Nancy Drew: Shadow at the Water’s Edge

The hearth: steaming the envelope

Go to the hearth in the lobby and hang the kettle on the hook. When steam whistles out of it, you comment on the moment.

Take the envelope with the password from your inventory and use it on the steam from the kettle.

The sheet inside shows the password. Version note: in the Russian localisation this reads in Cyrillic; on the English release it is in Latin letters. Either way, it is the name Takakawa, and Miwako’s keyboard is in Japanese characters, so you now have to find that word written in characters.

Take the kettle off the hook and return to the culture room. Open the cabinet’s top drawer, take out Writing in Japanese and study it. Find the word Takakawa rendered in characters.

Unlock the bottom drawer with the chest key and read another letter from Kasumi. Leave the room and go to your own room to rest, as it is late. Take out your phone, set the time to 19:00 and sleep.

Day six

Ryokan Hiei: the bamboo

Start the day by marking homework. Take out the materials folder and press the At home tab, which is the topic to mark. Give the grades you think your students deserve.

Go down to the ground floor. Pass the bathhouse, go to the end of the corridor and out into the garden. Step forward and look left. Examine the mysterious bamboo construction and click it.

Look at the bamboo close up and decide you need the right tool to open the vessel. Hurry to Rentaro’s workshop and ask him about the bamboo construction. Leave the workshop and take the metro to the exhibition.

The exhibition, then the culture room

Go to Yumi. Talk about everything available, give her the phone charms you won if you like, compliment the photographs she sent, and return to the inn.

Head for the culture room and talk to Takae twice about everything. Finish the conversation and go up to your room. Set the phone alarm for one in the morning. After it rings, go down to the lobby and head for Rentaro’s workshop.

From the shelf on the right, take the yellow screwdriver and return to the bamboo. Use the screwdriver to open the ingenious cache and take out a well-wrapped sheet. Unwrap the case and take out the paper with the first half of a puzzle.

Miwako’s computer and the wall safe

Now for Miwako’s computer. Go to the lobby and approach the reception counter. Calm Ski with the command “mate” and click the keyboard. Find the matching characters on the keyboard, press them and enter the program.

Page through the information, then analyse it. Five rooms have never been let to guests: 5, 7, 25, 30 and 33. Only the second-floor ones matter, so 25, 30 and 33. Exit the program.

Easter egg 4

Open the puzzle box again and take the fourth Easter egg.

Put the envelope with the password back in the box and close it. Turn around and look at the panel on the wall. Now that you have found the red card in the culture room, you have all five cards needed to work out the code and open the wall safe.

Puzzle: the colour-code safe

On the table to the right are instructions explaining how to decipher the colour code. To open the safe you have to place the cards in the openings in the right order and rotate the geometric shapes until the colours match the chosen code.

Click the panel and the card you found drops into the slot below automatically. Place the coloured cards in the slots in this order: blue, red, green, yellow, violet.

Rotate every card except the green one once, by clicking the black button below each card.

From the open safe, take the master key for the rooms whose numbers end in 8 or 9.

That is everything for today, so go to your room and rest until 19:00.

Day seven

Ryokan Hiei: the carved bird

After the alarm, take out your phone and call Savannah. The writer remembers that the way into the basement opened with a carved bird.

Note from a reader: if Savannah answers “I don’t remember” to the question about anything else she recalls about the room she stayed in, even though every dialogue is exhausted and the puzzles are done, and she does not mention the room with the carved bird, go back into Miwako’s computer and page through the guest list again. Several commenters report this as a common bug.

All that remains is to find the bird. Go down to the lobby and on to the culture room to ask Takae everything. Afterwards, hurry to Rentaro’s workshop to discuss some topics with him too. With everything you need, head for the second floor.

The empty rooms

Go to the end of the corridor, turn to the door of room 38 and open it with the staff master key. Go in and look around.

The room is empty, so go to the panel with a star on it. Take the magnetic card with the star that you picked up from Rentaro’s desk and use it on this door. Go through into the next room, where you also open the inner door to another room with the magnetic card.

Take out the EVP recorder and try recording here, but there is no interference. You can try another recording in any of these rooms, but it will be equally pointless. Reach the last room and return to the end of the corridor. None of these rooms held anything resembling a carved bird.

Now unlock room 39 with the staff key and go in. Use the magnetic key to pass into the other rooms as well.

As soon as you hear a terrible grinding sound in room 35, turn right along the arrow.

Puzzle: the mosaic lock

You are at a balcony door locked with a mosaic combination. To place a colour, click the coloured button on the right, then press the fragment you want, which takes that colour. The grey button clears a colour.

This is timed, so work quickly.

Save point: mosaic assembled.

Once it is unlocked, quickly press the mosaic lock and jump from the balcony along the arrow.

Pick yourself up, dust yourself off and return to the inn, to room 39 again. Open it with the staff key, then use the magnetic card to get as far as room 33, the second to last on that side.

On the left wall you find the picture with the bird that Savannah told you about.

Before pressing the picture, record the interference on the EVP recorder.

Press the picture and the door to the secret passage opens.

Note: for later trips to the basement you do not need to press the picture again, as it becomes inactive. The basement door will be behind the panel to the right of the entrance door.

At this point another photograph arrives from Yumi, though it can come at any time.

Just before going down, make one last interference recording on the landing. Then go down into the basement and look around.

The basement

You take an immediate dislike to the pool of dirty water. Click the water and step aside.

Turn around and find Yumi’s note on the table. After reading it, note the puzzle on the wall. Look at it close up and you see you need the second half of the puzzle to solve it.

Turn right and find a bricked-up door in the wall. Go back up and head for the exhibition to talk to Yumi.

The photograph jigsaw

Ask Yumi about everything, compliment Bess’s photograph, and head for the arcade at Kure station.

As you approach the photo machine, the seventh photograph arrives from Yumi, showing her with Rentaro.

Note: if it does not arrive, go back to the exhibition and talk to Yumi again. If you already complimented Bess’s photograph, just wait two or three real minutes for Yumi’s photo to reach your phone.

Save point: all photographs received.

Press the slot at the bottom right so your phone is inserted automatically. Click the right panel, then print all the photographs from Yumi in turn. Open your inventory and select any photograph so all seven appear on the monitor.

Puzzle: the photograph jigsaw

Notice the lines on the photographs and assemble them into a small jigsaw so that you get four characters.

Save point: photo jigsaw assembled.

Decide to ask Yumi what the characters mean, and return to the exhibition at Matsue.

Ask her, and she explains it was a test of sorts: the photographs contain a numeric code. Help Yumi with one last bento.

When the layout is done, Yumi tells you the metro has already closed and offers to let you stay at her apartment. Agree and you arrive at her door automatically.

Save point: all bento done.

Yumi’s apartment: the frog cache

Unlock the door with Yumi’s key and go in. Go to the shelf of toys, pick up the right-hand frog and click the cache.

Click the little arrows and enter, one at a time, the characters you assembled from the photographs. Take the second half of the nonogram from the cache.

Set the alarm for 19:00 and sleep. In the night you wake to a knock at the window. Press the right-hand part of the window and watch the writing appear outside. Read the last message and you find yourself in your own room the next morning.

Day eight

Ryokan Hiei: the last homework, and the recordings

Start the day by marking homework. The last assignment is on the topic How are you. Grade all of it, and your teaching duties are over.

Call your friends with the latest news. Go down and try to get Miwako talking, without success. Go to Rentaro’s workshop and tell him you saw the photograph of him with Yumi. Then return to the inn, go into the culture room and question Takae.

Go up to the second floor. For the title at the end you have to listen to the EVP recordings, and that can only be done when Rentaro is out of the workshop. Set the alarm for one in the morning. After it rings, go to his workshop.

Look right and click the playback device; the recorder is inserted automatically. Listen to every recording on every channel in turn.

Note: for the listening to count towards the title, you have to let each recording play to its automatic stop, even when it is silence. You can only delete failed recordings after listening to them.

When all the recordings are done, go to your room to rest. Set the alarm for 19:00 and sleep.

Day nine

The basement: the nonogram

Wake to the alarm and hurry to the second floor of the opposite corridor. Take the familiar route to room 33. Open the secret passage behind the panel and go down to the basement.

Go to the grating and recall the rules for these puzzles.

Puzzle: the basement nonogram

Solve the nonogram.

Useful check: the crosses on a nonogram help you keep your place and not lose count. Once the puzzle is solved correctly, the crosses disappear automatically. If they are still there, you have a mistake to find and fix.

Save point: basement nonogram solved.

Take Kasumi’s farewell letter from the cache and read it. Also take the knife and sheath.

The attack

Step away from the cache and you are attacked. You end up in the dirty pool water under a fishing net. Take the knife from your inventory and cut the net quickly, by the shortest route, before the health bar at the top runs out, or you can die.

Save point: net ropes cut.

Climb out of the pool and go to the doll lying there. Examine its elbow joint carefully and click it to study the joint close up. Then lift the doll’s head by the hair and look at its face.

Take out your mobile phone and call your friends and Savannah.

The truth, and the finale

Head for the culture room and talk to Takae twice, pressing her to tell the truth about Kasumi’s death. Go out to the garden and hurry to Rentaro’s workshop.

Go in. There is nobody there, but on the table to the right you find an improved recorder, which you take.

On the workbench to the left, find a pink note and translate it with the phrasebook. Note that it refers to room 33. Take the orange remote control from the table as well.

Return to the inn, go up to the second floor and approach the door of room 33.

To see both endings, save your game here.

Note: if you still have anything outstanding for the titles, now is the time. You can go to Yumi’s apartment and send avatars to every contact again, win the remaining arcade prizes, or help Yumi with more bento.

Save point: before the finale.

Take the orange remote control from your inventory and use it to open the door. Keep the remote in hand, not in your inventory, and go into the room, where you find the person behind all of it. As soon as they try to escape, point the remote at the door and left-click. The door slams shut.

Pick the recorder up off the floor and press the first channel button to record the villain’s confession. After you present the recording, you face a choice that determines the ending. That choice is yours; you can always reload your last save to see the alternative. Watch the closing video.

Answer the quiz question and receive your titles.

Quiz questions and answers

• Which station is near the ryokan? Misawa.
• Who never came to the Ryokan Hiei? Mittelmeier.

Wait for the credits to finish to see some amusing outtakes.

Senior Detective differences

Rentaro’s nonograms

All of Rentaro’s puzzles are solved the same way as on Junior Detective. Only two harder nonograms are added; solve those as well.

Warning: on the author’s Senior Detective run, Rentaro’s puzzles were solved before the portrait threads were untangled, so the order in the guide above differs slightly.

The portrait threads

Randomised, exactly as on Junior Detective.

Puzzle: the magic box

The box takes eight moves instead of six:

• Click every movable part of the panel. Selected parts glow blue, and a down arrow appears below. Click it.
• Click the two upper parts and the lower part to deselect them, leaving only the middle panel. Press left.
• Click every part again to select them all, then press up.
• Deselect the upper parts, leaving only the lower part. Press right.
• Deselect the lower part, select the middle strip and press left.
• Deselect the middle part and select the upper right part. Press right.
• Select only the upper left part. Press left.
• Select the middle part. Press right.

The box is open.

The basement nonogram

Same check as before: once the last cell is filled correctly the crosses disappear. If they remain, there is a mistake in the solution.