Articles

What a long, strange trip
it’s been. Not that anyone would confuse Jerry Garcia with
Nancy Drew, but his tag-line seems more suited to the eternal teen-age
sleuth who – for almost 75 years – has entertained
more than four generations of fans.

While Nancy has conquered
almost every medium imaginable from books to movies to television,
our concern here is with the Nancy Drew computer games phenomena.

Her Interactive – the
developer of the Nancy Drew games – may just be a small blip on
the maps of Bellvue, Washington, but in the adventure – and now
the mainstream – gaming community, but Her Interactive has
had a large influence on gaming habits.

This company’s name
has become synonymous with dependability as hungry gamers look
forward – and are never disappointed – to two new Nancy
Drew games every year. Even more remarkable is that each game is
progressively better than the previous. This commitment to excellence
can be attributed to Her Interactive CEO Megan Gaiser whose never-ending
devotion to creating intelligent games for women gamers has finally – and
rightfully so – thrust her in the spotlight.

What is most amazing though
is that both the image and the mental picture we have of Nancy
Drew has remained almost unchanged for almost eighty years. Sure,
her methods of deduction have been somewhat modernized as she now
uses computers and cell phones to help obtain information, but
she still searches for clues the old-fashioned way by exploration
and questioning of suspects. But it is that image, that silhouette
of Nancy slightly stooped over peering through a magnifying glass
that is most instantly recognizable to not only daughter and mother
alike, but also an elder generation of grandparents.

So what began as a computer
game series designed for girls ages 11 and up, is now a cultural
phenomena that attracts both male and female, young and old with
sales that total close to 1.5 million.

While there are numerous
excellent web sites devoted
to Nancy’s litany of books and other memorabilia, we’ll
be delving into her history of adventure games that begins with…

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