Nancy Drew: Sea of Darkness

Upper deck, then the captain’s bed

Go to Elizabeth and try to talk to her. Let her know you are aware of the town’s financial troubles. Elizabeth becomes seriously angry. Leave her alone for now and go to the captain’s cabin.

Approach the captain’s bed and click it to start a puzzle.

Puzzle: the Venn diagram

A Venn diagram shows every possible intersection of several sets, here usually three. Look at which circles overlap and what number sits at the intersection: that is the sum of the two, or three, numbers involved. Subtract the term already present and you have the other one. Circles with digits sit at the top; take them with the left mouse button and place them.

For example, look at the left-hand circles. Their intersection holds seven, and next to the seven is a ten. Ten minus seven is three, so place three in the left circle. That is one term of the sum seven, so the second is four. Work out the rest the same way. When a number is correct, its circle darkens.

Solving it opens a cache in the bed. Take several more sketch fragments.

Save point: bed puzzle solved.

Leave the captain’s cabin and go down to the hold to look at the wall from Dagny’s photograph.

The hold: the engine room trap

On the way down, notice the engine room grating is raised. Look in and, as usual, it is a trap. To get out you have to solve a puzzle quickly, before the water reaches a critical level.

Puzzle: the engine room dials

The bottom right shows the sum that must appear on the central dial. Put the cursor on a rotating part and it becomes a circular arrow; use it to turn the parts into the right positions. The sum of the numbers expressed as dots in each sector must be fifteen in the left sectors and twenty-one in the lower and right sectors. Rotate the circles with the left mouse button.

Save point: hold puzzle solved.

With the sectors correct, the water stops rising. Elizabeth appears above, raises the grating and pulls Nancy out. During the conversation she hands you a metal lever. Take it and go up to the wheelhouse.

The wheelhouse: the navigation chart

Go in and turn left. Click the left-hand antique navigation chart to start a puzzle.

Puzzle: the direction finder

To work out the code for the lock, lay the direction finder on the chart so that each of its holes falls on the right number, with the four totalling 86 — the number you found scratched on the mast. Place the assembled direction finder on the chart. You already know two of the numbers, 14 and 26; the finder gives you the other two, 11 and 35. Write them down: 11, 14, 26, 35.

Leave the wheelhouse and head back to the captain’s cabin. You hear Elizabeth singing an old Icelandic song — worth asking her about.

The captain’s cabin: the combination lock

Go in, open the linen cupboard and click the combination lock in the wall to activate the puzzle.

Puzzle: the combination lock

As one of Magnus’s journal entries said, you enter the numbers in order from lowest to highest. You have just worked the code out. Enter 11 — to get that number, left-click the digit 1 twice, and do the same for the others — then 14, 26 and 35. After each correct number one of the lock’s sectors darkens. You hear a click, and Nancy says something has opened on the ship.

Leave the captain’s cabin and go down to the hold.

The hold: the secret room

Go to the far end of the hold and into the secret room that has opened. Go forward and click the door, which is closed with another combination lock. A puzzle activates.

Puzzle: the secret room door

You have to light every number by pressing the correct sections. Magnus’s hint, the one Elizabeth gave you, explains that the digits indicate how many adjacent sections are filled, and that filled sections must touch the numbers. When every number on the panel lights, the door panel rises, revealing another mechanism that is missing gears.

Save point: secret room door open.

Fit the gears you have into the mechanism: the metal disc, the wooden disc and the metal lever. Magnus’s hint says there should be five gears, so two are still missing. Go up to the upper deck.

Gunnar’s box and the langspil

Talk to Elizabeth about the song you heard. Sympathise with her, then leave the ship and head for the Cultural Centre.

Approach the counter and ask Soren about the town’s financial problems and about the glove he lost. Leave and head for the hotel.

Walking towards the hotel, you witness Gunnar being thrown out of the pub. Return to the ship, go to Elizabeth and raise the subject. Then return to the hotel.

A bewildered Gunnar is standing in the lobby. Talk to him: the old sailor asks you to fetch a box of his personal belongings. Go down to the pub.

Head for Gunnar’s usual seat and slide the wicker screen aside. Take out the box and open it. Read the birthday card from his daughter Edda and the item in an old local paper about the death of Gunnar’s family. So that is the secret the old sailor was keeping.

Take the box and go to the music corner. Study the wall poster with its schematic drawings of instruments and find the langspil, so you know what it looks like. Find the langspil among the instruments standing there and press the large domed button to activate a puzzle: find eleven differences between the dark and light halves.

Puzzle: spot the differences

Left-click each difference you find; they are recorded on the left as circles going dark.

Save point: differences found.

A cache opens. Take the gear shaped like a carved star.

Go up to the hotel lobby, talk to Gunnar and give him the box of belongings. Admit that you looked inside. Gunnar realises he has behaved badly and says he will apologise to Elizabeth. He suggests meeting in the pub after the tide changes, which means going up the stairs to the rooms. Do that, come back down after the tide changes, and go to the pub to talk to him. The old sailor is already in his usual seat. Greet Gunnar and he gives you the last sketch fragments.

Leave the hotel and head for the snowmobile.

Magnus’s cabin: the star sketch

Riding to the fork, take Ned’s incoming call. If you answer his declaration by telling him you love him too, you earn Relationship Guru.

After the call, turn left at the fork. Arrive at the cabin and go in. Approach the chest and open it. Click the chest lid; the separate fragments you have collected sit on the right.

Puzzle: the star sketch

Rather than fitting jigsaw pieces to each other, you lay the transparent tracing-paper pieces over the matching areas of the drawing. The cursor becomes a closed fist and the fragment sticks to the drawing.

Save point: star sketch assembled.

With the star sketch correct, Nancy remarks that you have seen a drawing like it at the lighthouse, in the old mosaic on the interior walls. So the lighthouse is where you go next.

Leave Magnus’s cabin and watch Elizabeth go past with something hidden on her sled. What exactly? Return to town.

The lighthouse, and Dagny

Head for the harbour, first making sure the tide is high. Get in the motorboat, press the wheel and sail to the lighthouse. Climb the stairs right to the top. Dagny appears unexpectedly in the hatchway and invites you into town to talk.

Talk to Dagny about every topic. You learn that she faked her own abduction to get information she wanted without witnesses. During the conversation she gives you a token with a lion’s head. When the conversation ends, go to the harbour and take the boat back to the lighthouse.

Climb to the very top and turn around. Find the wall mosaic shaped like a star to the left of the hatch. Click it to start a puzzle.

Puzzle: the star sudoku

Arrange the numbers so that none repeats within a single triangle, horizontally or diagonally. Take the numbered tokens from the column on the left with the left mouse button and place them in the empty slots. Solving it opens a cache.

Save point: sudoku puzzle solved.

Take the hint sheet from the cache. Go down, get in the boat and return to the harbour.

Upper deck: the dog, and the figurehead

Board the ship. Nancy decides it is time to open the closet door next to Elizabeth and find out what she is hiding. Approach the door, which starts shaking, and out bounds the dog whose traces you have been finding everywhere.

Talk to Elizabeth, and as a result she gives you the sheet music for the melody she was humming. Take the music and head for the bow. Look under the bowsprit, the spar projecting forward from the bow of a sailing ship.

Activate the puzzle on the figurehead, which takes the form of a proud lion’s head.

Puzzle: the lion heads

Drop tokens into the slots so that every lion head ends up vertical. Use this sequence:

• First slot — once
• Second slot — twice
• Third slot — once
• Second slot — three times

Save point: lion heads puzzle solved.

From the cache that opens, take the gear shaped like a wooden wheel. That is both missing gears found, so you can now start the mechanism in the secret room.

Go up to the upper deck and look into the closet where Magnus’s dog was shut in for so long. Find the dog’s toy and open it with the key from the captain’s cabin. Pull out another hint for the caves. Now for the secret room. Go down to the hold.

The hold: the carved casket

Enter the secret room and go to the door with the gear mechanism. Fit the wooden wheel and the carved star. The restored mechanism starts, and an antique carved casket in two parts rises from the cache. Click the right-hand compartment to start a puzzle.

Puzzle: the right compartment

Arrange the geometric shapes so that every row and column has a consistent design, meaning no shape symbol repeats horizontally or vertically. The field already gives you hints in the form of filled shapes. Place the four gold circles in their positions first, then the two blue diamonds and three lilac squares where they are drawn. Transparent shapes cannot go on filled cells, but filled shapes can go anywhere on the field.

Save point: right compartment open.

Take part of Captain Lawrence’s diary from the right side of the casket. Zoom out and go up from the hold to the upper deck.

The music box

Out of curiosity, ask Elizabeth what she was carrying on the sled when she passed Magnus’s cabin. Curiosity satisfied, take the snowmobile to Magnus’s cabin.

Go in and approach the chest. Open the lid, take out the music box and click it to activate the music puzzle.

Puzzle: the music box

Take the music theory book from your inventory and read how the music box works. Press the lever and listen to the melody on the cylinder. To play the song Elizabeth gave you the music for, arrange the toothed combs correctly:

• Swap the third and first combs
• Swap the third and fourth combs
• Swap the fourth and fifth combs
• Swap the fifth and second combs
• Press the lever on the left to play the melody

Save point: music box.

Once the melody plays correctly, a cache opens in the box. Take the wooden tile shaped like a green fish and another page of Captain Lawrence’s diary. From what you read, the pirates hid their plunder in a cave.

Leave the cabin and return to town.

The secret room: the fish tile

Head for the ship and you hear the alarm. After running all over the ship and finding nobody, get on with your own business. Go down to the hold and into the secret room. You can now open the casket’s left compartment. Click the left part of the lid to start a puzzle.

Puzzle: the green fish

Your task is to guide the green fish tile across the whole field to the yellow cross, under these rules:

• Landing on a coloured square repaints the figure in that colour.
• Landing on a square showing an animal turns the figure into that animal.
• A coloured gate can be passed by a figure of the same colour.
• A gate showing a colourless animal can be passed by that animal in any colour.
• A gate showing an animal can be passed by a figure of that same animal.
• Move the figure with the arrows in the bottom right, left-clicking left, right, up or down.

Solution, starting from the green fish. Arrows show direction, numbers show how many moves:

• Green fish: 4 left. The red square turns it red.
• Red fish: 3 left, 2 up, 2 right. It becomes a red star.
• Red star: 8 right, 2 down, 1 left. The blue square turns it blue.
• Blue star: 3 left, 2 up, 4 left. The colourless star becomes blue.
• Blue star: 2 left, 3 down, 2 right, 2 down, 2 left. It becomes a blue jellyfish.
• Blue jellyfish: 2 up, 3 right. The red square makes it a red jellyfish.
• Red jellyfish: 4 right, 2 down, 1 right, 2 down, 8 left, 1 down. The blue square makes it a blue jellyfish.
• Blue jellyfish: 1 up, 5 right, 2 up, 1 left. It becomes a blue fish.
• Blue fish: 4 right, 2 down, 3 left, 2 down. It becomes a green fish.
• Green fish: 2 up, 3 left, 2 up, 2 left. It becomes a green jellyfish.
• Green jellyfish: 2 right, 2 down, 8 right. The blue square turns it blue.
• Blue jellyfish: 2 down, 3 left. It becomes a blue star.
• Blue star: 2 up, 1 right, 2 up, 3 right. It becomes a blue jellyfish.
• Blue jellyfish: 1 down, 4 right, 1 up, 1 right, 3 up, 2 left. It becomes a green jellyfish.
• Green jellyfish: 2 right, 3 down, 1 left, 1 down, 2 left, 2 down, 1 left, 1 down. It becomes a green turtle.
• Green turtle: 1 up, 1 right, 4 up, 1 right. The red square turns it red.
• Red turtle: 1 left, 1 up. It becomes a red fish.
• Red fish: 1 left, 2 up, 1 right. Journey ends on the yellow square.

Save point: fish puzzle solved.

The left compartment opens. Take the last missing pages of Captain Lawrence’s diary. The diary is complete, and you can read the real story of how Captain Lawrence came to be here, and his account of the hidden treasure. Time to go and find it. Leave the ship and hurry to the snowmobile.

The caves: the treasure

Leave the snowmobile at the cave entrance. Take Magnus’s cave map from your inventory and follow his directions. Count your steps from the moment Nancy switches the lantern on as she enters.

Make six moves forward along the arrow, to the red stone on the right. Up along the arrow, then nine steps forward along the arrow to the two ladders. Go two moves up the ladder and turn right along the curved arrow. Move forward three times along the arrow and you reach a fork.

Now you need the hints from Captain Lawrence’s diary. From the fork, turn right along the curved arrow and take two steps forward along the arrow. At the ice wall, break it with the hook.

You find Magnus in the cave. Talk to him and establish who is behind his abduction. Take Alex’s incoming call and tell her who should be detained. A small collapse separates Magnus from Nancy.

After a short video in which you are ordered to find the hidden treasure immediately, follow the curved arrow left and step forward. On the left, find an active area on a block of ice. Use the hook on it and you find a chest, which is immediately taken from you, leaving you to freeze in the cave alone.

Turn away from the rubble along the arrow and use the hook on the ice wall. Go three steps forward and find the real treasure chest. Click it to start the final puzzle.

Puzzle: the treasure chest

Press the objects in the picture in the order their names come up in Captain Lawrence’s song:

ship’s bow, starless night, city walls, heart, ice floe, wind, bones, grave, waves, broken heart, north, sail.

The chest lid opens and you look at the treasure. You earn Speleologist. Watch the closing video, in which Nancy is rescued from her icy captivity and the hapless treasure hunter is punished. Answer the quiz question and admire your awards.