Room Escape Artist

Dare to play

Location:  At home

Date Played: May 2024

Team size: We recommend 1-2

Duration: ~20 hours

Price:  $32

REA Reaction

Mystery of the Seven Keys was the 34th installment in the Nancy Drew adventure games series by Her Interactive, 26 years after their first release Secrets Can Kill. I have been a huge fan of this series since 2000 (at the age of seven), starting with the 3rd game in the series Message in a Haunted Mansion. Nancy Drew games were my first foray into point-and-click puzzle games. Although I have now played countless other point-and click-games, the Nancy Drew franchise stood out for its ability to combine puzzles with a compelling story told through dialogue and thematic puzzles/ tasks.

From 2000-2015, I could count on 1-2 new Nancy Drew mysteries per year. This culminated in the 32nd, and my favorite game in the series, Sea of Darkness, which contained a brilliant mix of puzzles, story, and graphics. In fact, I still find myself to this day singing the sea shanty written for that game. In those days, each Nancy Drew game teased the trailer to the next game. Upon finishing Sea of Darkness I grew excited for the 33rd game in the series, Midnight in Salem. However, Midnight in Salem was not released for another four years (2019) due to internal chaos within Her Interactive: a new CEO without game development experience, staff layoffs (including the voice actor of Nancy Drew), and a push to shift from Her Interactive’s proprietary game engine to Unity.

I purchased Midnight in Salem on its release date and had finished the game by the next day. I was incredibly disappointed. After such a long wait, I thought Nancy Drew games were finally back. Instead I found myself playing a very short Nancy Drew game with lengthy dialogue and a few simplistic puzzles. Since there was no trailer at the end of the game, I assumed that was the final game of the series. Imagine my surprise when Mystery of the Seven Keys was announced on April 1st, 2023…. and it wasn’t a joke!

Mystery of the Seven Keys took me, as Nancy, to the city of Prague to investigate the theft of a multitude of gemstones from a necklace dating to some of the oldest rulers of Prague. The owner of the necklace, a woman named Adela Čzerná, had specifically called Nancy in to help based on her reputation as a detective. The graphics of the game were beautiful and did a great job implementing a modern movement scheme characteristic of video games (WASD + mouse). A classic point-and-click movement scheme was also available; however, I found this to be very difficult to use due to the vast number of movement directions. Additionally, the dialogue added to and progressed the story, but did not dominate the game, another marked improvement from Midnight in Salem. However, there were some moments where the intonation of the voice actors was jarring.

The vast number of puzzles and substantial length of Mystery of the Seven Keys was also reminiscent of earlier Nancy Drew titles. I played this game over the course of a week spending approximately 20 hours, as advertised. However, for all of the improvements, I thought the puzzle design in Mystery of the Seven Keys was lacking. I became frustrated with four puzzles specifically due to a lack of clear connections between puzzle components and, in the case of an in-game logic puzzle, a multitude of possible solutions. Additionally, hints to help with solving these ambiguous puzzles are only available when playing as an Amateur detective or from the downloadable strategy guide included with the game purchase. Therefore, I highly recommend playing at Amateur level for your first play through (I started at Master level and switched about a quarter of the way in). The “hacking” puzzles also became a bit tedious and repetitive by the eighth one. However, for each puzzle with manufactured difficulty due to lack of clarity, there were also several well designed, logical, medium-difficulty puzzles of a wide variety of types.

Finally, triggering game progression has consistently been one downside to all Nancy Drew games, including Mystery of the Seven Keys. Throughout the franchise I have often been uncertain how to progress because I haven’t called the right person on the phone at the right time to trigger the next cut scene. This problem was also alleviated by playing at the Amateur detective level, which provided direction on what to do next throughout the game through the inclusion of a task list. However, I still found one trigger in Mystery of the Seven Keys to be particularly disappointing because the action was extremely minor (rotating two inventory items), not on the task list, and led to the last puzzle and an alternative ending. In fact, I had deduced the conclusion much earlier, but specifically had to look online for the steps necessary to lead Nancy to the same conclusion within the game.

In summary, the latest release of Mystery of the Seven Keys has allowed Her Interactive to redeem themselves somewhat from Midnight in Salem. The graphics and new movement style are excellent, the dialogue enhanced the story, and the game was lengthy and filled with puzzles of a wide variety of types. However, the inclusion of illogical or unclear puzzles makes it clear that the Nancy Drew franchise still has room to improve to get back to the quality of Sea of Darkness.

Who is this for?

• Nancy Drew Fans
• Mystery Fans
• Adventure seekers
• Story seekers
• Puzzle lovers
• Scenery snobs
• Any experience level

Why play?

• Experienced OG Nancy Drew Adventure Game player (32, or 33, games played)
• Fan of Nancy Drew
• Seeking a puzzle game with a compelling story told through dialogue, thematic puzzles, and open world navigation

Story

We, as Nancy Drew, had been summoned to Prague by Adela Čzerná. Adela had sent us a letter reporting that the jewels in her family’s necklace had been recently replaced with fakes and she wanted us to find the culprit. Adela had heard of our reputation as a detective and had sent us a plane ticket to investigate the matter personally. We were to meet Adela in the Hungerkünstler Café on the grounds of Prague Castle. However, upon arriving two women claimed to be Adela. Our first mystery was to identify which was the real Adela Čzerná.

Setup

Mystery of the Seven Keys was available for PC or Mac download. Minimum system requirements were provided on the Her Interactive website at game purchase.

The main menu offered options for a new game, loading the game, game settings, and in-game achievements. After starting a game, the menu also included a save game option.

When selecting a new game, I was prompted to select between Amateur and Master sleuth. The Amateur sleuth level offers in-game hints and a task list to assist in game progression. The Amateur sleuth level also claims to have “easier” puzzles; however, after playing both difficulties the only puzzle differences between difficulty levels were related to the “hacking” puzzles and the marionette puzzle (manufactured difficulty due to missing information). I strongly recommend playing the game as an Amateur sleuth for the first play through since the game progression is sometimes difficult to follow naturally (i.e. knowing when to call/ text people on the cell phone). The difficulty level cannot be changed after starting the game.

Secondarily, I was prompted to select between classic exploration (point-and-click) or modern exploration (open world: WASD + mouse) modes. This can be changed anytime during the game from the settings menu. The modern exploration mode was implemented well and I highly recommend playing the game using open world exploration. I found the classic exploration mode to be very clunky due to the large number of active points necessary to capture the locations accessed by open world navigation.

Gameplay

Her Interactive’s Mystery of the Seven Keys was a open world puzzle adventure game for PC or Mac with a moderate level of difficulty.

This game was packed full of puzzles of a wide variety of types including orientation puzzles, math puzzles, logic puzzles, word puzzles, and manipulation puzzles. Additionally, there were a variety of other in-game tasks including making coffee in the café, collecting Mariáš cards, petting the cat (also named Mariáš), and taking photos of landmarks in Prague square.

Analysis

➕ Mystery of the Seven Keys had high quality graphics with a well incorporated open world navigation scheme. These features made exploration feel more natural and akin to an escape room, but also provided more opportunities for search fails because there were more possible locations than in traditional point-and-click games.

➕ Mystery of the Seven Keys incorporated a large number and wide variety of puzzles into the game in addition to other non-puzzle tasks. This resulted in a substantially long game (~20 hours of gameplay) that was engaging the entire time.

➖ Several puzzles in Mystery of the Seven Keys had flaws in puzzle design due to incomplete information. The most egregious of these was a logic puzzle with 20+ possible correct answers. Two other puzzles were unable to be solved with confidence with the information given, requiring guess-and-check. Furthermore, some puzzles lacked clear connections between puzzle elements and one puzzle type became tedious and repetitive throughout the game (though that puzzle was well designed). I found the puzzle design issues particularly disappointing, because puzzles were previously one of the strongest parts of Nancy Drew games.

➖ I found the nuance required to trigger the alternate ending and final puzzle in Mystery of the Seven Keys extremely frustrating. Although I had deduced the conclusion much earlier in the game, it took me four attempts to trigger the alternate ending. In fact, it took me two attempts to trigger the ending after reading forums online, suggesting other players were also unclear what specific series of actions led to the alternative ending and final puzzle.

➕ For years, Nancy Drew games have stood out to me compared to other point-and-click games for the intricate and evolving story line. Mystery of the Seven Keys told a compelling story with feelings of mystery, intrigue, and adventure through the use of dialogue, scenic locations, and thematic puzzles/ tasks.

Tips For Players

• Required Gear: Computer with minimum system requirements (i5 processor, 6GB RAM, 2GB Video Memory, NVIDIA/AMD Graphics Card, 20 GB storage space), keyboard, speakers, and mouse

Buy your copy of Her Interactive’s Mystery of the Seven Keys, and tell them that the Room Escape Artist sent you.