talent entrance. I feel so special. You have to keep moving, though, because if you stay in one place too long, Ralph the security guard will throw you out. (Y u gotta be like that, Ralph?) Our first stop is Lillian’s office!
Oh, Lillian. She tries so hard. Inside this book is a floppy disk(!) labeled “Personal Files” (what, you don’t clearly label your disks as such, so everyone knows your business?), which we obviously are going to take. Boundaries? What are those?
Looking around Lillian’s office some more, we find castor oil! rubber cement! the phone number for Sorpresa Chocolates! Do you think, perhaps, Lillian might have sent the gross chocolates to Rick?
There’s some other stuff that points to Lillian sending threats to Rick (we find out she’s behind the dead roses and the bad poetry), but what we’re really after is her computer. I mean, we’re going to look through it, not steal it. I don’t think even Nancy Drew could steal a whole Compaq without looking really, really suspicious.
This is why you don’t trust old people with security information. Anyway, we need an employee ID number to access some files, but we’ll leave that alone for now. We find some veeeeery eeeenteresting things elsewhere on the computer, though! Such as an extremely bitter email from Lillian to Rick. “You told me when we first started to date that our relationship was different – WHY IS THIS NOT TRUE ANYMORE???” Maybe it’s the caps or the three question marks, but I started laughing. She also tells him not to ask her for any more favors after this, which also amuses me because I can totally picture Rick rolling up the day after he dumped her and asking her to do something for him. He’s that kind of dick. There are a bunch of other amusing but unimportant emails, with the exception of an email from “Pat Eng” asking if they’ve seen a beard and mustache ensemble that’s gone missing from the prop room. HMMMM.
And a bunch of passwords! You will recall that we came here for the purpose breaking into the control room, the password of which is “ACTOR.” Also print out a security report, and that’s all we need from the computer (for now).
Two other things to take note of: the security printout, detailing the dates and times that Rick was injured. I wonder if, perhaps, we could find an employee log and figure out who was on set during these times? Also, the second paper lists the code to use to get into the control room (note the shapes around each letter).
That’s basically it for Lillian’s room (although I think we have to come back later), so let’s go break into the control room!
Blah blah stealing important clues blah. We can grab a security tape and, upon watching it later, I’m really confused as to how the culprit wasn’t caught earlier. Did no one ever think to look through the security tapes? Isn’t that the point of security tapes?
Anyway, what we’re really up here for is to use the mixing equipment to see if we can decipher the voice on the tape. I should add that this game is buggy as hell and I had to break into the studio like three times to ~decode~ the voice before the game decided I could go forward.
Anyway. You pop the cassette(!) into the thingamabob (I want to call it a sound board, but I’m not sure that’s correct) and then play around with the levels. You can’t actually decipher it 100% — I believe what the game wants you to do is turn down the ominous voice far enough to hear the background noise, which is generic city sounds. So basically, the tape was recorded somewhere…in the middle of the city? That’s not exactly narrowing down our suspect list (who’s to say Mattie or Lillian didn’t just record it in their apartments?), but whatever. It’s a clue!
Also, be sure to use one of the keys we picked up (where? Idk, we pick up a lot of keys in this game) to open the power box and flip the switch on.
Now that we’ve done all that, we can leave the control room and head over to that weird cabinet-thing next to the wheel:
That one. When we open it, we discover…a trap door! Or the operating system for a trap door. There’s a diagram showing you how the knobs on the machine should be lined up, so all you have to do is click until they lock into place (it’s one of those moving-one-moves-the-others puzzles, but anyone that’s played a Nancy Drew game before should be pretty good at those already, no?).
The trapdoor itself is behind the couch on set. It’s a little creepy to be descending into a secret passageway in the middle of the night when no one knows where we are, but whatever. Nancy Drew doesn’t care about my opinion.
And this is what’s at the end of the tunnel! How anticlimactic. We could’ve solved this just by breaking into the prop room and knocking the gate in. Anyway, check that plaid shirt! It looks rather like the one we found up on the catwalk, no? Inside the pocket is a card belonging to one “Owen W. Spayder,” who is signed under…Powers Talent! Hmm, we haven’t met him, but he seems rather suspicious, yes? (And do stagehands really work under talent agencies? I wanted to be a techie when I was younger, and I dimly recall that most stagehands work for a separate tech company or directly for the theater, rather than booking through agencies.) Anyway, also on the card is an employee ID number. Back to Lillian’s office!
Over in Lillianland, we put in Owen’s ID number and get a log of his activity in the studio. Gasp! He was there every time Rick was injured! But we’ve never seen him, have we?
(I’m just going to go ahead and ruin the ~reveal~ that Owen W. Spayder is a pseudonym, but wouldn’t it be hilariously awful of HER Interactive if all the suspects we talked to weren’t involved at all, and this Spayder dude was behind the whole thing and we never saw him?)
Welp, clearly this means we have to investigate Owen W. Spayder. Since he’s signed under Powers Talent, you know what this means? We get to break into Dwayne’s office, too! YAY!!!
Obviously Sir Powers isn’t here, so we’ll just ring everyone’s doorbell until we find someone who’ll let us in. Eventually we come across some guy who yells at us for being so late with his pizza and buzzes us in. I feel kind of bad for the dude, since he’s clearly not going to get his pizza. On the other hand, who the hell just lets someone into the building without even asking who it is?
Whatever. So we roll in and go straight to Dwayne’s office. Fuck that other guy, man.
So, Dwayne’s office. There’s a ton of stuff to look through in here. Let’s start with his desk!
$35 for a direct flight to Rio de Janeiro? Jesus, 1999 was a good year.
Also in the drawer is some Spirit Gum adhesive. The kind that could be used to stick fake facial hair onto one’s visage, perhaps? Over in the corner is his jacket, inside which we can find his wallet (what kind of fool doesn’t take their wallet with them when they leave their office?), which contains the combination for his briefcase. God, Dwayne is so dumb. But it works out for us, so I guess I can’t complain.
(This doesn’t have any bearing on the rest of the game, necessarily, but do take note of the fact that Dwayne carries a photo of him and Mattie in his wallet.)
The briefcase is where all the ~suspicious~ stuff is. Quelle excitement! What we generally learn from this is: Dwayne has no money. None. He’s about to be kicked out of his office and is way in debt. Sucks to be Dwayne 🙁 I’m assuming he plans to just skip town with his $35 plane ticket and hope nobody finds him in Brazil? Why do people always pick Brazil when they’re on the run?
We also have to look at his log of bank transactions and a check from Mattie. (I know this because I didn’t and the next part of the game didn’t trigger and I spent a good half-hour trying to figure out where I fucked up.) Anyway, the check is a loan for $5000! Dude. I guess he’s just going to take that to Brazil with him instead of paying off what he owes and staying in an English-speaking country where he’s already a citizen? Of course, if he’s our culprit, he’ll probably want to get out of town before Nancy Drew catches him with her super sleuth skills. HMMM.
Anyway, so that’s Dwayne’s briefcase of sad revelations. Over by his printer is a letter from Mattie’s mom (remember her? We found out about her crazy stage mom ways in the very beginning of the game and then never talked about her again), bitching Dwayne out for not getting Mattie invited to some panel for women in TV (the article is at the bottom of the letter and refers to some other girl as “soap opera’s hottest new star,” which, ouch for Mattie). I imagine the point here is that Dwayne is honestly a crap agent — Mattie seems to be stuck doing LOOL and nothing else. She won’t have anywhere to go once the show ends if Dwayne doesn’t keep her relevant, or something to that effect.
Wait, what did we actually come here for again? Oh, right, info on Owen W. Spayder.
But first, let’s look through everyone else’s files! (Hey, I never said these games were short.) Rick’s real last name is Aburtuski! Hee. And he makes $350,000/year. BOO. I want that kind of money. We can also grab Rick’s cell phone number from this, but I have no interest in talking to his smarmy self more than necessary, so I won’t be calling him. I’m not sure if he even picks up when you try to. Oh, and he was also in an NYU student film called “A Delivery Man Knocks” as the titular delivery man. I am a horrible person because I immediately wonder if that’s just a subtle way of saying Rick was in porn.
We can also look through Mattie’s file. Her resume lists her special skills as, among other things, “ninja throwing stars, kite flying, and lizard wrangling.” Jesucristo, Mattie, what are you up to in your free time?
(If the final part of this game was a lizard fight with Mattie, that would have been amazing.)
There’s also a Nancy file! Sadly, there’s nothing inside but an empty info page. Moving on to Owen W. Spayder!
A few things: you may notice that the handwriting here matches Dwayne’s handwriting! Hmmm. Also, all this information is obviously fake: “Bamboozle Drive,” besides not being a real street, is a pretty big hint. (Sidebar: I first learned the word “bamboozle” from the Artemis Fowl books. Good times!) “Mame Spayder/Aunt” is a reference to Auntie Mame, of course. I’m not sure if the phone numbers are real, since I didn’t bother calling any of them. Boo, me. (Also, the hire date is incredibly awkward, especially since this game came out before 9/11.)
Owen’s attached resume basically lists him as working freelance, so we can’t really track down his former employers. But! He has worked at the Belfry theater, just like Rick and Mattie! We should ask if they’ve met him, although they were probably too involved with their torrid romance to notice any techies.
If we’ve done this all right, there should be something waiting for us back at Mattie’s.
Success!
(Okay, not really. I had to go back to Dwayne’s and break into his briefcase again before I could get this to come up. But I left that out for your convenience. I know, I’m nice that way.)
So it sounds like another bomb with the ticking and all, but it is actually an alarm clock. Boo, mystery culprit. You’re not even trying. Anyway, there’s also a note telling us basically to GTFO or next time “[we] won’t be so lucky.” CREEPY. But please, that’s not actually going to stop Nancy Drew. You will recall that we picked up a security tape, and Mattie has a VCR. Let’s watch some movies!
Well…we’ve figured out where that beard-and-mustache set has gotten to. And we’ve seen that outfit on one of our suspects before, haven’t we?
I missed the cap where you can see his face more clearly, but once he gets to the hallway where Cam 3 is, the suspicious person loses the facial hair (for whatever reason? Maybe it itched) and we can totally see it’s Dwayne. Whatchu doing at WWB after hours, Dwayne?
(I’m not saying he’s the culprit, but…let’s be real, here.)
This has nothing to do with anything. Let’s just enjoy the picture for the moment, shall we? (By the way, I think my mom owns the shirt that Mattie is wearing. Horrors.)
So. The next day. We’ve gathered the last of our clues, so now it’s time to grill our suspects before the end of the game. First up is Lillian, she of the gross chocolates and bitter emails.
Lillian like…mocks us here for saving Rick’s life. You’d think she’d be at least a little grateful that Rick’s not dead, but whatever. We tell her that Rick’s been trying to seduce us with his ribbed turtleneck and ’90s hairdo, and she snarks that Rick will flirt with anyone, so we shouldn’t go around thinking we’re ~special. Er…okay, Lillian. Then she tells us that if Rick’s bothering us, we should tell her and she’ll talk to him. Wow, that’s actually kind of nice. Lillian likes us, she really likes us!
Anyway, we can also ask about Rick and Mattie, and Lillian tells us that Rick fed Mattie a line about needing space (which is what Mattie told us earlier in the game), but in reality he was hooking it up with Lillian instead. Boo, Rick. You suck. Lillian tells us that Mattie never really got over it. HMMM. We also ask if she could tell us anything about Owen Spayder and she snips that no, she can’t tell us anything about Owen Spayder. Aaaand our moment of camaraderie is gone.
Well, fine, Lillian. If you’re gonna be like that, let’s just go ahead and accuse her of trying to kill Rick. We know for a fact that she sent him those chocolates!
Yeah, she doesn’t take too well to that. And so, for the second time in this game, Lillian kicks us off the set.
(Also, please, how are you going to get a hold of Dwayne? He doesn’t even have power in his office.)
(Heh. Dwayne Powers doesn’t have power. Okay, I’m done.)
Lawd, Mattie is not looking good. We ask her about Owen Spayder and she says she’s never heard of him. But they worked together at the Belfry Theater! Maybe she was too busy sucking face with Rick to recall. It happens to the best of us!
Anyway, Mattie’s useless, so we ditch her to go talk to Rick. Like Mattie, he is useless, but unlike Mattie, he is hilarious.
Blah blah Rick smarms at us blah. He calls us a “young lady,” and I opt to say “You know Rick, I’m really not that young.” Which, in hindsight, makes it sound like Nancy is welcoming Rick’s advances, so…ew. But it does open up the following line: “Right, I forgot. You’re celebrating your 70th birthday next month. You are sooooo sassy. But that’s what I love about you. SASSY!”
I love this game.
Anyway, we haven’t actually spoken to Rick since the first time we met him, so we should catch him up on all of our shenanigans. We tell him about Dwayne Powers and Rick’s like, “Never speak that name around me! Oh and P.S. Dwayne is a total LOSER, he sucks!” We point out that Dwayne reps Mattie, so surely he’s not all bad? Rick’s like, “Please. Mattie clings to Dwayne the way my Aunt Mimi clings to cats and old newspapers.” My grandma does the same thing. Anyway, the point is: Dwayne = suck, Mattie = gullible. Good to know.
Moving on, we also ask him about his affairs with Mattie/Lillian/Greta von Kamloops (OTP!). He doesn’t deny any of it, but does sob to us that he ~didn’t mean for it to be this way~ and he wishes he could ~do it all over~ because he’s so ~misunderstood~. GTFO, Rick.
Last question: does he know an Owen Spayder? Rick immediately confirms, and says that he’s “short and stocky.” Then he asks if we’re dating him. “Don’t break my heart, love.” I don’t even know. That’s all we can ask him, so let’s just back away from his sleazy self. As always, he urges us to “stay beautiful.” Ick.
Our final suspect is Crazy Millie! Hi, Millie! She immediately goes off on a ramble about how Rory Danner (Rick’s character) is a fiend and poor Serena is too good for him, blah blah Fanfiction dot net ramblings blah. The idea here is, of course, that Millie is kind of unhinged and trying to kill Rick, thinking that he’s Rory Danner. I don’t know, it’s weird. Anyway, we ask her about Owen Spayder. Apparently he signs out props all the time, but Millie’s never seen him. Uh, question: why does Owen bother to sign out the props he’s stealing? He’s not very subtle.
So that was a whole lot of nothing. We’ve talked to everyone that can be talked to, and since this game doesn’t really have any mini-games or side puzzles, all we can do is return to Mattie’s apartment and start the end of the game.
Phone call for us! And dude, it’s Lillian! What the hell? She asks us to meet her at the studio later (I love how she is totally onto Nancy’s breaking-in-at-night ways). If you want to call Ned, Bess, or George, do so now, for there is no turning back!
Jeez, Lillian. Bitchy to the end. Apparently she too has been ~investigating! If there were some kind of game where Lillian and Nancy team up, that would’ve been amazing. And yesterday, someone sent Lillian the following ominous note:
“Good looks”? “Ladder climber”? Where have we heard those phrases before?
It is at this point that you can accuse whoever you think the culprit is — the letter above totally gives it away, but nevertheless, you can pick from any of our suspects (even Bill Pappas, who we haven’t seen once). I’m going to go ahead and choose Dwayne, because I can. We lay it all out for Lillian: Dwayne hates Rick for being a more successful actor than he was*, is running out of money (which…I guess…he blames Rick for?), and has been disguising himself as Owen W. Spayder. (If you haven’t figured it out, Owen W. Spayder is an anagram of Dwayne Powers).
* (This doesn’t come up when you’re listing off the reasons, but if you put together the photo of Mattie Dwayne’s carrying around, and the unrequited love letter in Mattie’s apartment, you can also come to the conclusion that Dwayne has a thing for Mattie and is bitter that she went out with Rick instead.)
“THAT’S CORRECT, MS. DREW.”
Oh, fuck.
Being a standard villain, of course, Dwayne tells us all about his nefarious plan: Rick started the whole thing by sending himself scary notes to drum up publicity (Rick = B.T. Kaisuur). Lillian sent him the gross chocolates and dead flowers. I think Mattie and Millie also sent him some things (I can’t recall everything that was in his dressing room) but nevertheless, everyone hates Rick Arlen! Dwayne’s doing us all a favor, you see! As for the why: “Because he killed me. HE KILLED DWAYNE POWERS.” Okay, crazy.
Anyway, no more talking. Dwayne stops monologuing and starts to leave the booth to come kill us (oh dear). So you run over to the door override, which has a lock like this:
Most impractical lock ever.
The order is random, so you just have to press the buttons until one lights up, then keep pressing until you get them all in the correct order.
Ignoring Ralph about to tackle him in the background, I feel this picture sums up why Dwayne is perhaps the scariest of Nancy Drew villains.
Anyway, we get the lock combo right on time, and Ralph tackles Dwayne before he can strangle us. And then he says, “Fuhgeddaboutit!” Mmm, New York stereotypes.
And so all’s well that ends well! Dwayne goes to jail and Ralph…eats donuts, idk. Lillian becomes a director in LA. Look at her! She’s gawjus, apart from the weird, un-Photoshopped hand. Rick and Mattie’s characters get married in a glorious wedding filled with helmet hair and play-dough skin textures. I don’t know who the director for LOOL is. Maybe Millie takes over and Rick dies on the honeymoon. I can dream!
THE END.
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