Customer Reviews

Nancy Drew: Danger on Deception Island

5 star:		(64)
4 star:		(21)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I was so disappointed with Haunted Carousel that I decided to wait for budget versions of any new games. After reading a couple of reviews for Danger on Deception Island, I quickly changed my mind. I'm so glad I decided to buy this game, because it is the very best of the Nancy Drew games so far, and I've played all of them.
I'm the mother of an 11-year-old son. I played the game as a senior detective and he played on the junior detective level. This game had enough challenging elements to keep me busy and yet was not too difficult for my son on junior level. There is a real, meaningful difference between the junior and senior levels in this game; something that is often missing in games that are marketed to both adults and children.
This game is probably three times the length of Haunted Carousel, and it is packed with interesting puzzles. Nancy must find coordinates for a locator device, open secret passageways, use a morse code device, dig for clams and learn a little about chess, just to name a few challenges she faces in this game. The game also contains little diversions that are fun and satisfying, such as building a sand castle and playing feed the whale, and Nancy learns a lot about whales and dolphins in the process. Scattered throughout the game are little reminders of previous adventures as a nod to loyal fans.

Teenage sleuth Nancy Drew is back and better than ever in her latest case, Danger on Deception Island. This time around Nancy is visiting marine biologist Katie Firestone at her friends request, but things go wrong as usual. Shortly after Ms. Drews arrival at to the San Juan Islands, Katie discovers that her whale watching boat has been vandalized. While Katie makes everything shipshape, Nancy is hot on the trail of the vandals, along with investigating recent burglaries, digging up Snake Horse Harbors past and making friends with a local legend.

Besides Katie, Nancy meets Holt Scotto, fisherman and harbormaster candidate, Jenna Deblin, owner of the Hot Kettle Café, and Andy Jason, who runs a rival whale watching business and wants to buy Katie out. Add to that strange fish that have been washing up on shore, a string of burglaries, and an eccentric widow who launches messages in bottles into the harbour.

Danger on Deception Island is the most organic and satisfying of the nine current Nancy Drew games from Her Interactive. Several new additions include bicycling (similar to the motorboat interface used in Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake) and kayaking, WWW access from Nancys trusty laptop and more. The puzzles were excellently integrated into the gaming environment, making use of the Pacific Northwests charms: building sand castles, kayaking sea caves, bicycling the winding coastal roads, exploring a lighthouse, and digging for clams on deserted beaches. Nancy must also help Katie restore her boat to working order. There are several fun activities not necessary to win the game, including fixing sandwiches with some not-so-tasty ingredients (jellyfish, Tabasco sauce, expired mayonnaise, baking soda), building sand castles, and educational games about whales.

As usual, there are two levels of difficulty, Junior and Senior Detective, and there are plenty of hints and help scattered along the way for both levels, including calling the Hardy Boys for tips and clues. There are many educational elements in Deception Island, including informative webpages about nautical terms, wood identification, Morse code, various types of whales and more that are necessary to solve the mysteries. Graphics are gorgeous (including photo overlays during the biking scenes), character modeling is lifelike, music includes rousing sea chanteys and ominous strings reminiscent of Jaws, and voice acting is above average. Sound effects make you feel like youre really standing on a lonely, windswept shore with only the breaking waves and cries of the gulls to keep you company. And you get to interact with a killer whale as well! Keep up the good work, Her Interactive! (Nancys next mystery is Secret of Shadow Ranch.)

This is the third Nancy Drew game that i have played (the others being treasure in the royal tower and the scarlett hand) and i have to say that its the best one yet.

Nancy is off to visit a friend, Katie Firestone. Upon arriving on Katie's boat, she discovers that someone has sabotaged the engine. There are no shortage of suspects on the island, including the owner of the whale museum, the cafe owner and the harbormaster.

This game is more complex than its earlier predecessors- nancy now has a cell phone and GPS device. She must navigate a bicycle around town and a kayak in the waters. The puzzles are more difficult, though there is always the option to call bess/george or the hardy boys for a quick solve.

Like the other games, you can play it on a junior or senior leve- depending on your gaming skills.

Deception island has a more adult feel but kids will enjoy it as well. Get this game if you are a fan of adventure and puzzle games.

I buy these Nancy Drew games, send one to my 12 year old niece in Canada, have another one at home in Florida for my 9 year old daughter and then my niece and her mom vs. myself and my daughter have long distance competitions to see who can solve the mystery first.
We were disappointed with Haunted Carousel. But Danger on Deception Island made up for it. Great puzzels, fun reactions from Nancy when we tried to feed her wierd sandwiches, challenging problems to solve and it was long enough to satisfy the girls and moms. The whale was cool and the dangers when Nancy slips or trips or gets caught were fun and exciting.
This one's a keeper and we give it 4 thumbs up!

Wow! When we bought "The Haunted Carousel," we had very high expectations considering the previous games. We were, however, very dissapointed when we finished in less than one day, were shocked by easy puzzles, and were bored by unchallenging conflicts. We were very leary when "Danger on Deception Island" came out, but we gave it a chance.
We were thrilled by this game!!! The graphics and sound effects were awesome! The puzzles were challenging, but after a lot of thought, you could solve them. This game, #9 in the series, was the best by far. The plot twisted constantly, making it impossible to detect the 'culprit' before the end of the game. The kayaking was adventerous and fun, as well as the characters being realistic.
If you love a good challenge and are ready to take some action, this game is certainly for you! Two thumbs up, Nancy!

Ok, Ok.... I am 50+ years old and I bought this game because I like to watch old Nancy Drew movies on TV. This is the first one of these games I have played.

The rules are very easy to understand so the game starts very quickly and moves along at a good pace. I am very poor at spatial relations so putting the books back into the drawer and assembling the broken pipes was just plain hard. I still don't have the books in. So there are spots that are just a pain and end up causing a lot of frustration. Why should I be stopped because I am bad at something such as putting books into the drawer?

But that doesn't matter at the moment. I have played the game off and on for several days and it is fun. The atmosphere is spooky, the noises are pretty good and the mystery is deep enough to hold your interest. I keep making dumb mistakes and getting killed off, but the game is kind enough to let you keep going with the second chance button. So you don't have to start over time after time.

I am certain true hard core game players will think the game is beneath them, but I just want to relax a bit and have some fun thinking about something other than work or responsibilities. This game fills the bill. Interesting and a challenge for me but not something I get all worked up over if I get stuck.

The game is filled with what I will call educational material. Whales, nautical terms, et al are built into the game in such a way that reading the information is interesting and part of the game play. A person can get a lot of just fun information about all kinds of subjects playing the game. I don't like to say it is an educational game because that doesn't seem to be the point. You learn this stuff to help you solve the mystery. I think the term educational turns people off. That shouldn't be the case here because the game play and the information are seamlessly tied together.

As I stumble along in the game, solving nothing really, I am having fun and as long as I can keep going and gathering clues I am a happy camper. I have ordered the $10.00 guide which should help me extend the game play. The on line help would be a lot better if I was as far along as those players. I get stuck so far down the line that no one even talks about the problems I am having. So I hope the game guide will help. As you can tell, I am generally bad at solving puzzles.

I would hope the game writers would put more help into the games themselves but I think they make a lot of money selling the game guides (no mystery there) so they just go ahead and stump people and then the game guide is a sure sell. I think it is a rip off but I guess that is life in the gaming world.

I noticed there are a LOT of these games. The series is actually very long. Thus, the games are selling and people like them. They are seldom reviewed on the PC gaming sites, so a person just has to take a chance and buy one to see if they like it. I think you will. Lots of fun.

This was a wonderful game! Hours of good, solid game play. An interesting mystery and intriguing characters. A chance to interact with aquatic life. I learned how to work a GPS and a HAM radio. It was so much fun. The puzzles were a good mix of ability-levels and types. Word puzzles, spatial puzzles, problem-solving ones. I can completely recommend this game.

My mom bought this game for me for my 13th birthday and I thought it would be boring. However, once I started playing the game, I found it to be very addictive. I kept playing! This game isn't as easy as you might think. It is actually very hard. If you like mysteries I would definitely recommend this game!

Nancy Drew: Danger on Deception Island is a great game that provides a delightful experience for all ages.
Nancy is on vacation (isn't she always) on the San Juan Islands off Washington. There is an orphaned orca in the waters and some people appear to have been feeding it. There have been robberies at some stores in Snake Horse Harbor, the city you are staying in. You also soon find out that a so-called nutcase named Hilda Swenson might just not be a wacko after all.
During this game you will meet four characters: Katie Firestone, the person you are staying with, Jenna Deblin, the owner of the Hot Kettle Cafe, Holt Scotto, who is running for harbormaster, and Andy Jason, who owns Whale World and may have another secret. The plot is very intricate in this game and I love the whole Hilda subplot. Plus, this game also has a more outdoorsy feeling than the others because you can go kyaking, use your bike, go walking underground...oops.
Danger on Deception Island is a terrific game and you should buy it NOW NOW NOW!

The ninth of the Nancy Drew Mystery Series. This is my favorite game, so I'm gonna go nuts here. Things are graded A-F, just like school.

The Crime: A +

Nancy tries to take another vacation, this time by spending some time on Katie Firestone's whale watching boat in Snake Horse Harbor. The minute she arrives, plans change! Katie's boat has been vandalized. An orphan orca has shown up in the bay and there are different opinions as to what to do with it. Did Katie's big mouth get her in trouble?

Suspects include fisherman Holt Scotto, cafe-owner Jenna Devlin, and rival whale watching tourguide Andy Jason.

I'd never had a chance to learn anything about whales or the ocean and thought this was an endlessly cool premise.

Puzzles: A +

Nancy has to figure out everything from nautical terms to knots to Morse code. People give her tasks and quizzes. It can be as easy as making a sandwich or as hard as traveling underground tunnels and counting rocks.

Gameplay: A +

This game has it all. You can spend time out on the water in a kayak, eat a bowl of hearty chowder (or maybe a blueberry muffin) in the Hot Kettle Cafe, read about the local sea monster, build sand castles on a remote beach and dig for clams in the sand.

The only thing missing is maybe romance. But you get to talk to Frank and Joe Hardy on the phone, so that's close enough. (I love those boys.)

Time Changes: None.

Voice Acting: A +
In a word, perfect.

Favorites -
"Ah. Nuts." Andy Jason
"Next one'll be on the house, too." Jenna Devlin
"Vote for Holt!" Holt Scotto

Music: A +

I loved, loved, loved the music. The travel music was jaunty and perfectly fit the ambiance of the tiny seaside town. Especially cool was the little flute trill that occurred as you finished a puzzle.

Graphics/Video: A +

Getting better and better all the time. Bonus points for the animated sequences such as the whale watching tour.

Technical: B

I'm one of a few people who have had this problem, but no matter what I did, DDI wouldn't fully install on my computer. There was an error copying files and no matter what I did, it wouldn't fix it, even following HI's advice on the technical support board. Running the game from the disc rather than installing to my computer fixed the problem completely though.

Overall, I think this one is the pinnacle of HI's goodness.

If you love Nancy Drew, this one's for you. All-time favorite.