Nancy Drew and the Haunted Carousel
Ages: Everyone

Once again – Nancy is on a case to find out about mysterious and potentially dangerous happenings at the Captain Cove’s Amusement park - the jeweled lead horse is missing from the carousel, the carousel itself that starts up mysteriously when the park is closed, a roller coaster accident. Nancy will have to question the staff remaining at the park, pick up the objects she needs to further her investigation. It’s not all work - besides solving the puzzles there are five arcade machines to play with.

A new addition to the game is Nancy’s laptop which has her journal – useful to keep track of the information she collects; an inbox with messages from an on-line detective who supplies detecting tips; a things to do list that is helpful is keeping the player on track with a list of things still left to do. Additional hints and suggestions are supplied by phoning Nancy’s friends.

Navigation has been made simpler by having a map of the amusement park. There is no wandering about – clicking on the location moves you there directly. Exploring takes place within each of the interior locations. I would have liked to wander a bit more around the park. Wandering about in the Nancy Drew games was both fun and frustrating. Perhaps because of the hints I got from Nancy’s “To Do” list, I found this game easier that the others where there was a lot of time spent in unproductive wandering. If you still need more hints than those provided in the game, you can purchase a Strategy Guide for $9.99 online from http://www.herinteractive.com.

Reviewed by: Editor - 06/03

I love this game! In Nancy Drew and the Haunted Carousel, you are Nancy Drew, of course. You play this game by yourself. You have been invited to Captain Cove’s Amusement Park to solve the case of the haunted carousel and roller coaster accident.

When you start the game, you are in Nancy Drew’s hotel room. If you don’t know what to do or where to start, you can call people on Nancy’s cell phone or look on her laptop, which is in the hotel room. The cell phone is neat. You get to call the detective and Nancy’s friends: George, Bess, John, and Frank. To call people, you click on the cell phone and, if you don’t know the number, look it up in the address book (which is the button that looks like a book).

In this game, it’s easy to get around (but a little tricky in the beginning to figure it out, if you’ve never done this sort of thing before). You just move the cursor—it’s a magnifying glass—around wherever you want to go or whatever you want to look at. If the magnifying glass turns red, that means you can click on it to go there. So if you put the magnifying glass on Nancy’s laptop and click, you get to see what’s on her laptop: her task list, her journal, a flag game, and her inbox. You can open any of these any time during the game.

You solve the case by talking to the park’s employees, like Joy, the bookkeeper; Elliot, the art director; and Ingrid, the engineer. You find the people using the map. The security guard at the park gives you a map the first time you go to the park.

There are a couple of things you have to do in this game that are difficult: trying to fix the Barnacle Blast game and trying to fix the access card reader. These things are so difficult that they’re kind of annoying.

But I like this game better than any of the other PC games I’ve played. I like the mystery. I like talking to the park employees. I also love room service. For room service, you pick up the phone in Nancy’s hotel room, and a lady answers and asks what you’d like. You can choose a hamburger platter with milk, pasta and veggies with orange juice, or a fundae (which is like a sundae). And I like the music, especially the music that plays when the game starts. It sounds very mysterious.

I think this game should probably be for ages 9 and up because my mom couldn’t even figure out how to fix the card reader, and she’s really smart.

Reviewed by: Callie K. Age 8 - 08/03