Her Interactive announcement - no new Nancy Drew PC game until at least 2016

You can read about it here.

I am really disappointed that Midnight in Salem will not be released this year and that at this point there is no release date, but I am not completely surprised by this news as I knew there were big changes going on.

Hopefully Midnight in Salem will be released next year.

Wow. Talk about breaking tradition.

Not good news but thanks for the info Marian.

I'm pretty much in a state of shock, Ana. But this is better than hearing that the series is going to be discontinued (at least, I *hope* that this is better - we will first have to wait and see what happens in that Midnight in Salem actually materializes). It's not that I disbelieve what they are saying now; it's just that there has been so much upheaval, including many employees of the company having left in the last six months. I hope that they can turn this around into something positive and viable for the future.

I'm a bit concerned about the change of game engine.
The ND games are glitchless. No matter how soppy the Bess Marvin script and sometimes some pretty weak plot lines, the game will always run reliably. It makes them suitable for first time gamers and frustraion free for the rest of us.

With the changes in personnel, particularly Nancy's "voice", I'm just hoping that the Nancy Drew games don't become so changed that they lose their uniqueness and morph into "just another game".

Hi, Marian!

Was this to be the first game with Nancy's "new" voice, or the last game with her "old" voice?

Susan

Midnight in Salem was going to be the first game with the new voice, Susan.

This would have gone over better with me if the company had released Midnight in Salem as is and used the new game engine with the Nancy Drew game they released after that. We viewed the trailer for Midnight in Salem last May, and it looks now like it's going to be a good long while before we actually get to play it.

Meryl, you raised a point that I hadn't thought of - the games have always been so glitch free, I hate to think that the new game engine would allow more opportunities for that particular can of worms to be opened. Hopefully that won't happen.

Hi, Marian!

Thanks for the info. I haven't really been paying close attention to the Nancy Drew game discussions for quite some time, but it's ironic that they decided to put the brakes on just as Nancy's new voice was about to make its big debut. I will never understand why a company would take a popular series that, as you said, was glitch-free and rebuild it. I can understand a tweak here and there to keep things fresh, it's risky to introduce a new voice and new game engine at the same time.

Susan

I went on to HER site but couldn't find the trailer for Midnight in Salem. Do you have the link for this Marian?
Did this have the new actress voicing Nancy?

Here is the link.

The very last line spoken is, presumably, by the new voice actress: the line is "join me on my next adventure." Some have speculated that the voice might just be a placeholder until the new voice actress is determined, which is possible, but I tend to think that this is the voice that we will be hearing in future games.

Thanks for that info, Marian

Such a shame when a successful and well loved series seems to be faltering slightly.
Which is how it seems to me, anyway

Fixing things that aren't broken.

Thanks Marian,
It sounds like the music has been changed too.

Are sales down or something? Why the upheaval?

It's become an increasingly difficult market out there and I think they have been struggling to stay solvent, yes.

I found two articles online that might be of interest; they give some hints as to which way the wind has been blowing.

Here's a 2014 article where the Unity engine for Nancy Drew games, including their plan to implement it for PC, is mentioned. This was a while ago, and of course now it's been officially announced that this is what they will be using for the PC games from here on out.

And here is a more recent article from a few months ago. The comments from readers at the end of the article are quite interesting, to say the least. After reading this, I had worries that the company was going to stop making the games altogether.

Now, however, with this newsletter announcement, I feel somewhat reassured. I hope that the series will survive while maintaining the quality that has been quite consistent for the last 32 games.

Here is another article worth reading......
http://www.herinteractive.com/about-us/news/august-letter-from-her-interactive-2/

That link is in my initial post at the beginning of this thread, but thank you anyway.

Thanks for the links

Sorry about that

We appreciate your participation and info, regardless.

I don't much about game engines, but here's what I found on Wikepedia about the Unity engine(s):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unity_(game_engine)

Please note that as of March 2015, the Unity 5 engine seems to be free:



As for the switching of engines, I know, Bioware has switched engines a at least three or maybe four times? And yes, there always some glitches to iron out. Frogwares, the French studio that makes the Sherlock Holmes games switched engines a couple of years back. And it went fine, I think.

Why Her Interactice decided to use a new engine, Unity, I don't know, but my guess is that maybe, just maybe sales had be on to decline e.g. not selling as many games at they used to. And then there's a whole new generation of gamers who are playing games with better resolutions (graphics) and possibly stories as well. I am myself right now struggling very hard to finish Knights of the Old Republic for 2003 - simply because I can't seem to get into the game. (I do hope the game gets better down the road, though),

Thanks for the information about Unity, Karsten.

My understanding is that the reasons they are switching to Unity include better graphics, longer/more complex games, and easier to port to tablets.

That is what HerInteractive claims,
but more than likely it is only about the "easier to port to tablets" part.

I agree, Jenny, that the easier-to-port-to-tablets is probably the overriding reason, if not the only one.

Hello,
I am sorry to hear about the Nancy Drew games, I always look forward for her games to come out. Hopefully we won't have to wait to long.

kathy

The company has said that they hope to see the game released sometime in 2016. I would be surprised if we saw it earlier than the end of next year, though.