Friday, July 31, 2009

Puzzle 21

Hey Hey!

Friday has finally arrived. We've been just moving right along through the summer. We've got some great stuff coming up soon, the end of the Hardy Boys contest, a new newsletter, more ND21 and RED information! You're going to love it.

But today, Mari has delivered yet another fabulous puzzle for us. Good luck.

--

A Tale of Two Ships
“Stop immediately and keep clear!”
“What’s wrong? Do you need medical assistance?”
“We’re fine. We just have a man overboard. I’m going to need you to move astern so we can get to him.”
“Oh! I see him! You need to alter your course to starboard if you want to pick him up.”
“We got him! Thanks for your help.”

--

Work hard, but also kick back a little too! Weekend, here I come!

- Novel -

Thursday, July 30, 2009

Other Contests

Hey everybody!

I have a really cool thing to tell you guys about today! I know we often do some pretty awesome contests on our own, but here's one that Girls Life is having:

"Nancy Drew® is island bound in her latest PC adventure, Ransom of the Seven Ships. And you can be, too! We’re giving you a chance to uncover your own tropical treasure at the Wyndham Sugar Bay Resort & Spa in St. Thomas."

CLICK HERE (http://www.girlslife.com/herinteractive) to check it out.

What a cool prize! Good luck to all of you who decide to enter!
Novel will be on tomorrow with Mari’s weekend puzzle, which I’m sure will be challenging as usual. Get out there and enjoy the sun!

ツ Summer Sleuth ( with assistance from -Novel- )

Puzzle 20 Answers

Hi all,

Summer is out for the day, but she left me a post to pass along, so I'll be doing two posts today. I'm sorry I couldn't make it on yesterday to relay my congratulations for solving the puzzle. Still, I figure today is as good as any. You all did a wonderful job! Here's the way to tackle the puzzle.

--

Each title represents a specific character from the game.

Diva [ {M} A T T I E _ {J} E N S E N ]
Representative [ S I M {O} N E _ M U E L L E {R} ]
Son [ D {E} X T E R _ E G A {N} ]
Informant [ L O {U} {L} O U ]
Heartthrob [ D A V E _{G} R E G {O} R Y ]

Afterwords you'll need to gather all the letters in brackets -
[ m, j, o, r, e, n, u, l, g, o ]

At which point you can unscramble them to solve the puzzle.

Answer: [ Jungle Room ]


--

Now I think by now we can all guess where this is going to come into play. If you haven't noticed, we're starting to ramp up to several releases and we've seem a thematically similar title in another puzzle. So for my two-cents; Resorting to Danger is going to have some rockin' environments!

Well, that's all for now. I'll be putting Summer's post up later on. (You know, to build a little anticipation. :P ) Peace!

- Novel (at sun) -

Wednesday, July 29, 2009


From what I hear, today is officially the hottest day in all of recorded Seattle weather history! So, I thought for the picture I would show you guys everyone’s current favorite office appliance:


I hear whenever a delivery person or visitor stops walks up to our receptionist desk, they generally stop and stand in front of the fan for at least a few seconds before continuing on with their business.

It’s currently 102 degrees! And will probably continue to get hotter for the next hour or so. Now maybe that’s not exceptionally hot for other places like Texas or the Sahara Desert, but in Seattle, we’re not used to it!

Luckily, it’s supposed to cool down come morrow, thank goodness! Congradulations on solving the weekend puzzle, sorry for the confusion from my blog post. I didn't see that you guys had solved it when I posted yesterday. Novel will be on sometime soon (probably tomorrow) to officially announce the anwser.

Summer Sleuth

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Heat Wave

Hellllooo!
I hope everyone is having a wonderful day. It’s in the 90’s here in Washington, so the whole office is eating fudgesicles and drinking lots of water to try and stay cool. The big windows in our building cause a lot of the offices to heat up and the air conditioning seems to freeze some rooms and not work in others so we’re all doing what we can to stay the proper temperature. It’s hotter here than Hawaii or Florida! But I, for one, much prefer this weather to the grey skies we have most of the year.


Today I worked on the next newsletter we’ll be putting out. I’ve been getting so many responses for the Hardy Boys one, I’m really glad you guys liked the puzzle and I’m excited to pick/announce the winners!

Keep working on the weekend puzzle. You guys are all such enthusiastic and committed riddle solvers, it’s really impressive! I’m positive all those problem solving skills will come in handy for the rest of your lives.

Wish me and Novel luck with the heat! I’m totally going swimming after work :)



Summer Sleuth










PS More stuff has been added to the RAN microsite! http://www.ransomofthesevenships.com/

20th Puzzle Hint

Hello! Sorry for the lack of post yesterday, I was out of the office and it would seem my lovely co-workers were just a bit too busy to catch me up. Anywho, I know that you all have been working very hard on this puzzle, so Mari stopped by to give me a little tip.

--

I think that I may have left out a vital piece of information, I counted the spaces between first and last names. So be sure to factor that in. :)

--

Hmmm... that's pretty helpful. I'd say keep working, cause you're almost there.

Also, Summer should be on later to give us the report on her day, so stay tuned! Later gator!

- Novel -

Friday, July 24, 2009

Twentieth Puzzle Extravaganza!

Well it may not be a tremendous blow-out, but Mari has given me quite the puzzle for today. You're definitely going to need those thinking caps. Here goes.

--

Diva {_} _ _ _ _ _ _ {_} _ _ _ _ _
Representative _ _ _ {_} _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ {_}
Son _ {_} _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ {_}
Informant _ _ {_} {_} _ _
Heartthrob _ _ _ _ _{_} _ _ _ {_} _ _

--

Good luck to everyone.

By the way, I hope you enjoyed yesterday's survey of the office. I think Summer is going to try to bring you some more inside scoops next week, she's been quite the reporter! Everyone have an awesome weekend.

- Novel -

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Hey!

The main purpose of this blog is to give you, the avid fans, some insight into life at Her Interactive. A lot of what Novel and I talk about is what is going on around here, but rarely do we mention the people doing it. Well today, as I was looking over all the surveys on the message boards created by people waiting for RAN, inspiration struck. I made up a small survey of my own with some generic questions and sent it around the office. Here's the results!

1. What is your favorite Nancy Drew game?
32% of the office said Legend of the Crystal Skull! In second place was The Haunting of Castle Malloy with 24% and third place was a tie between Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake and Curse of Blackmoor Manor with 20%.


2. What is your favorite game (other than Nancy Drew)?
I got a lot of responses to this question because there are so many amazing games to choose from, but the few that got several (three or more) votes were: Tetris, Mario Kart, The Curse of Monkey Island, and Mine Sweeper

3. What is your ideal type of cookie?
Again, I got an overwhelming variety of answers but the frontrunner was chocolate chip (surprise, surprise) with 40% of the office’s unquestioning affection. Next came oatmeal chocolate chip with 20% (and my personal vote). Lastly the third place spot went to peanut butter with 18% of the votes.


4. If you could go to any continent which would it be?
Europe – 32%
Australia – 20%
Asia – 18%
Antarctica – 12%
Africa – 8%
N. America (They’d stay here) – 6%
S. America – 4%


5. What music genre do you prefer?
Most popular? Alternative rock with an outstanding 31% of votes. Second place goes to singer/songwriter with 28% and Punk came in third with 25%. These may seem like pretty generic answers but I got all sorts of responses from trip-hop to acid jazz to techno to goth!


I hope you guys enjoyed that and recognized how many different opinions and preferences we have here at HI. Tomorrow Novel will be on with the Weekend Puzzle so I’ll talk to you guys Tuesday.

Drink water and be safe.

Summer Sleuth

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Hi all!

Today I came across something quite peculiar in the office and thought I'd share it with you guys:



Crazy right? Some people like to decorate their office with pictures of their family or collectible items and others like to put giant chicken heads on display for all to see. And kind of scary looking ones at that! It’s great working at a job where I'm always expecting the unexpected.

Summer Sleuth

Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Favorite Characters

Hello blog readers!

I hope everyone had a great weekend, and had fun solving the weekend puzzle (which I got to participate in!). Today I’ve spent the whole day uploading trailers from all of our games onto various video sharing websites in order to make them as accessible as possible. But, watching all those trailers over and over again, it got me thinking about games that I haven’t played in years! There’s so many great characters and personalities that the writers at HI have thought of! And since a lot of you guys recently participated in the Nancy Drew cameo contest, I thought I’d share a few of my favorite characters from Nancy Drew past with you guys:

Professor Hotchkiss – She is so funny and exuberant and high-spirited, it’s hard not to love her. She’s completely herself and not afraid to be exactly who she wants to be.

Tex Britten – Maybe it’s because I’ve secretly always wanted to live on a ranch or because I, too, am an animal enthusiast, but I love how Tex is basically more comfortable with his farm animals than with people.

JJ Ling – JJ is incredibly comfortable with herself which, in a world where not everyone looks like what you’d imagine as a model, is refreshing. Plus I love her accent and how she’s always making up stories!

Any who, I also want to hear about your favorite characters! But if you post it on the message board, make sure it stays Nancy Drew related!

Summer Sleuth

Monday, July 20, 2009

An answer for Nineteen.

Hey all,

I hope everyone had a grand weekend. It was pretty lax around here. We managed to get so many things up and running last week that we just had to kick back over the weekend. But on to business.

RAN is out there, right on the shelf for the taking! Plus, for those of you who may have missed the post, we had a newsletter go out on Friday. If you'd like to give it a gander, you can check it out here: http://www.herinteractive.com/newsletter-view.php?id=0907_newsletter.html
Plus it comes with a most excellent contest!

Which brings us to the normal Monday fair, puzzle answers! Okay so it only took you all like five minutes to solve this one. I think we're gonna have to make Mari work a bit harder this week, eh? I like this puzzle a lot though, I'm a visual puzzler myself. Any who, here's how you get to point B.

--

In order to solve this puzzle you'll need [ two images. ] The first is the puzzle post (found below,) the second is [ Wednesday July 15th's picture post. ]

While they may not be exactly equal in dimension, you can use a bit of imagination to [ overlay the images on one another, revealing several letters and covering all the extemporaneous ones. ]

So you've got a string of letters. You'll have to do a little unscrambling to reveal: [ Tintinnabulum ]


--

Now I'm no linguist, so I'm certainly not familiar with that answer, but I bet a determined young sleuth armed with a mere dictionary could come up with some great explanations. (you just might want to shy away from wikipedia ~.< ) Anywho, as always, I'm sure there will be a big reveal soon enough! Though I think some of you have come up with some very interesting solutions. I'm out for now, Summer'll be back tomorrow. Hasta luego!

- Novel (sans pic)-

Friday, July 17, 2009

Weekend Puzzle 19

Well we've no doubt had a productive week. I hope everyone has enjoyed all the awesome content we've been able to produce. With the RAN release going great, and the RED release steadily approaching, you can bet we'll be keeping you on your toes. But for now, a little weekend relaxation from our favorite puzzle-meister Mari.

--

(click on the image to enlarge)



--

Alright, good luck to everyone and have a grand weekend. We'll see ya Monday!

- Novel -
Hey everyone, happy Friday!

The weekend puzzle will be up in a little bit but I wanted to mention a couple cool things that are happening here at Her Interactive. First off, we're releasing a newsletter today all about The Hardy Boys in order to get you guys extra excited for the September release of the DS game!

Secondly, I know you guys have all been enjoying Ransom of the Seven Ships which is why I'm happy to let you know that we've put up a separate microsite entirely dedicated to the game! Check it out at http://www.ransomofthesevenships.com/ and be sure to look back often because we'll be adding tons more stuff over the next couple weeks! Enjoy!!

Summer Sleuth

Thursday, July 16, 2009

A Historic Day

Hello hello! I hope everyone is having a splendid day, I know I am. I realized that something really cool happened in history today and thought (me being the nerd I am) that you guys might find it interesting: today the very first parking meter was installed in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma in 1935!!

Okay, just kidding. That did happen and is kind of cool but pales in comparison to what I’m actually excited to tell you about. Exactly 40 years ago today Apollo 11, the first manned mission to the moon, launched from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida!

Ever since I was a little kid, I’ve been intrigued by space and the unexplored beyond. Not to mention it’d be really fun to live with no gravity, can you imagine trying to eat Jell-O or something?

Who knows? Maybe one day we’ll see Nancy in space.
Summer Sleuth

Wednesday, July 15, 2009


It has come time again for me to give you guys a little visual of life at Her Interactive. This week I thought I’d take a picture of something on my desk. I like to mindlessly doodle while I’m thinking about big ideas so what you’re looking at is a section of a giant doodle I’ve been working on since I started at HI. Just because I’m not much of an artist doesn’t mean I don’t try anyway!



I’ve only been working here for three weeks and already my desk is cluttered, I mean where did that note card even come from? I have no idea what I would have used it for…
Summer Sleuth

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Nancy Drew Twenty-Two (Rah, Rah, Rah!!)

Hi guys! I hope all of you had a wonderful weekend and I want to say congratulations to all the people who figured out the weekend puzzle. That one really had me stumped!

Anyway, today was a great day to be an intern. I'm about to start compiling feedback from you guys on all the older games so I got to play through all of Message in a Haunted Mansion which has always been a favorite Nancy Drew game of mine.

What you guys like and don’t like about the games has always been really important to everyone at Her Interactive, so gathering your feedback is always interesting. With so many different opinions, it can be quite the task, but we want to make sure that we continue to make games that our fans will enjoy!

The other big event of today was a brainstorm for the name of Nancy Drew 22!! Before you get your hopes up, I've been sworn to secrecy and can't reveal any information about the game itself, or any of the possible names we came up with. But I will say that as an avid Nancy fan, this game sounds really exciting and suspenseful which I know you'll all be glad to hear!

A few key members of HI gathered in the conference room and, after going over the plot we have laid out for the game, brainstormed for key words which we wrote on the board. We then tried different combinations of the words to come up with a name that portrays what we want it to. The lists of words and names were sent to everyone and over the next few days people will continue to submit ideas until we settle on just the right one!

In the mean time, I hope you're all enjoying RAN (don't you just love talking to CouCou?!) and looking forward to all the awesome releases we’ve got coming this summer

-Summer

Monday, July 13, 2009

Answering Eighteen

Hello hello,
Welcome back from the weekend. We've got a bit of news on this Monday for ya. For those of you who don't know, Ransom of the Seven Ships is officially releasing tomorrow! So if you've been holding out on heading to the stores, tomorrow's the day! Summer sleuth'll be back tomorrow to give you the skinny on what's happening in the office (busy busy.) But for now, let's kick back, relax, and solve a riddle...

From Friday, we had a fairly odd sort of puzzle. Mari may have stumped a few of you, but I did notice that someone had worked the whole concoction out. So, without further ado, here's how it's done:

--

So there isn't a whole to this puzzle, it mostly relies on a trick. To solve it, you'll need to follow these steps.
1. [ print out the image ]
2. [ cut out the image ]
3. [ wrap the image tightly around a pencil ]

That's all there is to it. If done correctly, you'll be able to read the message as such:
[ Keep your eye on Mr. Mingles ]

--

Hmmm... another warning? I wonder what Mari is up to... maybe we'll get a direct quote from her sometime this week on her cryptic clues. Till then, I'll see ya later on!

- Novel -

Friday, July 10, 2009

Weekend Puzzle #18


Friday finally comes around, and to wrap up this busy-busy week, we've got an awesome puzzle from Designer Mari. This one might be a bit tricky, but I'm sure all you sleuths will have no problem. Here we go.

--

(click to enlarge the image)



--

Okay, let's get rolling! Have a fun and safe weekend.

- Novel (nest)-

Thursday, July 9, 2009

Summer Vacations?

Hey Guys!

As I'm sure you know well, Ransom of the Seven Ships is now out and it got me thinking of how great a location the Bahamas are and how much I would love to go there for the summer! Nancy goes to all sorts of exotic places to solve mysteries but I want to hear where you guys are going!

Most people aren't in school and summer is the perfect time to take a family vacation. What plans do you have for the lovely summer months that lie in front of you? Anything exciting or exotic? Whether it's summer camp or a trip to Hawaii, I (and the rest of the people in this blogosphere) are curious to hear about it!

I'm looking forward to hearing from you guys!

-Summer Sleuth

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

But it's not Halloween yet...

Hey everyone! I’ve already mentioned how bizarre things can get around the offices of Her Interactive, but today was no exception. As I was meandering the building looking for something cool to take a picture of, inspiration walked right past me, literally! And it was in the form of several HI employees carrying costumes destined for an old west shoot-out.




I’ll leave it up to you guys to guess why anyone at HI would wear such ridiculous clothes and I’m sure the answer will eventually be revealed to you…in a future game perhaps?

-Summer Sleuth

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

A Hard-y Day

Hey everyone! Hope you all had a great weekend and Fourth of July!

Today, I got to finish playing the Hardy Boys DS game which was so much fun! I think all you Nancy Drew fans will love this game too, I know I did!

Then I did some research about the history of the Hardy Boys and learned all sorts of random facts. For example, did you know that there have been over two dozen writers of the books over the last 70 years? But all the books are published under the same pen name, Franklin W. Dixon, even though he was never a real person! I also learned that The Hardy Boys came before Nancy Drew! Only by about three years, but still, I always thought The Hardy Boys were inspired by our favorite sassy girl, not the other way around.

Everything at HI is pretty busy with all the upcoming releases. I hope you're all as excited as I am!

-Summer Sleuth

Monday, July 6, 2009

The 2nd Winning Entry!

Here is the second winner from our Cameo contest. The author's name is Kate and she wrote about a rather odd duck, but perhaps that's why we loved it so much. Check it out for yourself!

--

Eccentric, enthusiastic, and just a tad stubborn: these aren't just traits to describe myself. They also define our favorite propmaster, Millie Strathorn. This elderly woman and I have more in common than you might think! She is the only character I have ever interacted with who adores riddles as much as I do! We abide by the rules, such as no one is permitted in the prop room except for those permitted in the prop room. Makes perfect sense to me! Also, we both greatly dislike people who think they are just too "big for their britches", such as that conceited Rick Arlen fellow. Millie Strathorn and myself have another, less charming characteristic that we share: neither of us are exactly "all there". Just like good old Millie, I often get confused between fictional characters from television shows or books and real-life people. Once, I began talking to my sister about Harry Potter and his daring adventures as if he and I were the best of friends. What I am really trying to say is: I love puzzles, enjoy good company, and, yes, might be a tad out of my mind, but it is nice to know that there is another person, fictional or not, who is just like me.

-Kate

--

Most excellent! Revealing yet entertaining, congratulations to you Kate. Well, that's all for now. I may be asking a few others for permission, as so many of these essays were good, and I would like to share more with you. We shall see. Summer_sleuth will be hoppin on tomorrow, so I'll catch up with ya later this week. Cya!

- Novel -

Monday's Answer

Welcome back! I hope everyone had a safe and fun Fourth. Nothing to special happened here, we had our festivities on Thursday and took Friday off to spend with the 'fam.' But, as I'm sure many of you noticed, we did get a puzzle posted for you all to work on. I must agree with one particular user on this note; it most certainly made me think of "Hamster Dance" when I first saw it. You all however, were not deceived and solved it in stunning fashion (of course :P ) But just so we're all on cue, let me break it down.

--

Dah-di-di-dit Dit, Dah-dah-dah Dah-dit, Dah Di-di-di-dit Dit, Di-dah-di-dit Dah-dah-dah Dah-dah-dah Dah-di-dah Dah-dah-dah Di-di-dah Dah, Di-di-dah-dit Dah-dah-dah Di-dah-dit, Dit Dah-di-dit Di-dah, Dah-di-di-dit Di-dah-dit Dah-dah-dah Dah-dah-dah Dah-di-dah Di-di-dit Di-dah-di-dah-di-dah

This puzzle is solved by using [ Morse Code ]
The "di's" and "dit's" are all [ dots ] and the "Dah's" represent [ Dashes ]

If a Dah or Di/Dit are capitalized, then that means [ start a new letter ]

A comma indicates [ the start of a new word ]


So by using these rules, all of these lines can be decoded into
[ Be on the lookout for Eda Brooks ]
--

Some of you may recognize the character mentioned in the answer, but what does it mean. Is going to be a reoccurring character in the next game? Or is there something more? Maybe Mari can provide some enlightenment in the next puzzle. We'll see.

Also, we've been contacted by the 2nd contest winner, and I'll be posting her entry shortly. Again, congrats to everyone who entered. We'll be hosting more contests in the future, so be sure to keep an eye out. Danke!

- Novel (x^4) -

Friday, July 3, 2009

A Holiday Weekend Puzzle

So we're not actually in the office today, but I though I would make sure you all had something to do over the holidays. This week's puzzle is courtesy of Mari. I hope you enjoy it!

--

Dah-di-di-dit Dit, Dah-dah-dah Dah-dit, Dah Di-di-di-dit Dit, Di-dah-di-dit Dah-dah-dah Dah-dah-dah Dah-di-dah Dah-dah-dah Di-di-dah Dah, Di-di-dah-dit Dah-dah-dah Di-dah-dit, Dit Dah-di-dit Di-dah, Dah-di-di-dit Di-dah-dit Dah-dah-dah Dah-dah-dah Dah-di-dah Di-di-dit Di-dah-di-dah-di-dah

--

Alright, good luck. Everyone be sure to have a fun and safe Fourth! We'll see ya next week, Cheerio!

- Novel -

Thursday, July 2, 2009

I love my job

The last few days here at HI have been really fun and full of new cool things for me to do. I love helping out whenever I can with all the little things (and big things...) that need to get done.

Today, however, was definitely one of the best days yet. Not only did I get to stuff myself full of chips, lasagna and cake at the company potluck we had for lunch, but I got to spend the rest of the day playing through the new Hardy Boys DS game.

As a marketing intern, I need to be knowledgeable about all the products we're releasing, which means I get to spend my days playing them! I am by no means a DS expert (I've only played a few times) but I really like this game and I'm really excited for you guys to play it in a couple of months! I know how hard people have worked on it and I'm glad it turned out so well, especially when held to the high standards I'm used to with Her Interactive games.

Tomorrow Novel Sleuth will be posting the weekend puzzle so I'll talk to you guys next week. In the mean time, have a great Fourth of July weekend!

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

The Case of the Mario Maniac

Since starting to work at Her Interactive I've seen some pretty weird around here, but walking in yesterday I saw something stranger then usual: two giant murals made entirely out of post-it notes. Stranger still is that the culprit has yet to name themselves!

The first creation is of a mushroom:


The second is a Picture of Mario himself:


Pretty amaing huh? Not to mention surprizing that no one has claimed it as their own! If I was capable of making something that cool I would be so proud that I'd make sure everyone knew it was me!

-Summer Sleuth

A Winning Entry!

The first of our two winners has responded! Here's Gifted Gothic's entry, enjoy!

--

When I first heard Professor Hotchkiss respond to Nancy’s dinner orders with a request of couscous, I literally laughed aloud. Not only did I love the fact that this lady was very eccentric, I very much appreciated the fact that she ordered couscous, one of my favorite things to eat that does not seem enjoyed by many other people. Similarly to my dear friend Beatrice (as I lovingly call her), we also share a rather embarrassing flaw—forgetting people’s names. I have been known to call my best friend of five years Sara, Kara, and Terry, when her name is just plain Tara. Other than that little faux paus, I am not ashamed to have other striking similarities with my favorite Nancy Drew character. “A Tale of Two Cities” by Charles Dickens is one novel I deeply enjoyed not because of plot but due to historical setting—the French revolution. When I discovered Professor Hotchkiss also liked that era and specifically Marie Antoinette, I accidentally belted out a rather loud, “ALL RIGHT!”, startling my cat so much that she ran out of the room. Finally, and certainly worth mentioning, is the fact that good ol’ Beatrice and I are pretty darn eccentric. I love eating chicken nuggets dipped in chocolate; she loves to eat fifty chicken wings in the fury of writing the true story of Marie Antoinette. She finds it more relaxing and easier to write at night; I find my productivity is at its highest level when the moon is out and stars are shining. While I do hope someday to become a professor similar to Professor Hotchkiss, I do hope that I can keep my current hairstyle the way it is and avoid beehives if at all possible.

--

Congratulations Gifted Gothic, thanks for sharing your writing with us!

Well, we've got one more left to hear from. Plus I think Summer_sleuth will be chiming in at some point today. Stay tuned!

- Novel -