Dangerous Fashion

14 games! Has Her Interactive
really released that many Nancy Drew computer games?! Well, it
has, and Nancy Drew: Danger by Design is
#14. For the second time in the series (Curse of Blackmoor
Manor being the first), Nancy Drew, ace amateur detective, is headed to
another country. This time, she’s off to Paris, France. It
seems that one of the best high-fashion designers, Minette, is having
major problems. She throws temper tantrums, has recently fired three
fashion designers and has taken to wearing a mask just as she released
her Fall Collection. Now she’s really behind in designing her
Spring Collection. Is it just because she’s also doing work
on the dress that the First Lady will wear to the World Summit, or
is there something more? Amy Grunhild, an investor, has sent Nancy
Drew to work for Minette undercover to find out the answers.

However, once Nancy arrives
in Paris, she discovers that there are more than just temper tantrums
that need investigating. Minette has
been receiving mysterious letters: someone splattered red paint on
three large gears: someone else with a German accent calls for Minette,
but won’t accept the response that the designer is unavailable:
and finally someone sends Minette a box full of cockroaches! What’s
more, Minette’s design studio is located in a moulin or windmill,
and before she turned the windmill into a design studio it was the
home of Noisette Tornade, a woman who recently died and may have
hidden a treasure during World War II. Is there a connection between
Noisette’s activities during the war and what’s going
on with Minette? Nancy has to uncover the answers and fast!

Character Design

While I don’t pay as much attention to the fine details of
animation and graphics as some other reviewers, I still pay plenty
of attention to characterization. And boy, do we have some good characters
in this story! First, there is Minette, of course. She is so eccentric,
what with using special tea and resorting to unusual ways of relieving
stress. She’s also frustrating to work with, which probably
explains all the firings. And then there’s her use of the word “rude” to
mean “cool.” Still, that makes her fascinating if frustrating.
And you’ll never guess why she wears that mask!

Heather McKay, Minette’s senior assistant, is a fine long-suffering
assistant, but she has her breaking points, as you’ll see when
you actually play the game. Then there’s Dieter von Schwesterkrank,
a photographer. As someone who dated Minette (until she broke up
with him), he turns out to be someone who’s connected to both
the mystery involving Minette and the back-story involving Noisette.
I won’t reveal how he’s connected though as that would
be spoiling it for others.

Nancy stays with Jing
Jing Ling, an Australian model who is Minette’s
finishing model (someone who has to try on the garments a designer
works on to make certain they fit.) Jing Jing is a fun woman, but
she tends to lie for fun a lot, apparently she was tricked into becoming
a fitting model, and she has engineering books in her cupboard. She
also bakes cookies since Minette designs for plus-size women and
she has to be a size 12. Finally, there’s Jean Michel Traquenard,
a fashion critic who writes nasty reviews for a fashion magazine
called Glam Glam. He sees Minette as an unthinking, socially inept
egotist. Could that lead him to try to hurt her in the fashion world?

Generally speaking, the
voices are almost as good as the characterizations. Lani Minella
is – of course – always good as Nancy Drew and
there is a subtle improvement in the overall voice acting from game
to game. More obvious though are the graphic improvements. I can
remember how bad the graphics were in early games such as Secrets
Can Kill and Stay
Tuned for Danger. Those for Danger by Design, by
contrast, are – for the most part – very realistic.

Plot Design

The plot is very interesting,
more so than those of the previous two games, Secret of
the Old Clock and Last Train to Blue
Moon Canyon.
This is largely because the back-story is more interesting this time
around. The German occupation of Paris during World War II forced
many to choose sides, although some simply tried to stay out of the
way and be neutral. Some collaborated with the Germans, and others
became members of the French Resistance. Noisette apparently was
a double agent – she pretended to be on one side while secretly
being on the other. Unfortunately, this caused her huge problems
after the war, when some weren’t certain whose side she was
really on and also led to rumors that Noisette has a cache of hidden
treasure.

The fashion aspect of
the plot wasn’t quite as interesting
for me, but was still enjoyable. It allowed Nancy to ride the Metro
and visit various places in Paris, including a park where Nancy has
to purchase objects from three vendors. At first, what Nancy has
to buy are items that will inspire Minette for her Spring Collection,
but she later purchases items that will help her investigate more
areas in Paris, including the catacombs! The only problem I had with
the plot itself – both the fashion mystery and the back-story
involving Noisette – is that the back-story turns out to be
only tangentially connected with the mystery itself. The only real
connection is that Noisette lived in the windmill and hid her treasure
under it, and the connection with Dieter.

Puzzle Design

The puzzles were fairly easy for the most part, requiring minimal
hair-pulling. The main exception was trying to develop the films
for Dieter in the darkness! You must click in the right areas to
put the film in the chemical baths or else the whole thing would
blow up and then you are forced to start all over again! It was a
regular pain in the neck at times! Still, Secret of the Old
Clock had more frustrating puzzles than this one did.

There were also a few
suspenseful moments. One involved diving underwater and navigating
my way to a secret location before running out of
air! This has yet to happen, but I’ve come close a couple of
times. Also, when Nancy confronts the villain, it becomes necessary
to block martial arts punches. It’s not an easy task, and one
time I failed to block often enough for the baddie to run out of
energy and collapse. Fortunately, there’s always Second Chances.

The Final Design

Generally, I liked this
game better than the last two Nancy Drew games. It’s not
quite the best Nancy Drew game out there (I think that honor goes
to Curse of Blackmoor Manor), but Danger
by Design is just as fascinating as Minette, and far less frustrating.
I highly recommend it to anyone who likes Nancy Drew, and many who
like adventure games.

Final Grade: B+
(find out more about our
grading system)

System Requirements:

• 400Mhz Pentium
• 64MB
  RAM
• 300 MB
  hard drive space
• 16-bit color graphics
  video card with at least 16MB of VRAM
• 16-bit Windows-compatible
  stereo sound card
• 12X CD ROM
• Mouse
  and Speakers