Not sure if everyone's seen this, but there was a post on facebook from the Nancy Drew Games page.

BREAKING: the first ever official Nancy Drew podcast series "UNLOCKED" will premiere this November!
This bi-weekly podcast will feature your favorite voice-over talents from Nancy's past adventures, highlight the creators behind the game series and so much more. The series will be hosted by Tammy Tuckey - www.facebook.com/SingerTammyTuckey.
What topics would you like to hear on the podcast? Comment below and let us know! More info to follow!


Also, in the comments, it was verified that news pertaining to a game will be featured in the podcast

I wish they'd focus on making games and not the fluff. Just my opinion.

Ana

That's the reaction that a lot of fans, including myself, are having. The only good news is that Her Interactive is now saying that we will be receiving an update about Midnight in Salem shortly. I hope their definition of "shortly" corresponds to the dictionary definition.

Here, here.

"I hope their definition of "shortly" corresponds to the dictionary definition."

with that, Marian !!!!

Here are some guesses:

1) Releasing Midnight in Salem once all 30 plus previous games have been ported (or whatever it's called) to Unity. (There is a year old Labyrinth of Lies preview in Unity on You Tube, which hilariously has Nancy galloping out of the museum and begins with a trailer for Peril in Pemberley.)
2) Releasing as soon as we can.
3) News as soon as we have some.
4) Identity of voice actor.
5) The game news is on Codes and Clues.


Every now and then, I read the endless posts on this subject on the HeR boards. I have been struck by two things. First, how HeR managed to think it was okay to ignore their fan base for so long. Second, how tolerant HeR was for so long in allowing interminable, if polite, criticism of and speculation about the inner workings of the company on its own message board. Concerning the last, I suspect HeR did not care enough to bother to check on what was being said very often.

Since HeR no longer has designers and writers on staff, either all their work on MID was done before they were let go or the game in its entirety was outsourced, which will probably have to be the case with any future games if there are any.

I think I will try to find the credits for Codes and Clues. If anyone knows where to find them, please, let me know.

Edit: I looked on You Tube at the last segment of a walkthrough. No credits.

It was asked on Her's message board if the game designer, Cathy Roiter (who has designed the ND games since Shadow at the Water's Edge), remains at Her as the game designer, and the answer was yes. I did see her briefly in the last couple of months on a Her video on YouTube. There was also an article elsewhere online talking about Codes and Clues saying that she was the game designer for this app. So, she at least remains at Her Interactive. This is the main reason I still hold out a tiny bit of hope that if Midnight in Salem is ever released that the new game might bear some resemblance to past games.

All the voice work for Midnight in Salem was apparently done in 2015 - how much progress had been made on the game by then otherwise is anyone's guess.

Reading their message boards and Facebook has been quite interesting - most fans are less than happy about what seems to be the "new direction" of the company, to say the least.

EDIT: According to someone on the Her forum:



Why am I not surprised?

Thanks, Marian.

I just read the FB page. The only post I saw from HeR other than the initial podcast announcement, which did not mention Midnight in Salem, was in response to a question obviously about that game but not referencing the name. The response from HeR in toto is: "Hi Kirsten - that will also be part of the podcast series! Updates are coming! Thank you for your patience!"

Trying to read carefully I note the words "part of podcast series." I take that to mean not the initial podcast.

I have no idea whether an announced release date for MID will be part of the first podcast. Being as many of the fans have essentially been lined up with their pitchforks due to the lack of information about this, coupled with Her's mostly stony silence and occasional ambiguous replies, I am hopeful that it will be mentioned in the first podcast. I would assume that release-date information will also be announced on their web page, Twitter, and Facebook, when the time comes. But we will just have to wait and see.

Well, two interesting things happened today.

First, a newsletter from Her Interactive, which can be read here.

And Midnight in Salem info has been added to their sale page here.

Still no release date - but it would appear that there is actually going to *be* a game.

Thanks for the updates, Marian!

Ana

Yes many thanks Marian. And for the first time I got to hear the new Nancy voice "Join me on my next adventure".

It's curious because she sounds older than Lani did as Nancy. Maybe the trailer voice isn't the "new" Nancy though. In view of the rumours that Lani was dropped because her Nancy voice had got too mature I found this recording strange.

Hard to tell on such a short soundbite though. what do you think?

I hadn't heard the "too old" reason meryl, which really is an odd reason, given the fact she can do any voice. I thought the new Nancy was in the last game?

Ana

Sea of Darkness, ND #32, was the last game to feature the voice of Lani. Midnight in Salem will feature the new voice.

Meryl, it seems that the voice we hear in the preview trailer for Midnight in Salem is not the new voice - just a placeholder - at least that is what has been indicated. There have been some theories on who might be the new voice. We do know who does the voice for one of the main characters in the game, because she mentioned it online and her mother posted on the Her Facebook page. It's not the voice of Nancy, though.

When Lani was let go, there was a lot of speculation about the reasons. Some people were suggesting it was because Nancy sounded too old. I agree with Ana that Lani can sound any age and that's kind of ridiculous to think that was the reason. It's hard to explain the inexplicable, and lots of theories were getting tossed around. To this day no one knows for sure why they made this decision. I don't think we will ever know.

My gut feeling is that Midnight in Salem is still 6-9 months away from release, but maybe I will be pleasantly surprised and it will be earlier. I think that the product page was added and the October newsletter because plenty of people had their face set for a Halloween release - and some of the comments on Her's message board and Facebook page in response to Her's silence were getting downright belligerent and even nasty.

It's obvious to me that if Codes and Clues had not been thrown into the mix, we would almost certainly have Midnight in Salem by now. I think work on Midnight in Salem was halted during the development of Codes and Clues, and they have picked up where they left off in 2015 in terms of Midnight in Salem's development.

Yes. this reminds me of The Last Crown saga.
I've always thought that we would have that game by now had the development company not been sidetracked into multiple interim games.
I think sometimes there's a loss of focus and the danger is that fans get fed up and can't be bothered. Let's hope HER are back on track now. They had such a loyal following.

Darkling room has not released any games other than Midnight Horror which is also in the vein of Lost Crown games. Jonathon is nothing but focused on his games (and his full time job which he works so that he can write the games we love!). Creative writers who have a real passion for their games don't slap something together and release any old thing to placate the gamers only to listen to them complain when it isn't up to par. They keep their dream alive by creating a true indepth story since it is their name attached to it. Huge difference between a one man team who also works outside of developing vs. a company with a whole crew of writers/programmers/graphic artists etc.

In June of this year, HeR posted in the comment section of their Amateur Sleuth blog: "There are still plans for MID, but we don’t have any guesstimates to when the release date is. There is still a lot of pre-planning to do in the design of it." However, we know that as of at least 5 to 8 or 9 months previously all the voice acting was finished. Is that the common practice? Record then pre-plan design?

To be honest, I don't know what to believe anymore insofar as what the company has to say about MID's progress, and it saddens me to say this. On another website, I read that all the voice work was completed in the spring of 2015; this was on a blog by one of the voice actors. Recently someone from Her said that the only voice work that had been done was that which we saw in the preview trailer for MID. Someone called them out on that and the response was noncommittal, kind of a "feigning ignorance" type of deal. So, I would say that if things don't add up, it's because they truly don't.

My personal feeling is that the entire project was probably shelved for over a year - mainly or partly because of Codes and Clues, but there may have been other reasons as well.