Nancy Drew: Treasure in the Royal Tower
$19.95		(Win95/98/Me/XP) (Retail Box) (NANCYD4PR)

Publisher: Dreamcatcher

Ages 10 and Up

Ratings:

B from Just Adventure

4.2 from Children's Software Revue

Step into History as Nancy Drew on a Hunt for Royal Treasure!

A fierce blizzard cuts a ski vacation short and traps you, as Nancy Drew, in a castle wrapped in mystery. The castle's tower once imprisoned Marie Antoinette, and her treasure is rumored to be somewhere on the grounds. The castle is a riddle, full of dead-ends and detours that hint at this royal legend. Pick up the thread of a long-forgotten secret in this intriguing 3D interactive mystery. Solve baffling puzzles, search concealed rooms, interview evasive suspects, and sidestep snowy danger on the hunt for a secret that someone else is desperate to discover first, for Nancy's not the only one looking for riches. In this peculiar place full of secrets and intrigue, mishaps spell danger, and more than one suspect wants to freeze Nancy's investigation in its tracks ...

Features and Activities:

• Two Spy IQ levels of difficulty
• 20+ hours of game play
• Lively, animated 3D characters, each with a secret to protect
• `Second Chance' option - without starting over
• Rich, interactive, 360-degree, 3D environments
• Huge, realistic castle riddled with secret halls and passageways
• Built-in game hints (but only if you want them)
• Great opportunities for collaborative sleuthing with family and friends

You'll Need All Your Wits to Solve this Mystery:

Wander through an immense mansion to find the secrets of its past. This grand ski resort is rich in history and places to explore

Scrutinize rooms, decipher codes and poke into furnishings on the hunt for vital clues. The trail may be old, but it's not yet cold.

Don't let suspects snow you with misleading clues. You'll need keen reasoning and intuition to detect who speaks the truth.

Frosty danger lurks outside as well as in. Be careful who you cross, or you may be left out in the cold in your search for evidence.

In this mysterious castle, nothing is as it seems. Creepy corridors that lead to nowhere could hold secrets of their own

Requirements:

Windows 95/98/Me/XP: 166 MHz Pentium Processor (200 MHz recommended), 16 MB RAM, 16 bit DirectX compatible color graphics video card, 16 bit DirectX compatible sound card, 8x CD-ROM drive, mouse and speakers.

Reviews:

Quandary Review by Steve Ramsey

"Nor have I or they played a Nancy Drew game, although we have played The Legend of Lotus Spring from Women Wise, another game specifically designed to appeal to female players. It was an excellent daddy/daughter experience, so we were more than keen to set off with Nancy.

"In the end, only one daughter set off. The game promotes itself as being for 10 years and above. Clare, who is 8, lost interest in playing along pretty quickly. She poked around for a while on her own, but is secretly more interested in the next installment of Freddi Fish.

"Emily though, who is 12, stayed with it right to the end. In fact, she was the main player. I played it with her much of the time, but she was always in control of what to do next, and there were many occasions on which she played by herself and kept me filled in on what happened. If her enthusiasm to keep playing is any indication, she clearly enjoyed it enormously."

"The ski lodge itself is quite splendid, and beautifully detailed. Sweeping staircases, glorious artwork, and secret towers, turrets and dungeons to winkle your way into and then explore. Historical fact is woven through the storyline, and the plot hangs together quite well. The mystery unravels in a nice measured way, and in the grand tradition of all things mysterious, everyone is suspect at some stage. Also traditionally, any gaps in what happened and why are filled in by a talkative baddy just before the climax."

"As a game for my daughter, it was excellent. Once she got into the hang of how to approach the game (this was one of her first adventure games), she managed pretty well on her own with only a gentle push here and there. She played on Junior, and whilst the aim of some puzzles needed explaining (ie what to do) she ultimately solved all of them herself. I think too that a bit more familiarity with these types of games would have required less explaining — the mechanics of some of the puzzles will be familiar to many game players."

Just Adventure by Ray Ivey

"Poor Nancy. She has more trouble having a normal vacation than Die Hard's John McClane. This time around, she heads off for a Wisconsin ski vacation and gets promptly sealed into the ski resort by a vicious blizzard. What's more, the onset of the blizzard was so sudden that very few of the guests and staff made it to the inn. Eek! The result is that our intrepid teen investigator gets snowbound in a ski resort with just two staff members and two guests."

"I'm impressed with the steady improvement in several areas. Treasure in the Royal Tower has the best voice work of the four games. It's still not great, but it's definitely moving in the right direction. Also, this time around it's nice that you get to see all of the characters in more than one location, rather than the "bolted to one spot" feeling the characters had when series began."

"The storyline is greatly enhanced by its historical elements. Marie "Let Them Eat Cake" Antoinette has always been a controversial figure, and it's good fun to have a character in the game who's bent on proving a wildly revisionist picture of the doomed queen. Any good mystery is enhanced by the promise of a new look at an accepted historical chestnut..."

"I enjoyed myself while spending time with my old pal Nancy in Treasure in the Royal Tower, and I look forward to her next adventure, Nancy Drew: The Final Scene."

Children's Software & New Media Revue, September/October 2001

"Our favorite detective, Nancy Drew, is vacationing at the famous Wickford Castle. It's not long before Nancy discovers a secret, blocked tower, a vandalized library, and, to make things interesting, a handsome French ski instructor. These all lead to an elusive pendant and a mysterious journal that may have significance regarding the castle owner or even the historic murder charge of Marie Antoinette. The game play is similar to others in the series. Kids explore the castle as Nancy, clicking their way through the castle rooms, hallways, an elevator and secret passages. They collect clues, talk to the guests and castle workers, and try to get themselves out of unusual predicaments. Testers struggled a lot with this program. Their biggest complaint is that the navigation arrows are hard to pinpoint. they wished they had a map to jump directly to locations, as the castle is large and confusing. In spite of its weaknesses, though, children felt that this adventure was more fun than the books."

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