''The Captive Curse'' is the 24th installment in the

Nancy Drew Nancy Drew is a fictional character appearing in several mystery book series, movies, video games, and TV shows as a teenage amateur sleuth. The books are ghostwriter, ghostwritten by a number of authors and published under the collective pseudo ...

point-and-click adventure game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an Interactive storytelling, interactive story, driven by exploration and/or Puzzle video game, puzzle-solving. The Video game genres, genre's focus ...

series by

Her Interactive HeR Interactive is a video game company based in Bellevue, Washington. The company was founded as a division of American Laser Games, and spun off as an independent entity. It later bought out its former parent company. The company designs, devel ...

. The game is available for play on Microsoft Windows and Mac OS X platforms. It has an ESRB rating of E10+ for moments of mild violence and peril.The Captive Curse ESRB Rating
/ref> Players take on the first-person view of fictional amateur sleuth

and must solve the mystery through interrogation of suspects, solving puzzles, and discovering clues.
Teaser Trailer There are two levels of gameplay, Junior and Senior detective modes, each offering a different difficulty level of puzzles and hints, however neither of these changes affect the plot of the game. The game is loosely based on the book '' Captive Witness'' (1981).

Plot

For centuries, a legendary monster has terrorized residents of a

Bavaria Bavaria, officially the Free State of Bavaria, is a States of Germany, state in the southeast of Germany. With an area of , it is the list of German states by area, largest German state by land area, comprising approximately 1/5 of the total l ...

n castle, called Castle Finster, in

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

. According to the legend, the monster will vanish for years at a time until, without warning, it reappears to claim its next victim. So far every victim it has claimed has been a young woman, reputed to be wearing a peculiar jeweled necklace at the time of her disappearance. In the present day, young American detective

has been called in by the castle's owner to discover the truth behind recent monster sightings, before the monster can strike again. As Nancy delves deeper into the case, she begins to fear that someone in the castle plans for her to be the monster's next victim.

Development

Characters

(

Lani Minella Lani Jean Minella (born July 28, 1950) is an American voice actress, voice director, and producer mostly working in the games industry. She is also the founder and owner of the voice-acting agency AudioGodz. Career After college, Minella started ...

) – Nancy is an 18-year-old amateur detective from the fictional town of River Heights in the United States. She is the only playable character in the game, which means the player must solve the mystery from her perspective. * Karl Weschler (Gerald B. Browning) - Karl is the "

Bürgermeister Burgomaster (alternatively spelled burgermeister, ) is the English form of various terms in or derived from Germanic languages for the chief magistrate or executive of a city or town. The name in English was derived from the Dutch . In so ...

," or mayor of the castle community. He keeps himself locked away in his office. He has dreams of becoming a famous board game designer, but is hindered by the belief that he is cursed due to a meeting with his

doppelgänger A doppelgänger ( ), sometimes spelled doppelgaenger or doppelganger, is a ghostly double of a living person, especially one that haunts its own fleshly counterpart. In fiction and mythology, a doppelgänger is often portrayed as a ghostly or p ...

at a young age. Karl ruffles many people's feathers, but he is most at odds with Anja Mittelmeier. He greatly dislikes that the castle is being used for tourism, and wishes to keep tourists away. * Lukas Mittelmeier (Marianna de Fazio) - Lukas is the youngest resident of Castle Finster. His father, Franz Mittelmeier, is the head of security at the castle, and his aunt is Anja. Perhaps because he feels lonely, Lukas likes to play pranks on the other castle residents, especially Karl. * Anja Mittelmeier (Sara Mountjoy-Pepka) - Anja is the

Castellan A castellan, or constable, was the governor of a castle in medieval Europe. Its surrounding territory was referred to as the castellany. The word stems from . A castellan was almost always male, but could occasionally be female, as when, in 1 ...

of Castle Finster, meaning she is in charge of guest services. She is very open about the monster sightings, her past relationship with Markus, the castle's owner, and her negative feelings towards Karl. Lukas is her nephew. * Renate Stoller (Julia Sachon) - Renate is a traveling storyteller, who is deeply familiar with the legend of the monster. She is not too keen on Nancy's presence and ominously warns her to keep away from the monster. Her favorite place to sit is the rocking chair by the dining room's fireplace. Additional voice work was performed by Daniel Christenson, Jennifer Pratt, Chiara Motley, Keri Healey, Scott Kirk, Nicole Fierstein, Adrienne MacIain, Kira Lauren, and Mark Waldstein.

Release

The game was officially released on June 28, 2011. It will be the first game in the series to feature improved installation, gameplay, and graphics through the use of a DVD for installation of physical copies of the game. On May 17, 2011, pre-orders were announced to begin on June 1, with each pre-ordered copy of the game including bonus content. Pre-orders concluded on June 15, 2011.

Reception

Jinny Gudmundsen of

USA Today ''USA Today'' (often stylized in all caps) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth in 1980 and launched on September 14, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headq ...

rated it 3.5/4 stars and wrote, "The Captive Curse isn't the best Nancy Drew mystery from Her Interactive, but it is a well constructed one that will get kids thinking while they are entertained." Darcie King of

Gamezebo ''Gamezebo'' (sometimes stylized ''GameZebo'') is a website which reports on and reviews video games. Founded in 2005 by Joel Brodie, it was billed as the first website to solely cover casual games and expanded its scope to social games in 20 ...

rated it 4/5 stars and wrote that the game had excellent graphics and voice acting, but some players may be frustrated by the fact that dialogue cannot be skipped. Merlina McGovern of

Adventure Gamers ''Adventure Gamers'' is a computer game website created by Marek Bronstring in March 1999 dedicated to the genre of adventure games. It publishes reviews and previews of adventure games, as well as opinion articles and interviews with game de ...

rated it 3/5 stars and wrote, "While fans of the Brothers Grimm may at first be intrigued by the premise of this fairy tale Nancy Drew, The Captive Curse is too limited to do the folklore books any real justice."

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Nancy Drew 24 2011 video games Detective video games Her Interactive games MacOS games North America-exclusive video games Point-and-click adventure games Single-player video games Video games based on Nancy Drew Video games developed in the United States Video games scored by Kevin Manthei Video games set in Germany Windows games