Previously on Nancy Drew: The Haunted Carousel: We started gathering our clues, which mostly involved playing arcade games, because Nancy Drew is a serious detective. Then we poked around everyone’s belongings, and someone tried to kill us, but that’s as usual.
So we found out all sorts of shady things about the park employees: Harlan is an ex-con, Ingrid is in cahoots (the game’s wording, not mine) with Lance Huffington, Joy was the one to shut down the roller coaster, and Elliott…is ordering a lot of wood? Whatever. It’s suspicious. We already confronted Harlan and Joy, but let’s talk to Ingrid and Elliott.
Actually, the confrontations with Ingrid and Elliott are both really anticlimactic. Elliott says that he was trying to carve a horse to replace the one that had been lost. He didn’t want anyone to know, in case he sucked at it. Fair enough. But wait! What about all those horse tails he ordered? Why does he need more than one? Elliott is not pleased with our armor-piercing questions, and tells us that he has work to do.
As for Ingrid, we already know that Joy was the one who stopped the roller coaster, so there’s no revelations there. It turns out that Ingrid is actually helping some guy building a roller coaster on the DL — since it’s a risk of conflict of interest, he’s paying her a lot. That’s where the missing blueprints went: she lent them to him. And she was talking to Lance Huffington because she was giving him health advice. That’s pretty much it.
It occurs to me that, essentially, three of our four suspects have been cleared. If this were Clue, we could accuse someone right now! But this is Nancy Drew, so we have to keep playing. We call Tink to get the book about Rolfe and Amelia Kessler, and he tells us the stolen horse was named Nightshade. You will recall that we have been running on the assumption that the stolen horse was the replacement for Glory, and therefore not a Kessler original — but Nightshade (I almost typed “Neightshade”, because the puns don’t stop when you hang with me) is a Kessler original. Anyway, Tink says he threw out the book. Oh my God, of course he did.
There was a phone number for a guy named Anton Sukov in Elliott’s magazine about valuable antiques, so we call him. Sukov is an expert on all things Rolfe Kessler, and he tells us that Amelia’s nickname was Spatzi. I love German nicknames. He also reveals that someone already called him, asking him how much a Kessler horse would be worth — could it be our culprit? Sukov’s all horrified that he might have facilitated a heinous crime, which, sorry Anton, but I’m all tapped out from dealing with Joy’s emotional issues, so I cut him off there. He tells us that, now that the rumors of the haunting are going around, there’s lots of publicity surrounding the theft, and people will be lining up to buy the horse. “Are you saying people would willingly buy stolen property?!” Nancy says, all appalled, like she’s new here or something.
By the way, the person who called Sukov was male. Who could it be? WHO?
Finally, finally, we enter the home stretch of the game. Our last task is to fix Spook #10, which will lead us to Kessler’s workshop. I mean, we don’t know that yet, but I’m just telling you now. Of course, the spook is red-tagged and missing an arm, so we have to go talk to Ingrid about that. She hands over the arm, and tells us to take the red tag back to “Spymaster Bishop.” Heh.
Unfortunately, we still don’t have Ingrid’s pliers, which we need to reattach the arm. So while you’re in the haunted house, you have to check out the radiator room, and we can now notice the hidden door above the radiator. The door has the same transmitter attached to it as the one we found under the carousel. (“This seems familiar,” Nancy muses. I mean, I hope it does, since we’ve been carrying around the exact same one since the beginning of the game.) When we use our transmitter on it, the lock to the door is revealed behind a secret panel. “It’s locked,” Nancy deadpans. Thanks.
We have to talk to Ingrid and Elliott about the door, for some reason. Elliott tells us to ask Joy about it (which we don’t have to do), and Ingrid just ominouses at us about how some doors shouldn’t be opened. Uh, Ingrid, we’re trying to solve a crime here.
Anyway, once you do that, the next part of the game will trigger. Harlan calls us to the security booth, and apologizes for calling us a backstabber earlier. He understands now that it was for the greater good (the greater good!). And then he gives us an envelope with a key inside. Who is it from? I have no idea, and I’m not sure we ever find out. I’m going to assume it’s from our villain, though, given what happens next: we use the key on the door in the haunted house, and it opens. This is a bit tricky, because you might assume that the door leads somewhere useful, but you would be wrong! Instead, we go down a dead end (we do find the pliers, though). And then someone tries to kill us by dropping a huge ceramic fish onto us from above. Dude! Not cool at all! Death by ceramic fish is not the way I want to go out!
After all that, we finally, finally have the pliers, have the arm, and can go fix Spook #10. Now that Harlan’s talking to us again, he’ll turn the power back on, and we can put in Amelia Kessler’s nickname.
It’s almost like Joy should be here to see this, or something.
Another secret passage is revealed, I’m assuming to Kessler’s workshop, for real this time. I bet this would be a really emotional moment for Joy, but she’s not here, so whatever.
The stairs collapse, and Nancy falls and knocks into the horse like a total loser. I feel like she should be smoother after 73 years of sleuthing, right? Somewhat weirdly, the second she sees the horse, she’s like, “It’s Glory!” even though…how could you tell, Nancy? But of course Nancy Drew is never wrong, and the horse is indeed Glory. We’ve also snapped off one of its legs, which I’m sure won’t bother Joy at all. But what’s this?
The stolen jewels were hidden inside Glory! I’m confused. How old is Joy? Didn’t anyone notice the jewels rattling around in there when they were moving the horse? Whatever. We’re nearing the end of the game, and I don’t want to think about this any harder than I have to. There’s also a note to Joy, presumably from her father. I bet it’s really personal. Let’s read it!
Blah blah Joy’s traumatic childhood blah. The important thing here is that the note tells us how to get to Kessler’s workshop. All you really have to do is click on it; there aren’t any more puzzles or anything. Nancy’s also like, “I should take some of these jewels with me,” like, really, Nancy? You should? But we know Nancy Drew is an upstanding citizen, and is only holding on to these valuable stolen jewels for the greater good (the greater good!).
Anyway.
Nancy is all appalled to find not only Nightshade in the workshop, but several replicas of Nightshade — “Or should I say, forgeries,” Nancy upstanding citizens for all the nine-year-olds playing. We find several printouts of emails between the thief and his middleman, presumably. I’m glad our culprit went through the trouble of printing them out? Although, to be fair, it’s probably not worth waiting for dial-up just to reread your emails.
Anyway, we should totally call the police now. Except Nancy’s phone can’t get a signal underground. Well, we can just leave and call them aboveground, as long as we aren’t standing under anything/are near anything electric/are close enough to a cell tower. The early 2000s was not a good time.
Unfortunately, Elliott shows up and blocks our way out 🙁 It’s actually a really short conversation, as Elliott’s scheme wasn’t particularly complex — the reason he’s behind on his work is because he was making replicas of Nightshade to sell on the black market, and he made up the curse story to increase their value. I really want to know how he got the horse off the carousel, though. Also, how did Elliott get into the workshop, anyway? I know he wasn’t helping Joy recover secrets of her traumatic past. Was there another entrance?
Anyway, Elliott’s an efficient villain, and goes straight for threatening us with death instead of waxing about his reasons or Nancy’s sleuthing skills. Which is sad! I always like to hear how impressed the villain is with our sneakiness! They’re always like, “You nearly ruined my plan,” or “I wouldn’t have found the treasure if it weren’t for you,” and I think that’s a compliment.
Elliott doesn’t waste time with that shit, though. Instead, we have to distract him by telling him about the jewels inside Glory. Elliott’s like, “Cool.” We now have two options: tell him he’s never getting them, or throw them at his head. If we choose the first, he kills us. If we choose the second, though, the jewels distract him long enough for us to run back to the haunted house. But then he locks the door on us! Wait, how did he lock the door from down there? Well, whatever. Elliott comes through the radiator door, threatening to kill us even more. But if we take the brass ring off Spook #10, the sign for Joy will flip back up and whack Elliott in the head, knocking him through the trapdoor.
Elliott is trapped, and Nancy escapes and alerts Harlan, who calls the police. And that’s the end of it! Elliott goes to jail. “Needless to say, he’s gone back to not liking me,” Nancy says. I feel like that’s a really flippant way of alluding to the fact that he tried to kill you, Nancy! But I guess attempts on her life aren’t really a big deal to Nancy Drew. I can only wish to be as chill.
Everyone is really impressed with Harlan, as Nancy lets him have some of the credit for busting Elliott. So now no one will ever question Harlan’s ethics or morals again, which is nice.
Ingrid takes a vacation, and says she’ll be back when Mercury is no longer in retrograde. Kay.
Joy has rediscovered the joys of her childhood or some shit. I don’t know.
No word on whether or not Joy gets to keep the jewels or if they’re returned to wherever they were stolen from or what. Maybe they’ll just remain buried in the workshop, and 50 years from now, someone will start sabotaging Captain’s Cove again to get to them, and Nancy will have to come back and solve that case. She’ll only be 123 years old!
THE END.
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