Nancy Drew and Interactive Mysteries

Since her first appearance in 1930, Nancy Drew has served as a cultural icon for several generations of women. For the first time, detective fiction not only featured a female in a starring role, but one who was intelligent, respected, independent, and a kickass detective. Nancy’s legacy lives on and was made accessible to a younger generation in the development of the Nancy Drew computer games by Her Interactive in 1998. The games each follow a typical detective mystery plot: the game begins with a crime, allows the player to interview suspects and discover and collect clues, and ends with a “parlor scene” where the culprit explains his or her motive and usually attempts an escape, leading to one final dramatic puzzle or chase scene. The games are unique because the gamer is playing the role of Nancy Drew. Some scenes are automated by the game, but for the most part the gamer is independent and solves the mystery entirely on one’s own as the lead detective on the case. This creates the interesting hybrid: truly interactive detective fiction.

The first Nancy Drew novel, which introduced readers to detective fiction's first strong female sleuth.

Her Interactive, founded in 1995, was the first US gaming company to target young girls as a market for interactive computer technology. The company created an opportunity for girls to participate in an area heavily saturated by violent, male-minded games. Therefore, it is only fitting that Her Interactive employed Nancy Drew as their first heroine. The use of such a well-known female icon appealed both to young girls looking for a role model and their mothers who had grown up with the books, and created a strong foundation for an empowered female character in a video game. The mystery element allowed the games to avoid the bloodbath styles of existing action games and create a complex and involved storyline.

Collecting clues and receiving menacing messages allow the player to truly feel as if they are the detective solving the crime.

Her Interactive’s president, Megan Gaiser, stated in an interview: “‘Nancy Drew is a powerful role model—she’s brilliant, intrepid and successful…our games don’t use gender stereotypes to appeal to girls. Instead, they rely on the intrigue of a good mystery, and a smart, gutsy heroine’” (Jong). This formula has led to extreme success: the Nancy Drew series now encompasses twenty-seven games, earned the company thirty-five “Best Software” awards, and sold over ten million copies worldwide. The artistic style of the game and its features have evolved over time—such as the addition of a cell phone rather than a notepad to keep a record of Nancy’s clues—but each game revolves around the development of an intricate and exciting mystery.

 Though some of the plotlines echo the original Nancy Drew novels, most games invent an entirely new mystery and those that are inspired by the books will never have the same ending or culprit as the original. This guarantees that the player will always be responsible for solving the mystery. The games therefore test Charles Rzepka’s theories about the formula of detective fiction. The gamer is embodying both the detective and the author of the story so a rivalry obviously cannot exist between them, which Rzepka calls the “specific appeal of the narrative of detection as a reading experience” (Rzepka 14). Because the games are interactive, the relationship between author and reader is essentially nonexistent. The thrill of the games, however, lies in this deletion: the gamer can be fully immersed in the root of any detective story, the rivalry between criminal and detective. An interactive mystery game, especially with such a strong and relatable heroine, allows the player a deeper connection with the story and truly invokes the “game” element that makes detective fiction so popular.

Players interview suspects and select Nancy's lines to steer the conversation, enhancing the autonomous and interactive aspect of solving the mystery. 

The Nancy Drew games are unique because they have impacted two separate and varied areas: feminism and detective fiction. The character of Nancy Drew has inspired generations of powerful women, from Hillary Clinton to Oprah Winfrey to first female Supreme Court Judge Sandra Day O’Conner. She represented the idea that women could be successful in a man’s world through determination and spunk (Woolston). Through Her Interactive’s games, Nancy can inspire a whole new generation of women. As far as developing the genre of detective fiction, the games go a step further from the novels and create the possibility of interactive detection for the reader or player. This enhances the player’s experience and adds a new and exciting element of autonomy to the “game” of detective fiction. Gaiser refers to this element as “interactive literature” in a 2006 interview: “‘The games we create tell a cultural story and this medium, like all mediums, will impact our generation and future generations’” (Jacobs).

Works Cited:

Jacobs, Jay S. "Megan Gaiser: The Case of the Pioneering Game Company." PopEntertainment, 2006.

Jong, Philip. "Megan Gaiser, Carolyn Bickford, Sheri Hargus: Her Interactive.” Adventure Classic Gaming. (2000).

Rzepka, Charles J. Detective Fiction. Cambridge: Polity Press, 2005.

Woolston, Jennifer. "Nancy Drew's Body: The Case Of The Autonomous Female Sleuth." Studies In The Novel 42.1/2 (2010): 173-184.