Previously on Nancy Drew: The Creature of Kapu Cave: Nancy Drew is doing unpaid labor again, this time in Hawaii as an assistant to a bug scientist named Dr. Quigley Kim. We also met three of our suspects, who all have invisible ponytails. And coincidence of coincidences, the Hardy Boys are here! For once, they actually have a mystery of their own, which I’m sure will in no way overlap with Nancy’s.
I mentioned in the last post that calling the Hardy Boys or Nancy will switch you to their POV, or the game will do it automatically. When we last left our heroes, Joe was getting whacked over the head and knocked out. The game then cuts to Nancy, listening to the message he left on her phone: “Green Trigger Rock” is actually Three Finger Rock, and that’s where our boss, Dr. Kim, is hanging out. “Gosh, I’m good,” Joe sighs. Heh. You sure, Joe? You can’t even read a map without getting knocked out.
I’ve also mentioned that the navigation in this game is not very good. The trip up to see Quigley Kim is a prime example of this. First you have to watch the repetitive GPS animation, and then it’s at least five screens before you get to her (the screens are only used once, for a puzzle where you have to look at all the plants). You’re killing me, game. As we walk (sloooowly) through the (ridiculously long) path, Nancy will note some weird whispering noises. ~*~*~Spooky~*~*~
Anyway, let’s meet our boss, shall we?
I don’t think she has a ponytail, but it’s hard to tell.
Say hi to Dr. Quigley Kim! She kind of gets the shaft, character-wise, being introduced like a third of the way through the game. She has the most incredibly nasal voice (apparently voiced by Leslie Wadsworth, whose only credit is this game? Her website looks like she mostly does commercials), which I actually really enjoy. I think it’s supposed to be annoying in a funny way, but I legitimately like it! Anyway, she tells us to call her Quigley, and goes on a rant about how Dr. Kim is her dad, and he’s a snake scientist, and when she was little he fed all her bugs to his snakes. Aw! Anyway, she asks us where her clipboard is. What clipboard? “I told you to get my clipboard! You’re off to a pretty shaky start here, Nancy.” Well, maybe don’t put “No experience required” on your ad if you don’t want a complete fuckup, Quigley. So we can’t progress any farther with her until we go all the way back to camp, get the clipboard, and bring it all the way back.
It looks like a page from this clipboard is missing, but that’s no big deal, right?
“Nancy, I asked you to get my clipboard! How could you screw up something as simple as that?” I mean, you’re the one who agreed to take on an assistant with no experience and for no pay, Quigley. Lower your standards! Nancy is sassy and snaps that it wasn’t her fault that somebody trashed Quigley’s camp. Quigley’s like, “Oh, well, now you’ll just have to do my experiment all over again for me!” Sigh. I can’t believe Nancy didn’t learn her lesson from the last game: being an unpaid intern sucks balls.
So Quigley’s experiment involves collecting all the frass (read: bug poop) from the traps hanging on the plants around the path, then IDing the plants and sorting the frass. It’s going to be mega boring. So boring that I think I’d rather be a Hardy Boy for a while, and that’s not something I say lightly.
So Nancy actually has no way of knowing which plants are which, and thus we call Frank Hardy for help. He tells Nancy that Joe’s getting treated for a concussion, and he doesn’t know did it. Yet! The Hardy Boys always get to the bottom of things! Much more slowly than Nancy, and usually they have to call their dad for help, but THEY’RE COMING FOR YOU.
Let’s go see Big Island Mike, shall we? And what’s that on the floor next to him?
It’s a clue! Let’s ask Big Island Mike about it. He denies knowledge of both the pawn ticket and Joe’s attack. As far as the latter goes, he says it was probably just someone who wandered in off the beach, looking for money. But nothing’s been taken, so no big deal, right? Frank’s like, “Uh, my brother and his concussion think it’s a pretty big deal.” (I should add that Joe’s pretty much out of the game after this point.) Mike says if we want to play detective “like on TV,” we can go right ahead. Thanks, Big Island Mike! I mean, we were going to anyway, because Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys don’t know what boundaries are, but we appreciate your blessing!
There’s a kiosk-type thing in Big Island Mike’s office, which has all the information we need about Hawaiian plants. It costs one of those dumb Big Island Bucks to use, and weirdly it costs one buck to look at each section. So you’d need like 10 Big Island Bucks to look through the entire kiosk? Just go to the library, Frank. But luckily, we just need to read the one section about the plants. That done, let’s call the pawn shop guy.
Note the little “ATAC” (“American Teens Against Crime”) at the top of their screen. The Hardys are such dorks.
The pawn shop dude is weirdly forthcoming with information, considering he has no idea who Frank is. He tells us that he bought the stuff off a “Johnny Kuto”, who turned out to have stolen it. What would a thief be doing in Big Island Mike’s office? The pawn guy suggests that Johnny Kuto is connected to someone at the Immersion Excursion. Well, there’s only two people here, so that shouldn’t be too difficult to narrow down. He gives us Johnny Kuto’s number, too, but warns that he doesn’t pick up.
But first, let’s call our boss, Richard Aikens. We don’t have much to tell him, actually — we tell him that Joe getting knocked out in Mike’s office might point to some unsavory connections the Mapus have, but we don’t know yet. Richard Aikens is like, “Okay, call me back when you actually have something.”
Next, we call Johnny Kuto. He doesn’t answer, naturally, but Frank leaves a message all, “You don’t know me, but you know my brother. He’s the one you slugged at Big Island Mike’s, so if you know what’s good for you, you’ll call me.” I guess that’s what passes for badass in the Hardys’ world. (Although, sidebar — I do kinda like playing as the Hardys, because they get to deal with situations differently than Nancy. Nancy could never call up a guy and try to threaten him, so you spend a lot of her conversations trying to pick the best option to trick your suspects into doing what you want while keeping up your friendly neighborhood detective ruse; whereas the Hardys have a lot more “tough” talk, and you have to figure out the best way to sound convincingly threatening without the suspects realizing you’re just a puka-shell-wearing nerd.)
Finally, we can call Nancy to tell her about the plants. The game switches back to her POV, and we’re back to her extremely important mission of sorting bug poop.
Since we’re already on the phone, let’s call that number we found in Quigley’s trunk. It turns out to be a “Life Works Bio Chem”, and they’re all twitterpated that Quigley’s finally calling them. Nancy pretends to be Quigley, but they quickly cotton on that it’s not her, seeing as Nancy doesn’t sound like her nasal passages are permanently blocked. They hang up on her. (They also hang up if you immediately tell them you’re not Quigley, so it’s a lose-lose.) And that’s all for that phone number.
So we go around collecting the frass and IDing the plants they’re connected to. Two of the traps are over at “Kapu Cave,” so we have to go there. Woo! I bet, being the title of this game, that cave will be important!
~*~*~Spooky~*~*~
After collecting the frass (which is along the mouth and path up to the cave), we can wander inside and check it out. It’s all ominous and forbidden, and Nancy will note the carvings and various symbols on the rock. In particular, the main face has a bunch of animals on his teeth. What’s up with that?
We’ll figure it out later. In the meantime, we go back to finish up with the frass. Except our microscope is broken! Of course it is. Okay, let’s go see Dr. Craven again.
The security guy doesn’t want to let us in, but Nancy’s like, “Excuse you, don’t you know who I AM?” Nancy Drew is the most important person you’re ever going to meet on this island, security guy! Anyway, Dr. Craven lets us in and tells us that he likes our company, as we remind him of his niece. See above, re: Nancy tricking people into helping her by making friends with them through pretending not to be as sneaky as she is. Dr. Craven’s willing to give us a new microscope lens, but we have to do some work for him first. Of course we do.
We’re tasked with dispensing the correct amount of fertilizer to each plant in order to get them all to bloom. Each fertilizer affects the plant differently, so you have to spread them in the correct combinations to get all the plants to the same level. Once we’re done, Dr. Craven gives us his lens. On our way out, we hear him yell at (and fire) one of his employees. We’ll be using that to our advantage later.
We go back and analyze the frass, blah blah filling out Quigley’s chart blah. When we’re done, she freaks out: she’s stumbled up on “the biggest bloom of Norsobeta larva ever recorded!” She explains that a certain type of bug are reproducing at an unheard of rate, the discovery of which will bring us all the fame and fortune an academic could ever want. So like, a book and tenure? (I used to want to go into academia, but I got so burned out on giving presentations, you don’t even know.) Anyway, now we have to figure out why the bugs are multiplying. Is Quigley going to do that herself? Ha! Of course not! No, it is up to Nancy to analyze the frass and figure out what the bugs have been eating. In fact, Quigley suspects that their bizarro behavior might be caused by whatever the Hilihili’s doing, so she wants us to get a sample of whatever they’re growing.
…sure, Quigley. Why don’t we just break in to a secret research facility and steal one of their projects? Man, academia is competitive.
But! Before we do that! If you back up and click on her again, there will be some more conversation options for Quigley. They won’t show up after you make off with the Hilihili sample, as all she’ll want to talk about then is testing it. I don’t know if you can ask her later on after that or not, but let’s just do it now. We ask if she believes in Kane Okala, which of course she doesn’t, being a lady of science and all that. More importantly: what was she doing with that Hilihili pass? “Uh…I found it.” OR DID YOU, QUIGLEY? She maintains that she found it and never did anything untoward at all. She does say her and Dr. Craven’s paths have crossed (he told us they never met), but she thinks he’s a douche. We mention that Dr. Craven thinks the pass was stolen, and she snaps that he probably just didn’t want to admit to losing it. Alrighty then, although I’ll point out that she suggests doing whatever it takes to get the project sample, “even if it means sneaking in.” The idea’s definitely occurred to her.
Of course, Nancy can just waltz into the Hilihili whenever she wants. Dr. Craven will greet us, but once we back up, Nancy will mention that he’s taken his allergy meds and they’ve knocked him right out. “Perrr-fect,” Nancy says, a little creepily. I feel like we’re up to something more sinister than just stealing plants. Anyway, now that he’s passed out, we can also see what that paper is in his coat pocket.
Oh, snap, Dr. Craven has the torn-off page from Quigley’s clipboard! He was the one who trashed her camp! Wow, and he was making us exchange our labor for batteries and microscope lenses that he broke. Quigley’s right; he’s kind of a douche.
We don’t do much with this information, so let’s move on. You’ll recall that Dr. Craven recently fired some guy, so all his employee information is still in the system. We look through Dr. Craven’s PDA (we have to mute it before the sound wakes him up) to find his locker number and combo, and from there we can borrow his uniform to disguise ourselves, and use the security code to poke around the Hilihili computers.
We find a very interesting shipping note, to none other than Richard Aikens. Golly, do you think Nancy’s mystery and the Hardys’ mystery are somehow related? Nancy notes the plant’s number, and just in time, as the system shuts down and an alert comes on that someone’s using the fired guy’s ID. So now we have to steal the plant sample while also staying out of sight.
COME ON, how can they even tell one guy in a yellow suit from another?
So we yank some leaves off the plant and book it out of there. And then we go right back because like Quigley, there are conversation options for Dr. Craven that disappear once you move on with the bug poop plot. We confront him about trashing Quigley’s camp, and he says that he found out someone hired her to spy on him. His employer (Richard Aikens) “got wind” of it, and Dr. Craven went to go confront Quigley. She wasn’t at her camp, and he flipped out and started breaking shit. He ripped off the page because he was sure that she had written something about him on there, and he’s certain she stole the pass to sneak into the facility. HMMM. You will recall that Quigley did have a whole page in her notebook dedicated to Dr. Craven. But maybe she just has a thing for him. Anyway, he cottons on that we must have found the torn page in his jacket, and Nancy’s like, “I have really good eyes! Bye, Dr. Craven!” and we book it out of there, for real this time. And that’s pretty much the end of the Quigley/Dr. Craven subplot.
Back at camp, we test the Hilihili sample against the bug poop, and…they don’t match. Which means they aren’t eating the Hilihili plant, and we just broke in there and snuck around for nothing. Oh, dear.
Up next: We finally, finally are done with bug poop. Frank, shamefully, solves the mystery. But Nancy saves him from a fiery death, so I like to think she’s still the more competent one here.
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