Nancy Drew Mobile Mysteries: Shadow Ranch
Score: 75% ESRB: 4+ Publisher: Her Interactive Developer: Riptide Games Media: Download/1 Players: 1 Genre: Edutainment
Graphics & Sound: First thing's first, despite the fact that Her Interactive previously released a Nancy Drew game following the "Shadow Ranch" mystery, Nancy Drew Mobile Mysteries: Shadow Ranch is not a port to the iPhone or even a game for that matter. Put simply, Nancy Drew Mobile Mysteries appears to be a whole new way to present the teenage sleuth to young readers, in an interactive e-book. That's not to say the whole experience is just text on a screen. There are also a few mini-games and pictures as well. These mini-games are very simple in their visual design. Games like horse races involve small sprites on the screen and others like the hidden object aspects are super simple, but use the iPhone's pinch-and-zoom system. While there are the aforementioned mini-games, a majority of the game's visuals are the text of the book you are reading. I found the default size to be just a bit too small, but it is really easy to adjust not only the font size, but also which font is being used. Occasional pictures break up the text, and these are fairly good, but nothing to get worked up over. The App's audio is a combination of background music that starts off with a rather Western twang, but calms down a bit as the song goes on, and various sounds that are activated when tapping certain words on the pages. Nothing too outrageous here, but I'm sure it helps to keep the younger, target audience engaged.
Gameplay: Like I said, Nancy Drew Mobile Mysteries: Shadow Ranch is an interactive book. While there are a couple of mini-games scattered throughout the book's eight chapters, for the most part, the "game" is reading the story. Each chapter has a selection of "hidden" objects the reader can click on. These are highlighted words that, when tapped, get added to your collection. Other clickable elements include pictures which will animate or play a sound and other words that will give you a definition or an interesting fact about the selected word. There is also a bit of a "Which-Way" element to the books as the reader/player will often be asked to decide what to do next. For example, when presented with several options, Nancy can decide to help one friend search for firewood or sing songs with a different one. Often times, you will be given the opportunity to try out all of the options, but there are a couple that simply progress the story. As far as I can tell though, there aren't any dead-end paths like you would find in more traditional Which-Way adventure books. As mentioned above, there are also a few mini-games. One of these is a horse race where you unscramble words in order to give your horse a speed boost. Another is a hidden object game. These are fairly simple and typically just have you finding a dozen or so of the same type of object (i.e. firewood or birds eggs). While none of these elements are particularly impressive, they do break things up a bit and should add enough variety to keep those same young readers interested in the story they are reading.
Difficulty: Nancy Drew Mobile Mysteries: Shadow Ranch isn't hard by any means. Like I said before, it's primarily reading a book. The text itself is well suited for the intended audience and quite frankly, sticks to the level of the original books quite well. While the story itself has been updated, the overall feel of it remains the same. As for Shadow Ranch's other elements, the collecting aspect simply requires that you make sure to click on every highlighted word (something you would want to do anyway to hear the sounds or learn about the word), while the games are designed to pretty much just let the player win.
Game Mechanics: Nancy Drew Mobile Mysteries: Shadow Ranch is an odd combination of e-book and game. While the primary focus of the App is to get the child to read through the entire book, it seems to know when to break up the reading and provide just enough of a distraction to regain the child's interest. If the App was simply the book on an iPhone or iPad, then it would be no different than a physical book you can put in the reader's hands. This way, the reader can learn more by clicking on words, as well as get some amusing games to play as well. If you have an iPhone or iPad that you don't mind your young reader using and want to get them into reading more, then Nancy Drew Mobile Mysteries seems like a good place to start. I personally think the App would do better on the iPad's bigger screen, but with the adjustable font sizes, even the iPhone's screen wasn't too much to manage.
-J.R. Nip, GameVortex Communications AKA Chris Meyer
Related Links: Nancy Drew Mobile Mysteries: Shadow Ranch on iTunes Game Vortex’s Nancy Drew Coverage
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