Another delightfully creepy game, and some A+ timing to post for October! This one is nothing special, story- or character-wise — it reuses a lot of plot points and tropes from the past games, but it does them all very well, and the result is great fun. If Shadow at the Water’s Edge has any flaws, it’s that while the core story is great, it has a lot of unnecessary flourishes and the plot ends up meandering every now and then. This game, on the other hand, is a straightforward monster mystery with just enough sideplot to give it some extra depth. It gets absolutely zero points for the concept, but all of the points for execution.
Nancy’s being called to Castle Finster in Germany, at the behest of a Markus Boehm. He’s an investor who owns Castle Finster, and he’s freaking out because there’s a monster terrorizing the castle. This monster has been stalking the castle for centuries, apparently, but if Nancy could just solve the mystery once and for all, that would be awesome. Oh, okay, then. Let’s go to Germany!
“GERMANY, A LONG TIME AGO.” How long ago, though? Like, before it was Germany? Some peasant chick goes walking in the forest, and promptly gets jumped by a ~mysterious creature~. She tries to run to a castle, but the gates are closed. The creature drags her off, and we cut to “GERMANY, PRESENT DAY.” ~*~Spooky~*~
Oh look! Here’s the exact castle gates we saw in the flashback! And we’re stuck outside them, with the forest full of monsters behind us! Okay, that’s fine, this is fine.
Hey, Nancy, what if we just turn around and leave, huh?
“It’s too soon to leave. Maybe there’s somewhere else to explore around here.” UGH, FINE, IF YOU INSIST, NANCY.
We try to get into the castle, but right away we run into a problem. Some kid named Lukas won’t let us in unless we do a puzzle for him first. Is this the fastest that a suspect’s pawned a puzzle off onto us in all the games?
Luckily, the puzzle is super easy — we just have to find the matching monsters, and that’s literally it. Did you think this was a challenge, Lukas? Did you think this would stop me?
Lukas wants to keep torturing us with puzzles, but some dude named Karl stops him and invites us in. He tells us to meet him in his study.
We walk through the courtyard of Castle Finster, which despite appearances we can’t really interact with. It’s eerie, not entirely in an intentional way — we hear a lot about the frightened villagers, and there’s audio of them talking or moving around in the background, but we never actually see any of them, and we can’t go inside any of the courtyard buildings. The concept of “frightened villagers who won’t even leave their houses” works for the game, but it feels a little creepy on a meta level, like the game’s not as populated as it wants you to think.
Also, I’m confused about how Castle Finster functions. Is it like a living museum? Do the castle residents live here and pretend to be Bavarian peasants 24/7? It’s mentioned that there’s housing above the shops, which is fair, but…do they all have to go through the castle gates to leave? I don’t know. I’m thinking about this too much.
As the courtyard isn’t very interactive, the vast majority of the action takes place inside the castle. The design is absolutely beautiful; it’s very ornate and detailed, with warm light and just enough shadows to remind us that this is a scary game.
Before we can go see Karl, however, Ned calls us. Hi, Ned! Also, if you were ever thinking that Nancy was too cool for Ned or something, I feel like her phone picture for him definitely disproves that.
So Ned is all twitterpated, because he and Nancy made plans to go out tonight, and he’s got something awesome planned, and he put a lot of work into it but it’s definitely going to be worth it, and it’s so great that Nancy’s actually around for once, and they’re going to have so much fun together. Nancy’s like, “Yikes.” She tells Ned she’s in Germany, and he gets all pissy that she’s always going out and solving mysteries and flirting with Frank Hardy on his car phone, while Ned sits at home. Nancy apologizes and suggests that Ned go out and do something fun without her. “I see I’m not that important to you,” Ned snaps, and they hang up. “That was…not great,” Nancy sighs. Excellent observation skills, Nancy.
Ooh, so that’s some drama. There’s a lot going on here. I like that neither of them are really right or wrong — it’s fair for Ned to want Nancy to be around more, especially as it sounds like she doesn’t give a lot of notice before jetting off somewhere. On the other hand, solving mysteries all over God’s green earth is kind of what Nancy does, and it’s not her fault that Ned’s a boring sadsack when she’s not around. It’s interesting, too, that Ned being “boring” is such a contentious point in their relationship, both in and out of the story’s universe. People really are not used to the man being the one sitting at home while his girlfriend has adventures — this plotline never crops up in the Hardy Boys books. Not to call out anyone’s shipping preferences, either, but I do think at least part of Frank/Nancy’s popularity is the subconscious desire to make Nancy less dominant in her relationship. People don’t really have problem shipping Joe Hardy with, say, Bess, and letting her do fuck all in River Heights while he solves crime with Frank and Nancy. Similarly, Ned clearly has nothing on Nancy’s skill or experience solving mysteries — all he does is provide emotional support, which is usually the woman’s role — and suddenly that means he has to be replaced with someone who can match Nancy’s skill, or sometimes even know more than her.
Anyway. Speaking of the Hardy Boys, let’s call them and see if Frank’s gonna take this opportunity to try and move in on Nancy. I see you, Frank Hardy! Just kidding, in this version of Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys are friends with Ned, and are…hanging out with him?…right now? Isn’t River Heights in Illinois, and Bayport in New Jersey/upstate New York? Whatever. So we call, and Frank starts berating us for being mean to Ned. Fuck off, Frank. While I like that the conflict between Ned and Nancy is fairly realistic and neither of them has the clear high ground, the game very much doesn’t paint it that way, which is irritating.
The connection on our cell phone is crap, so the Hardy Boys tell us to call them later. Let’s keep exploring the castle, and let the pretty architecture distract me from this game’s irritating gender dynamics.
I will say, gorgeous as the design is, there’s not a huge amount of variety between screens, and there are several twists and turns that make the castle difficult to navigate. Eventually we make it to Karl’s office, which bears the title, “Burgermeister.” This is a legitimate title (“burg” meaning “fort”, and “meister” meaning “master”), but here it’s just an excuse for lots of “Haha, burger” jokes.
We walk in and see Karl, who quickly and shiftly sweeps something off of his desk as we approach. HMMM. I’m not a huge fan of how far away we are from his desk — he feels a little difficult to see at times? I don’t know. Anyway, we chirp that we’re here to bust ghosts and monsters, and Karl quickly is like, “Monster? What monster? Zere is no monster, Fräulein!” Ah, so we’re committing to the awkward German stereotype parade here. Then he drops his voice and says: “We have a huge monster problem here. Literally — and also figuratively. The monster is huge and it is also a huge problem.” Heh. I think the humor in these later games is pretty polarizing — it’s sort of Buffy-esque, with lots of non-sequiturs and forgotten metaphors, “quirky” rambles and self-aware lame jokes, meta nods to Nancy’s behavior, etc. I really enjoy that type of humor, but I know some people prefer the more straightforward dialogue of the earlier games, or feel that the characters being so ~lol awkward~ takes away from the scary atmosphere of the game.
Nancy’s like, “Why are you shouting that there’s no monster and then whispering that there is one?” Karl’s like, “The castle walls have ears, Fräulein!” What? We walked through like twenty empty hallways just to get here. He doesn’t want the villagers to know how bad things are, which is weird because they’re already hiding in their houses and refusing to come out, so it’s like, how much worse could it get? But if the castle newspaper gets wind of all this, he’ll be in trouble! “The castle has its own newspaper?” Nancy asks, even though that sounds pretty normal. “Of course, doesn’t yours?” Karl asks. Nancy: “I don’t really live in a castle.” Karl: “How do you protect yourself from peasant uprisings?” Hee.
Welp, let’s change the subject to his wacky Germanic outfit. Karl gets all huffy that it wasn’t his idea to dress like a “sad Pinocchio”; Markus wants everyone to dress like Bavarian stereotypes to make the castle more “authentic.” “I know authentic,” Karl snaps. “If he wanted authentic, he should’ve come to me instead of stuffing the castle full of idiotic tourists…no offense to you…and your fanny pack-wearing, loud-talking country people.” Man, the Germans in these games are always so rude. We’re here to help you, Karl, you don’t gotta burn us so bad! Karl doesn’t think the castle should be a tourist attraction, which…I mean, what does he want to do with it? “Medieval castle” isn’t really a thriving business model in the 21st century.
Moving on! What were those things we saw him shiftly put away when we came in? Was he playing with…DOLLS? Karl is all, “NEIN! Ich do nicht play with DOLLS, Fräulein! They are injection molded, professionally crafted, physical tactical multi directional place-holding avatars!” So…dolls, then. Karl’s using these dolls for a board game, because Germans take board games very seriously. If your board game doesn’t have miniature dolls to go with it, is it really even a board game? Karl tells us that German board games are THE BEST IN THE WORLD! It’s true, that’s why they call Germany the land of dichter und denker und board games. (No, but really — much like the “Burgermeister” title, the game plays it like a joke, but German games and German-style games really are their own genre.)
Anyway, Karl is developing his own game and it’s going to revolutionize the German board game industry. Wait for it…wait for it…”You’ll have to see! Tell me you’ll play!” Oh, for fuck’s sake. Okay, so eventually we’ll have to play Karl’s game.
Before we let Karl distract us into a million rounds of his Settlers of Catan rip-off or whatever, let’s get some more information out of him. Who’s Lukas? Karl tells us that Lukas is the son of the castle’s head of security, and he pretty much has free run of the castle, roaming around and playing wacky pranks on its inhabitants. Could all these monster shenanigans just be Lukas screwing around because he lives in a medieval castle without a TV or video games?
Karl tells us that one of the villagers, Magda, has actually seen the monster. She was out in the woods one day and saw it standing there. It didn’t do anything to her, though; they just made eye contact and then the monster walked away. Terrifying! Nancy wants to ask Magda some questions, but Karl refuses: “I know exactly what you want to do, and I’m telling you that you need to leave her alone!” What? Does he mean he knows we’re going to rock up and probably start asking Magda about her dead mother? Maybe Miwako phoned him up to warn him about Nancy.
Our next clue in this room will involve the Raid game, so let’s play a round and get it out of the way. I’m not going to pretend I know how to play this game. Basically you spin to land on a number, move your piece that number of spaces, and each color of square requires you to take a certain action. Your character cards show the character’s stats for each color, and so you want to pick the card that has the strongest stats for whatever color you landed on. Whoever wins the battle gets to move forwards, and whoever makes it to the castle at the center of the board wins. Okay, now that I’ve written it out, I guess I do understand this game. I don’t really care for it, though, and I can’t be fucked to carefully look over my character cards to find the strongest stats, so I lose miserably to Karl every time. That’s okay, though, because win or lose, Karl PAYS US for testing out his game. He pays us! Oh my God, after 24 games, we finally meet a character that understands the concept of monetary compensation. I LOVE YOU AND YOUR SILLY BAVARIAN OUTFIT, KARL.
We poke around Karl’s office a bit, and Nancy will notice this painting. It looks just like one of the Raid characters, which are all based off of Grimm fairy tale characters. We’ll come back to that.
We find a cabinet with some Raid cards balanced on scales. How do cards have enough weight to…oh, whatever. Nancy’s klutzy ass promptly knocks them all over, and Karl tells us to put the cards back. So this is a puzzle; we have to rearrange the cards so that the scales are balanced the way they were before — the middle scale is the lightest, and the right-hand scale is the heaviest. Once that’s done, we’ll find a note from Markus to Karl in the cabinet. It’s written in German, so let’s hang on to it until we find a dictionary.
Before we leave, can we talk to Karl about anything else? Ah, yes — apparently in the five minutes it took us to look in his cabinets, Karl’s decided to submit his game for review to the International Game Commission. He frets that his luck isn’t very good, but maybe with Nancy helping, it’ll turn around! It’s true, Nancy Drew fixes everything. Karl wants us to help him come up with a new character, and when we talk to him, he’ll ask us a couple of questions about the character. We can pick the answers, and at the end of the game, we’ll see the character we made.
Let’s go find Nancy’s room. Like all the scenery in the castle, it’s gorgeous; we’ll find a schedule of castle events on the mantle (I’m assuming these are canceled, on account of the monster running around), a phone on the desk, and a German-English dictionary next to Nancy’s bed. Let’s use that to read the note Markus sent to Karl:
“Karl – No, you don’t have a choice. Follow the orders given to you – or else.” XOXO, Markus! Well, that’s pretty creepy.
Blah blah more exploring blah. The music in this game is nice but not really notable — orchestral music that gets scary or tense as the plot demands. It’s reminiscent of the German/Austrian school of classical music, which connects it to the setting. It doesn’t do anything particularly novel or cool, like the creepy electronic twist on traditional Japanese music in SAW — kind of like the game itself, it’s nothing new but does its job very well regardless.
Note the weird metal door at the bottom of the staircase; we’ll bypass that for now and turn down this hallway, where we find the…gift shop? I think?
And we meet this lady. Hello, I’m Nancy Drew, here to steal your shit and ask inappropriate questions!
This is Anja, the castle “castellan.” This just means she’s in charge of keeping the guests happy, although she bitters her job would be a lot easier if Karl actually did his — apparently he’s supposed to keep her updated on where the guests are from and what they’re like, so she can prepare for their stay, and not do shit like try to speak German to American tourists. Aw, don’t feel bad, Anja. It’s not you; Nancy Drew is shit at all foreign languages. Anyway, Anja is not at all subtle about hinting that weird things are happening in the castle, but oh, if we don’t already know, she doesn’t want to worry us — but if we really want to know, she might as well tell us! Ah, Anja’s one of those suspects.
Anja proceeds to tell us about the monster: every now and then cows go missing and there are claw marks on the trees and shit, and everyone will talk about the monster, but soon they all forget about it and everything goes back to normal. This time, though, things are different — Anja can’t say why, exactly. “I heard once that before a tsunami, all of the animals will run for higher ground. They just…know. That’s what it’s like this time. We just know.” Spooky. She tells us that there’s eerie howling coming from the woods, and at night, they can hear ~something~ circling the castle, coming ever closer each time. Legend holds that when “the girl in the necklace” walks the castle halls, the monster comes out to stalk her, not stopping until he’s whisked her away to the forest, never to be seen again. ~*~SPOOKY~*~ Anja knows it’s silly, but she does indeed believe in the monster, and she’s pretty freaked out.
So, hey, anyway — what’s Anja’s job like? Anja explains that Karl is sort of like the “mayor” of the castle, while Anja is in charge of the guests. She gushes that it’s a super cool job, and she beat out a lot of applicants to get it. Anja tells us she worked her way up from managing smaller households, and when she heard there was an opening at Castle Finster, she “turned in [her] resume and crossed [her] fingers.”
We can also get her to gossip about her coworkers. She gripes about Karl — “The fact that that man got elected makes me wish we were back in the days when you had to pull a sword out of a stone or a lake or something to assume power. He’d never be able to figure it out.” Damn, Anja! She’s all salty that the castle residents seem to like him well enough, since they chose him to be their leader.
We can look around the gift shop and see a bunch of monster merchandise. There’s this monster model that growls in both English and German — the English growls are “quite well” and the German growls are “effecient.” Ha ha, I see what you did there. Some of the souvenirs will be pertinent clues, and some of them we can buy with our spare cash. Maybe we can buy Ned’s love back with a corny German T-shirt. Guys like that, right?
In one of the gift shop books — The Art of Glass — we find this coded message. Mysterious! We’ll have to figure out what these symbols mean.
Outside of the gift shop is the main entryway — the foyer? Drawing room? I don’t live in a castle, I don’t know this shit — which is where we’ll find Lukas, the kid who was harassing us with puzzles when we first showed up. He immediately wants to rope us into another puzzle, but Nancy says we don’t have time for that. “Does no one have time for fun in this fast-paced world?” he sighs, all wearily. “That’s from that one commercial,” he adds. Heh.
We can ask Lukas the basic questions about the monster and the suspects that we’ve met so far. He thinks the monster is a “forest yeti”, a creature that doesn’t want to eat humans but has to, and eventually his hunger gets so bad that he eats a bunch of people and then starts crying out of guilt, which would be the howling sounds everyone is hearing. Okay, well, that’s a unique take on it. Lukas says he saw “something” down in the passageways of the castle, but he’s not sure if it was the monster. He’s not particularly creeped out by the idea of the monster: his dad (the head of security, you’ll recall) says that all castles have bloody histories, because they’re built by greedy men. That’s deep, for a Nancy Drew game.
Lukas has lived here pretty much his entire life, so he’s bored with all the tourists and events here. Instead, he spends his time exploring the castle. He knows all the secret passages around here! Nancy’s like, “Did you just say secret passages?” and Lukas is like, “Uh…no? Secret passages, what secret passages?”, probably because there’s a terrifying gleam of madness in Nancy’s eye right now.
As for the suspects we’ve met so far: Lukas really likes Anja, saying that she’s fun and also good to talk to if you have a problem. Ooh, like boy problems? ‘Cause Nancy’s having some of those, and sadly Bess and George are not phone friends in this game. Rejected in favor of the Hardy Boys! What a sad fate. Lukas also tells us that Anja is always fighting with Karl. Lukas corroborates Anja’s impression of Karl as a bumbling fuckup; he says he likes to prank Karl because it’s so damn easy. “Karl can’t catch me…Karl couldn’t catch a cold that was looking for him. He couldn’t catch a ball if it was glued to his hand. He couldn’t catch an acorn if he was there ground. I can continue if you like.” I’m amused, so I say, “Okay, go ahead.” Lukas: “He couldn’t catch a…a thing if he was a different thing…I really didn’t expect you to say yes.” Hee.
Oh, look, there’s a conversation option to just straight up accuse Lukas of being the monster. Maybe we can go home early! Haha, of course not. Lukas is like, “I want my lawyer! I also heard that from the TV.” Okay, actual investigating it is.
We wander around a bit more, then get a call on our cell from Markus. As before, our cell reception is crap, so we have to go call him on our landline. He tells us that he’s on his way to join us at Castle Finster; he should be there in about four hours. Like most of the “haunted house” games, this game also takes place over the course of one night, and naturally Markus won’t get here until it’s solved. In four hours? Damn, Nancy is a super sleuth. Markus confuses Nancy with all of his fancy business talk, and he occasionally gets distracted and goes off into rambles about his yacht and his four houses. “Three in Berlin, and one…somewhere — I told my realtor to surprise me. Really should track it down some day. Oh, and I own a castle, but you know that.” Oh, God. I bet Markus is a thirtysomething guy who wears jeans with a button-down and dress shoes, and walks really slowly around the financial district while I’m trying to get back to the office. This is the city, man! Don’t take up the entire sidewalk if you’re gonna walk slower than molasses in January! Sorry, I got distracted.
We can ask him about our suspects next. He notes that he’s surprised that Anja works at the castle, because — get this — she and Markus used to date. Wow, she did not tell us that. Markus says he’s not surprised, as he was the one to dump her, and she did not take it well. Like, really did not take it well — but, hey, Anja’s good at her job, and that’s what’s important. Fair enough. As for Karl, he’s “adequate.” Heh. Poor Karl.
Let’s talk to him about the castle. Why does he make everyone dress like they’re in the Sound of Music? Markus snips that he is trying to provide an experience here, Nancy, and maybe we would know more about these things if we had four houses, like him. Nancy wonders out loud if part of that experience might include, say, monster attacks? We’re not saying Markus is behind them, just pointing out that it’s not out of the realm of possibly. Markus gets all offended: “It is SO far out of the Realm of Possibility that it has crossed the Sea of YOU ARE WRONG and landed in the Realm of LUDICROUS ACCUSATIONS. But, I do admire your thoroughness. Good hustle.” HEE!
That’s it for Markus, so we hang up and move to leave our room…
And Karl bursts in, giving us a full view of his old man knees. Oh, man, Karl, put those away. He gasps out that the monster’s been sighted again, and we need to follow him out to the courtyard.
Luckily, we cut to the courtyard, because I probably would’ve gotten lost trying to find my way out myself. The monster’s gotten past the gates, which has never happened before, and wreaked havoc on the castle — by which I mean it has apparently started a small trash can fire. The horror! Karl wails that the monster’s too close and we ought to leave. Don’t tell me what to do, Karl! I don’t take orders from dudes in lederhosen! Karl snaps that fine, we can do what we want, but he’s going to tell Markus that whatever happens to us isn’t his responsibility. Hey, fuck you, Karl!
We have to run to get some water from a well in the courtyard, and put the fire out with that. Nancy will notice that there’s a strange object stuck in one of the doors; it appears to be a “peculiar-looking” burr. Nancy wonders if IDing the burr will help us find the monster.
We try going around and knocking on doors, but all the castle residents are terrified and won’t come out. On the upper level of the courtyard, though, we find these shears. Nancy says they might come in handy, and we pocket them. Why the hell not.
We also find this piece of paper about musical notes, which we will need later.
Back in the castle, we head to the dining room — and stop to pick up a piece of stained glass from one of the windows — and meet our final suspect.
Say hi to Renate, a creepy, cranky old woman who makes her living roaming around the German countryside, telling scary stories to whoever will let her in their house. Wait, that’s a job? Can you major in that? Okay, whatever. She creeps at us that we have much in common, us and her, yes we do, yessss precious. Like for example, we’re both in this castle, even though Nancy shouldn’t be, but if we’re here to stay then we’re already stuck so we shouldn’t even bother trying to leave, even though staying will ONLY LEAD TO TRAGEDY. She knows the monster stories are real, except she doesn’t know, except we should pretend they are, just in case. Renate, you are sending me a lot of mixed signals here. Nancy tries to suss the meaning out of her cryptic statements — does she believe in the monster or not? — but Renate’s like, “I’m old and I can say whatever the fuck I want without anyone questioning me.”
Well, maybe if we ask some questions that aren’t about a mythical monster, she’ll be more straightforward. How well does she know Karl? Well enough to start shit-talking him to us, apparently! “The way he locks himself up in the castle. He never leaves. He’s hiding from the world. Why do you think he’s doing that?” Okay, I’m feeling personally attacked by Renate right now 🙁
Renate thinks that Anja should be the one running the castle; she’s much more competent than Karl. Anja also knows the history of the castle, which Renate thinks is important. Not that she’s going to tell us said history; it’s too dark and miserable for us. “But I will say this: in the event of disaster, I’d rather have Anja in charge than Karl.” I mean, me too, if only because Anja’s less likely to be playing with dolls at the time. Renate refuses to say anything more about the castle and its history, noting that a good storyteller knows to leave the big reveal for the end. How meta.
On a more upbeat note, Renate loves cake. Same, Renate! She tells us that she particularly loves Black Forest cake, except it makes her sleepy. Earlier, when we talked with Lukas, he mentions that she passes out after having some cake. So that sounds like something we’ll be doing later.
All Renate is willing to say about the monster is a story that a friend told her: a long time ago, a little girl’s scarf (red with an elephant pattern; keep that in mind) was blown into the woods, and she went in after it. The girl’s older sister followed her to try to bring her back — “but it was too late. She couldn’t catch up. Two girls went out into the woods. One came back.” Spooky! Renate ominouses that it doesn’t matter what the monster is; it’s real, and it’s out there. O…kay, but who is this friend? Is she Renate’s age? How did she end up at the castle? Pics or it didn’t happen! Renate’s like, “Quit poking holes in my story!”
Well, that was creepy. Let’s take note of Renate’s bag lying next to her chair, and now let’s go do something slightly less terrifying.
We can pick up this copy of the “Castle Cryer”, and note the German vocabulary for stars and planes. There’s also an article about the monster attacks, which makes reference to an “accident” that seems to have happened some time ago. HMM.
We get another call from Markus, telling us to call him on the landline. When we go up to our room, though, we promptly get pelted with water from a bucket over the door. Dammit, Lukas! Luckily, though, there just happens to be a dress laid out for us on the bed. We can match with Anja! We’ll be twins!
We actually can’t talk very much to Markus. Bro, why did you want us to call you, then? We can just ask him about Renate, and find out that he doesn’t know who she is, although she seems to be quite familiar with the castle. We tell him she’s a storyteller, and he says, “I’ll add that to the list of things you seem to think I need to know.” Rude! I’m gonna go talk shit about you with Anja, Markus.
This has gone on for about a thousand words longer than usual, but these new games are actually quite long, so this feels about the right place to stop. Up next: Nancy’s new wardrobe freaks everyone out. Is it because of the monster, or is it just because she looks like an Oktoberfest reject? Also, we make up with Ned. Somewhere, Frank Hardy is seething.
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