This game might actually be titled The White Wolf of Icicle Creek. But who the fuck calls it that anyway.
Lots of firsts in this game! This is the first game that Fraps can hook into (I had to use Irfanview for the previous ones), and it’s also the first one with the new dialogue boxes, font, and pop-ups for the journal and task list that have been used in every game hereafter. The character design style, which was pretty uneven over the last few games (I heard they switched art directors a couple of times), also remains the same in pretty much all the games after this one. There’s still a couple of kinks — the dialogue font is way smaller in this game, and they made it bigger in the next ones. But other than that, it sets the tone for the rest of the games in the series. Let’s go forth!
We’re on assignment for a “Chantal Moique”, who runs the Icicle Creek Lodge in Alberta, Canada. I believe this is the first (and last) time Nancy goes to Canada. Ed and Bet Rawley recommended us, which is appropriate, since the plot of this game is actually kinda similar: strange and mysterious accidents are occurring around the lodge, ~coincidentally~ around the same time that people are hearing and seeing a wild animal (in this case, a wolf). Like Shadow Ranch, this game is also kind of a sausagefest — we have one female suspect to four male ones. So we’re off to investigate, and see why so many bad things are happening. Chantal, like most of our bosses, won’t actually be appearing in the game, as she’ll be off in Edmonton the whole time.
I wish we could call the Rawleys in this game, by the way. I wanna see if Tex and Mary Yazzie are still dating.
To Canada!
The jump in graphic quality between this game and the last is kind of wild. Creature of Kapu Cave came out in…2006, apparently, and this game in 2007.
We get picked up at the airport by the lodge handyman, Ollie Randall. He’s our typical cranky, doesn’t-really-want-Nancy-around character. So he’s probably not the villain, because those guys never are. As we pull up to the lodge, we hear a wolf howling —
— and in the distance, the bunkhouse explodes. Wow, we haven’t even parked the car and shenanigans are already occurring!
We cut to the inside of the lodge, where Ollie’s got Chantal on the phone. She says the maid (“Elsa”) and the cook (unimportant) had been living in the bunkhouse, so it was a good thing they quit after all. “You sure you don’t want to give your daddy a call?” Ollie snarks, and Chantal protest-exposits that her dad runs a chain of resorts, and she doesn’t want him to think she can’t handle running just this one crappy lodge. I should add that Chantal sounds pretty young, as well. Nancy suggests that we can be the maid, that way we can poke around everyone’s rooms. Chantal likes that idea and, being a Nancy Drew character, decides that Nancy should have even more errands to do. We can be her cook as well! She’s all excited at not having to pay any more employees. Heh. At least she admits it.
Anyway, Chantal says they won’t be taking any new guests for now, but there are still four people already staying at the lodge. Including Ollie, we have five suspects. That’s kind of a lot. I think the most we’ve had so far in a game is four, and this game also has a few phone contacts too.
Finally, Chantal tells us that she’s hired a police consultant to help us out. In fact, she thinks we’ve met him. She’s hired Tino Balducci! That’s weird. I mean, I look forward to completely schooling him at mystery-solving again, but how does he have any jurisdiction in frickin’ Canada?
Ollie gives us a master key for everyone’s rooms, and then disappears down into the basement, where we’ll be able to find him when we need to talk. And thus, we begin work. This game is really…tedious. It’s really long, mostly. We have a shitton of maid duties, a shitton of suspects, and shitton of trudging through the snow to do. The maid duties also involve a five-click process to clean the rooms each time. It’s not really that fun. I like the setting and some of the suspects, but the rest of it is…blah.
Note the clock at the top-right corner; this game is back on the aggravating alarm-clock method of timekeeping, but at least the clock is digital now.
We get a note telling us which guests are in which rooms, but we can also check them out on the computer. It looks like we’re in January, which is quite a leap from the last time Nancy solved a mystery — Creature of Kapu Cave was set in March. We’ve got two guests from California, one from Ontario, and one from the made-up country of Fredonia. When we click back to see the register from the previous year, we see that the contents have been deleted. HMMM.
We can also look through various crap about the weather and how to gauge when it’s too cold to go outside, birds and fish in the area, our various duties. And what’s this under the desk?
It’s Elsa’s resignation notice, and her phone number. So we can call her later and see if she knows anything.
Our first maid duty is laundry. The laundry bag is in the closet, where we find out some more about Elsa: she has an abusive boyfriend named L, who sent her a couple of love letters, and then a letter threatening to destroy her troll doll collection if she chooses her job over him. He sounds like a charmer! Also, dig the mention of Ebay. I think this one of the few times a real-world thing has been mentioned in the games.
So we go around cleaning everyone’s rooms. First up is Lou Talbot, in the Eena room. The register says he’s from LA, and he has a bunch of “UC Brea” gear all over his room, along with some art supplies and a copy of The Call of the Wild. A clue! The only reason a student might be reading The Call of the Wild is because they’re trying to commune with wolves, for crime purposes.
The next room over is the Kalakala room, which is occupied by Yanni Volkstaia, the Fredonian dude. Chantal mentioned in our earlier phone conversation with her that he’s a champion skiier, and kind of a big deal. A sports magazine in his room has an article about a skiing competition potentially being held around Icicle Creek.
The third room is the Pish Pish room, which is Bill Kessler’s. He has books on engineering and geology.
The last room is the Ollalie room, occupied by Guadalupe Comillo. She doesn’t show up until like halfway through the game, but she looks pretty suspicious! She has a magazine about Yanni Volkstaia, and has underlined a bunch of passages about his competitive streak and tendency to study his competitors. The magazine also has some information on how to fix a rifle sight. Is she planning on shooting Yanni? Guadalupe must really care about Fredonian skiing competitions.
So with all the menial labor done, we can go explore the rest of the lodge. We see a wall covered in pictures (one being a little nod to Message in a Haunted Mansion), and Nancy will note that most of them are having to do with a “Trapper Dan”, and that some of the pictures are missing. Mysterious! We also find a newspaper with a story about how several guests left the lodge because of food poisoning.
Let’s make first contact with our suspects guests, shall we? To the left is Lou Talbot (Call of the Wild, art supplies) and to the right is Bill Kessler (geology, bridges). Lou is a grad student (art major) from LA, while Bill is very, very Canadian (“I’ve been here for aboot a week, eh”). He says that they’ve been just sitting around playing this “Fox and Geese” game, because they’ve found that it’s “pretty darn fun.” Bill Kessler is a fucking liar. Fox and Geese is not fun, in any way, at all. But I’m not going to find that out for another few thousand words yet. Anyway, Bill says he’s never been to the Lodge before; he came here to do some ice-fishing. He’s wary of the wolf, and thinks it should be gotten rid of. “They didn’t put up with wolves prowling around here forty years ago, and they shouldn’t put up with it now.” How do you know what went on here forty years ago, Bill?
Anyway, Bill tells us we should shovel the snow off the pond so he and Lou can have a speed skating competition. And thus we have our second task; if we try to talk to them again, Lou will snip at us that we’re supposed to be shoveling the pond. Don’t tell me how to do my job, Lou.
But first, let’s go talk to everyone else. To the basement!
Ollie is working a wolf trap, saying that he thinks the wolf is causing the accidents, and he plans to finish it off once and for all. Well, that’s more effort than Tex ever put into it. He thinks there’s something unnatural about the wolf — it doesn’t behave like a wild animal, and he couldn’t manage to shoot it. “I just don’t miss like that.” Maybe you do, Ollie. Deflate that ego! Anyway, changing the subject: have we met his daughter yet? He told us in the car that we’re not much older than she is. We have not, but we’ll be able to find her outside, where she spends all day picking snowball fights. Ollie mentions that he doesn’t know how she stays warm all day; we’ll come back to that point later. Ollie’s also married, but his wife doesn’t like the cold, so she goes south for the winter. Like geese. He wants to send Freddie south too, but he can’t afford it, as Chantal keeps putting off giving him a raise. Uh-oh.
Speaking of: how long has Ollie worked for Chantal? He says about two and a half years now; he was her first hire. Ollie used to be in the guest lodge business, but it didn’t work out. He says he’s learned a lot since then, and he could totally run his own lodge now. He just needs a property to build it on!
I’M ONTO YOU, OLLIE. I’M ONTO YOU.
That’s about it for Ollie, and there’s still one more person in the basement. Say hi to Yanni Volkstaia! He’s ambiguously Eastern European, and he’s all pissy that Nancy’s here. He tells us not to let anyone into his room, lest they discover his top-secret cross-country skiing technique. Any one of the lodge’s guests could be a spy! I mean, we haven’t met Guadalupe yet, but I’m pretty sure none of the nerds we’ve met so far could put on a pair of skis without falling on their faces. Anyway, Yanni’s here to train, as Icicle Creek may be the site of the next big cross-country tournament. “As long as I have to train, why not train in the place where I must eventually put it to use?” Fair enough. As they say in Fredonia, he is milking two cows with one bucket! Nancy remarks that we’ve read that he’s pretty competitive, and he says he isn’t proud of the things he’s done to bring honor to Fredonia. But it was for the greater good (the greater good)! Cross-country skiing is a matter of life and death!
I’m putting off shoveling the skating pond, because Lou Talbot was a dick about it and he needs to learn some patience. Let’s call Chantal and tell her how our investigation is going. She tells us a little more about the accidents; first, the cook and one of the guests came down with food poisoning. Then, another guy slipped on some ice and broke his leg, then Elsa the maid’s tires were slashed, then Lou Talbot’s window was broken, then another family nearly died from a gas leak in the sauna. Wow. Usually the accidents in these games are kind of lame, but those are all pretty scary. Points to the villain for effort.
She doesn’t know anything about the guest list from last year being deleted, and says it must be Ollie’s daughter, Freddie: “You know how kids are these days. Always hacking into computers.” Those wacky kids and the cyber! (I wonder if that joke will still be topical by the time I post this.)
She also doesn’t know anything about the photos in the lobby being missing. Jesus, Chantal, pay a little more attention to the lodge you’re running. She thinks they were all there the last time she looked, and she doesn’t remember what they were of, anyway.
We ask if any of the guests were here last year, and she says Lou Talbot stopped here briefly when his car broke down. Yanni was also here last year with his trainer, presumably scoping the area out, but they didn’t stay very long either. Speaking of Yanni! Does Chantal know anything about that skiing competition being held around here? Chantal says she can’t say anything about that, and Nancy’s like, “That totally means it’s gonna be here.” She notes that that would make the lodge a “very desirable piece of real estate.” It would? The championship’s only going to be for one year.
Holy shit this a long conversation. Our second-to-last topic is that raise Chantal promised Ollie; she gets pissy and says that she made an offhand comment that he deserved a raise, and he thought that was some kind of ironclad promise. Doesn’t he realize she has more important things to think about? I dunno, that sounds like a dick thing for Chantal to do if she wasn’t serious.
Finally, finally, we get around to pointing out that we’re not the world’s biggest fans of Tino Balducci. Chantal’s like, “But his eyes are so piercing!” She insists that we consult with him when we need help, because that’s what she’s paying him for. She’s paying him and not us? What the fuck, Chantal!
We then call all the former guests of the lodge. They don’t tell us anything we didn’t already know, although the Southwaites mention that Yanni was the one to pull them out of the sauna. (They also argue whether he’s Russian or Slovakian. “Volkstaia” sounds kind of fake-Estonian to me, though I can’t back that up with any proof.)
Nancy’s journal notes that she should call Ned, “just in case absence doesn’t make the heart grow fonder.” I mean, we already knew this about you, Nancy. Ned doesn’t offer much information, although we can snark on Tino Balducci with him. He’s like, “I’d make a better detective than that guy.” I mean, this is true, and I believe in Ned more than your average Nancy Drew fan, but…that’s still not saying much. Anyway, let’s finish off with Elsa the maid. When she picks up, she’s telling someone on the other end to get her a “double double.” Because we’re in Canada. She insists that the wolf totally tore up her tires, and her unemployment claim is COMPLETELY LEGITIMATE. Okay, I wasn’t suspicious of you until you said that, Elsa. She cracks in half a second and admits her abusive boyfriend Larry was actually the one who slashed her tires. “You’re right — I shouldn’t have lied. I’m going to call the unemployment office and tell them the truth, okay?” What? I didn’t even say anything, Elsa. I guess she could feel Nancy’s judgment radiating through the phone.
It’s lunchtime, so before we can do anything else, we have to go be the cook. Like all the cooking minigames, it’s not too hard and pretty zen. There are way more than five orders, though. The people in this lodge eat a whole fucking lot.
So five hours have passed in-game, and I have gotten absolutely jack done. SIGH. Okay, let’s go shovel off the pond.
BUT FIRST! Both Chantal and Ollie have mentioned Ollie’s daughter, Freddie, who hangs around in the snow all day. What is she doing? Pelting everyone who walks by with snowballs, of course. Literally every time you try to walk this way, you have to beat Freddie in a snowball fight.
Yes, the point of this minigame is to repeatedly hit a little girl in the face with snowballs. I don’t know.
(You may also recall that Ollie said we’re not much older than Freddie. She’s like, nine. How old does Ollie think we are?)
You have to hit Freddie ten times before she hits you ten times. It’s not too hard, but it is annoying that you have to do it like every time you walk outside. I called this game “tedious” above, and I think this is the main reason why: there are bunch of small puzzles and minigames that you have to do every day: the room cleaning, the snowball game, and the food preparation (you actually have to do that one three times a day). In other games, you usually just have to beat the minigames once and then they become optional, but this game makes you repeat them over and over. It’s exhausting.
On our way to the skating pond, Nancy notices a half-melted clock face in the snow. Could it be part of the bomb that blew up the bunkhouse? I bet it could.
So we shovel off the pond. It’s kind of like Minesweeper; the color of the ice patch will tell you how many patches of thin ice are around it. You’re supposed to put a cone on each thin ice patch. I fell in a couple of times; I think you can fall in three times before dying.
Also note the temperature meter at the top of the screen. Once it gets all the way to the left, Nancy will get hypothermia and die.
Once we’re done shoveling the pond, Nancy will note that there are wolf tracks leading in another direction. “Maybe I should find out where they go,” she says. Sure, there’s a wild animal on the loose and bad things happen every time it’s around, so let’s follow it! Oh, Nancy.
The tracks take us to this big ole obelisk-like thing, which Nancy will identify as “Trapper Dan’s Needle.” Going closer, we’ll notice that there’s something stuck in the side of the obelisk, which must mean that it opens up.
Blah blah following the wolf blah. The tracks lead us to a slope called Chicken Ridge, where Nancy will hear an explosion.
Oh. This doesn’t look good.
We’re going to die here.
(Suffocation seems like a really lame way for Nancy Drew to go out, for what it’s worth.)
Oh, hey, maybe we won’t suffocate! Instead, we’ll get EATEN BY A WOLF. It’s a slightly cooler way to go out, to be sure.
Up next: Nancy Drew doesn’t get eaten. I’m sure you’re shocked. We have to go spend another million years on the phone again.
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