Nancy Drew: The Deadly Device Walkthrough

Nancy Drew: The Deadly Device is the twenty-seventh game in the series. Niko Jovic, a brilliant and secretive physicist, has been electrocuted by his own Tesla coil in a Colorado research lab, and Victor Lossett hires Nancy to work out whether it was an accident. Suspects: the cheerful engineer Ryan Kilpatrick, the day assistant Mason Quinto, the administrator Ellie York, and the security guard Gray Cortright. This walkthrough follows Amateur Sleuth, gives the Master Sleuth variants at the end, and covers the three Easter eggs and every achievement.

How the game plays

No tutorial. Left click does everything, right click rotates puzzle pieces. The cursor is a magnifier that turns into a hand, arrows, curved arrows or a speech bubble. Cutscenes cannot be skipped. The inventory runs along the bottom: Nancy’s phone at the left, the task list at the right; items apply themselves where they belong. Day and night shifts alternate: switch with the alarm clock in Nancy’s room (sun or moon icon). Saves live in Documents\The Deadly Device.

Achievements: set off the alarm outside the lounge at least ten times; eat every sweet in Niko’s cabinet using Ryan’s key; make all six formulas in the Solutions notebook; switch the repaired big coil on and off ten times; find an Easter egg; play Aggregation to level 25; steal Ryan’s gummy bears (arrange the trade, leave and return while she is away, click the bears twice); move everything on Mason’s desk three times; play the small Tesla coil ten more times after the melody; press the pigeon’s button twenty times before solving its puzzle; build the robo-kitty (parts on Ryan’s table, the lounge table, the darkroom counter, behind Gray’s bin, under Mason’s desk, left of the high-voltage panel in the lab, and on the desk in Nancy’s room); answer the final quiz correctly. Phone charms exist only in the bonus chapter.

Night one

Niko’s office

Enter. Look at the cabinets, the sweet cabinet whose opening mechanism is missing, and the mechanical pigeon in the corner: press the button right of it nine times for the first Easter egg. Behind the desk, the broken audio player. Click the drawer panel, enter Victor’s code 171943, take the folder: staff files, and a security camera clip number to remember. Put it back.

The halls

In the corridor, press the red alarm button on the right wall (ten presses over the game for the achievement). Past the lift, the notice board holds a periodic table; the security room is locked. Lift to the second floor: by the blue double doors a poster on electricity with red and blue dots beside numbers, a binary key; photograph it with the phone. Through the orange door to the lounge: take and read the Tesla Coil Manual from the round table. Ellie York’s office: talk everything through; she takes you on a short tour of the lab, where the transformer was wrongly installed, and says nobody enters without a key card. Try Mason’s office: Ellie offers a deal, beat Mason’s arcade record and she will look the other way while you search it. Ground floor, grey double doors, the lounge: the power fails; Victor calls, there is a big backup generator; walk three steps forward in the dark to Nancy’s room.

Day one

Take the alarm clock from the left table. Gray meets you in the hall and puts you at the electrical panel: note the door on the right, green lamp high power, red lamp low; the two bottom levers are strapped together with a leather strap, which goes into your evidence bag. Kill every lamp by pressing the green ones diagonally top to bottom. Gray shoves you out. Up the stairs to the security room: talk to Gray Cortright, note the cat poster and the letter-and-arrow stickers everywhere. The lab door has a card reader. Lounge: Tesla’s portrait, the bookcase, the hob missing a knob, the children’s book. The yellow arcade machine: read the rules, then beat the record. Aggregation: clear the board by adding matching tiles to the three-or-more groups in the centre; edge tiles slide; the next tile shows on the left; kill clone tiles first because every five moves they spawn another. Set a new record (level 25 for the achievement). Nancy’s room: read The Life and Times of Nikola Tesla from the blue wardrobe; set the clock to day; Deirdre calls and you ask her to join the investigation.

Workshop and Mason

Second floor, blue doors: duck the flying metal and meet Ryan Kilpatrick. In the upper left cabinet take the colour diagram and a blank key card from the door pocket; note the tools, and the remote control with a purple lettered gear sticker. Mason Quinto’s office: he says Niko stole his work; read the circuit-theory notes on the left wall and note the red letters; he will not let you into Ellie’s office. Back down to Nancy’s room: Deirdre calls again (she is helping for criminology credit); call Victor; set night.

Night two

Ellie: tell her about the record and she agrees. Mason’s office: the red sticky note carries his card number; the book under the desk, Biometrics: an Introduction, explains faking a fingerprint; touch all the stationery for the achievement; the computer wants a password. The board’s orange letters and the dashes bottom left spell the hint, Tesla’s hometown: SMILJAN. Open the Recycle Bin and read. Downstairs, press the alarm by Niko’s office, and while Gray runs, search his room (timed): the hob knob by the card activator; the tablet in the drawer: a grid of beacons that change state and flip their neighbours; using the wall poster, turn them all green in five presses. The monitors come on; the cat poster says unlock all the binary numbers clockwise: red is 0, blue is 1, and the poster upstairs gives 6 = red blue blue red, 7 = red blue blue blue, 8 = blue red red red, 9 = blue red red blue; click a circle, see which code unlocks on the right, and set 6, 7, 8, 9 round the circle. Open the Log folder: card 185116518 entered the lab the night of the murder. Cameras folder: type HLLW510257 (from Mason’s bin) and watch Ryan enter the lab; type LBTY510258 (from the case file) and watch Niko enter alone, then the flashes. The bottom folder needs another password.

Out in the hall a hum starts (it needs the log read to the end, Ryan’s clip watched, and Mason asked about Ryan’s motive). Tell Ellie; she leaves to check. Her office: her sister’s letter from the stand, a box of capacitors, from the top drawer a small key to the silicon wafer cabinet, an audio cassette, and a hint sheet for the control room; the Connecticut Yankee book has a sticker: each set equals 15. Her computer: read her programs to the end. Deirdre texts. Lounge, Nancy’s room: click the flower vase (no hotspot shows) for the second Easter egg, available only after reading Ellie’s programs.

The key card

Alarm again, into the security room. Every lettered sticker is a twelve-toothed gear with one arrow: the arrow’s clock position is the letter’s place in the password, counting from twelve o’clock. Find them all: over the coat rack left of the cat poster, on the cat poster (two), behind the rack, inside the door, outside the drawer (two), inside the drawer on the right, on the card activator by the mouse, on the bin between the computers (two), and the one on the workshop remote. In the English release they spell VFRWODQGGUHZ; check it against your own stickers. Blank card in the activator, Cards icon on the top monitor, type the letters, Enter. Then print the card’s pattern by layering coloured glass to match the design top right (your diagram from the workshop; right click rotates): big pink rectangle bottom left; small orange rectangle in the same corner; light blue square on top; green square; pink square; yellow square over green and pink, pushed to the right edge; green rectangle rotated upright above the big pink one; small pink rectangle against it; big blue square top right; turquoise rectangle over those; red square in the centre; yellow square top left; Send. Take the key card.

The lab

Card on the reader. The reagent rack on the left table is missing hydrofluoric acid, HF, which sits behind the locked glass of the chemicals cabinet on the right: make every square blue, one route 1, 8, 5, 7, 5, 7, 9. Take the bottle (it goes to the rack). From the centre table take the Solutions book and a beaker; right, by the 3D printer, The War of the Currents, Edison versus Tesla. Through the door left of the instruments to the big Tesla coil: pull out the transformer panel, one part is missing; the control room up the stairs has a code lock. The yellow door, the photolithography lab: open the cabinet with Ellie’s small key, take the silicon pack and its wafer; from the monitor take From Dream to Reality: Industrial Design and read it. Nancy’s room, set day.

Day two: the robo-kitty

Deirdre calls (call her if she does not). Workshop: Ryan is upset, someone has scattered her robo-kitty; promise to collect the parts, which are now active, and ask about the murder night. Mason is upset that his things were touched. Lab: the body from the table left of the instrument panel; darkroom: a front leg. Lounge, table by Nancy’s door: another front leg; Nancy’s room: the tail. Set night: call Deirdre; Mason’s office: a hind leg from the cabinet under the desk (touch the stationery). Set day: footsteps, and you are locked in for a while (this can happen at any point). Workshop: Ryan wants her favourite treat and will fix Niko’s player for it; she gives the sweet cabinet panel; ask about the big coil and get blueprints; the music coil needs a new chip, everything for it is in the darkroom. Niko’s office: panel into the cabinet, press the music petal’s centre, repeat the colour sequences correctly and take the biscuits (repeat until the cabinet is empty for the achievement). Give them to Ryan; take the head from her bench. Niko’s player: cassette in, play all four entries: Niko received threatening notes from Ryan. Ask Mason about Niko and Ryan. Lounge: the brown armchair left of Nancy’s door hides the notes; the arcade record is Mason’s again. Confront Ryan: she wrote them, as warnings about Niko’s dangerous plan, and throws you out. Call Deirdre (Ryan’s alibi holds) and Victor; read Ryan’s text and apologise to her. In the hall a model falls on Nancy.

The air duct

You wake locked in the darkroom with a blue timer bar: talk to Ellie on the intercom, pull the vent grille with the red ribbon and climb in. The bar turns red, hurry: forward four, left, forward two, right, forward one, left, forward two, left, forward two, right, forward two, right, forward two, left, forward three, right, forward two, right, forward two, left, then straight to the hatch, overhearing Mason and Gray argue. Ellie’s office: a new hint sheet on the desk. Lounge: a key card on the floor right of the sofa and Ellie’s phone on the table; its lock is a circle of tokens where every line of three sums to 15: 5 in the centre, the rest arranged so each diagonal adds to 15. Read Ellie and Mason’s messages: they are allies, not enemies.

The big coil and the control room

Coil room, pull out the panel: the manual says no capacitor colour may repeat in a row or column, so solve it as a sudoku (rotate with the right button; all labels the same way up). Up the stairs, the code lock, with the monthly password sheet: the first shape is not red, green, purple or yellow, so the blue star; the second is a triangle, only purple; the last is yellow and not diamond, triangle or circle, so the yellow square; after purple come diamond and circle, and a green shape follows the diamond, so the green circle is fourth and the red diamond third. Press star, triangle, diamond, circle, square. Read Ellie’s safety notes, flip all the switches up: the last lever does nothing, and Gray and Victor arrive. Talk to Ellie. Darkroom: a front leg from the table; on the monitor assemble the circuit layout until the printer runs; take the printed layout. Now the etchant: the Solutions book says 3 parts HF, 1 part HNO3, 4 parts water. HF from bottle 2 into the 3 ml measure (9), into the white flask (8); nitric acid from bottle 6 into the 4 ml measure (10), pour that into the 3 ml measure, the 1 ml left goes into the flask; water from the jug (7) into the 4 ml measure, into the flask; pour the flask into the brown bottle (1); check the tally board on the left. A wrong mix goes down the hazardous drain on the right. Darkroom: per the design book, etchant into the funnel on the left, layout into the panel, wafer in the centre, red button. It takes a while: go to bed, set day.

Day three: the bookshelf and the melody

Lounge bookcase, with the hint sheet: Topsy, the elephant executed by electricity (War of the Currents); Ohm’s law V=IR (Mason’s board); Mark Twain, Tesla’s friend (biography); element 74, W, tungsten (the periodic table); Marconi, wrongly credited with radio (biography); the 1893 Columbian Exposition (War of the Currents); Lancelot (the Yankee book). Press the books in that order; the cache behind Tesla’s portrait gives the second cassette and Niko’s notebook: in the four lower squares, convert the number beside each row to binary with the poster, cross out the zero (red) cells, and the remaining letters say to play every fifth letter on the Tesla coil; click every fifth letter above: A G B e g a g d B c G E F D C. Niko’s player, cassette two, four entries, the first mention of pigeons. Talk to Ryan, then twice to Mason, and read his board: capitals are the first octave, lower case the second. Darkroom: take the etched board; fit it into the small coil, press the panel, play the letters in order, Play: the melody opens a cache on the left with a message about black light. Call everyone; set night.

The 3D part

Talk to Ellie, then Mason’s computer, Component Design: rebuild the transformer part Ryan destroyed from Ryan’s blueprint, layer by layer from the bottom, using the side views on the grid; Print Object. Nancy should comment that the model is right; if not, redo it. Lab, 3D printer monitor, Print; set day, collect the part, slot it into the transformer panel. Control room: per Ellie’s notebook, right lever up for high voltage, then the toggles in turn, extend the lightning rod, watch the show through the window, then power down and lower everything (repeat ten times for the achievement). Workshop: the black UV lamp from the blue shelves left of Ryan (available once you have the black-light note). Set night.

Night four: Gray’s secret

Listen at the security door: a shredder. Talk Gray out, lure him with the alarm, go in: the bin is active now, move it: a hind leg and the switch from the coil that killed Niko (evidence). Open the shredder left of the bin and take the strips. Lounge table: lay them out and rebuild the drawing (right click rotates; matched strips stick), tape it with the tape on the left, take the drawing: a coat rack marked in red. Alarm, security room, the rack is active: each hook turns through four positions; the drawing gives turns: first hook two and a half turns = 10 clicks, second one and a quarter = 5, third three quarters = 3. Click, and the cache opens: Gray’s physics doctorate, a sticker with a clip number, and the printout of Niko and Gray’s correspondence (evidence). Put the unknown card in the reader, Cameras, type LBTY6510259, watch, and note the number on the dark screen. Take the card. Talk to Ellie; set day.

Day four: the hexagon

Ask Ryan to look at the clip: it has been edited. Call everyone; an unauthorised entry alarm sends you to the coil room, where Mason is in danger; in the control room cut the power, then Victor arrives, fires you and takes your card. Note the small key on Victor’s desk. Ryan gives you a new card; do not ask her to distract Victor yet. Ask Mason your questions. Lab, control room: leave the right lever down, all toggles on, rod up. Downstairs the centre tile of the floor hexagon is active: UV lamp on it, “Enter the hexagon”, click, climb down the hatch to a door with a fingerprint scanner. Deirdre says to fake Niko’s print. Ryan will trade gummy bears for sweets from Victor’s desk; leave and return, she is gone: take the gummy bears (protest twice). Build the robo-kitty on the left table: body, four legs, head, tail; poke it. Leave and return; ask Ryan to distract Victor. The lift jams between floors: rebuild the gear chain on the right panel before the brakes fail.

Lounge: tear a piece of tape from the roll on the table. Niko’s office: code 172956 in the drawer for the third Easter egg; take the small key, open the glass cabinet, lift the clear fingerprint off the right lamp with the tape, pick up the letter about buying and licensing Niko’s work, close the cabinet. Ryan texts that Victor is coming: leave. Lab: mix the etchant again exactly as before, into the brown bottle on the top shelf. Darkroom: a new wafer from the pack, etchant into the funnel, tape with the print on the right, wafer in, red button. Set night, collect the etched print board. Lounge hob: knob on, beaker on the ring, gummy bears in, switch on for gelatine, click the beaker and it pours onto the board: a fake fingerprint. Talk to Ellie (a snowstorm is coming). Hatch, scanner, print: green.

Niko’s secret lab

From the shelves on the left a magnet and Niko’s diary; two magnets from the round table, two more from the next table with a hint sheet for the oscillator valves, two more from the far table plus the third cassette. Set day; Victor is in Niko’s office, complain about the lift; Ryan distracts him; cassette three: pigeons 13, 6 and 5, the frequency 37 that may have destroyed Wardenclyffe. Ryan texts, leave, return via the lounge, Victor is back; ask Ryan again; then the pigeon: lay the magnets on its panel in binary, top row 13, middle 6, bottom 5, press the button top right. Its eyes project onto the wall right of the door: 1902. Patent. The biography: the 1902 patent, Apparatus for Transmitting Electrical Energy, numbers 1, 119, 732, so 1119732. Secret lab: take the Wardenclyffe model from the right table. Main lab, the oscillator right of the centre table: open the cabinet above the valves, insert the model as power source, close, valves: they read 13, 11, 9, 7, 5, 4 and must sum to 37, so open 1, 2, 3 and 6. The oscillator runs, the model breaks, and the cabinet yields the control key. Secret lab: tablet under the monitor, key in the lock on the right: the five-press beacon puzzle again, all green; type 1119732; play the clip and see the killer. Take the blue flash drive; the door glows, a security system wipes everything, and your phone dies.

The Faraday cage

Tell Ryan the killer’s name; she suggests a homemade Faraday cage: take the components and the cardboard box, and a new flash drive from the clear container by the robo-kitty. Darkroom: the foil bag from the cabinet. Lounge assembly table, per the instructions: box down, wrap in foil, a paper clip from the right tray onto it, a binder clip from the left tray as earth. Secret lab: new drive in the USB port, press the button to copy the evidence, pull it and it goes into the cage. Upstairs, Gray lies unconscious in the lab; try to leave and meet the killer. When you regain control in the coil room, click the panel wall on the right and the lightning-rod lift button: fill the empty board with Ryan’s components following the diagram and book on the right (right click flips). Final cutscene. Quiz answers seen: the toy on Niko’s secret shelf was a rabbit; the hall had no painting; Cow-A-Mel was not in the sweet machine; Beyond Fairy Tales: The Brothers Grimm was not among the lounge books. Stay for the credits and the bloopers.

Master Sleuth differences

The panel shutdown, Gray’s tablet, the capacitor sudoku, the etch layout, the 3D model, the shredded drawing, the power cut, the lift gears and the video tablet are the same puzzles on bigger boards. Key card glass order: green rectangle rotated bottom left; small lilac rectangle top right; turquoise rectangle under it; big red rectangle over both; small turquoise rectangle; blue square right of it; medium green rectangle bottom right; medium purple rectangle upright top centre; medium yellow rectangle upright under it; medium lilac square left of the yellow; small orange rectangle upright left of that; small yellow rectangle; big blue square over them; medium orange rectangle upright; small green rectangle on its top; medium red square top left; send. Control room: purple square, red star, yellow triangle, blue circle, green diamond. Blue squares: 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Duct: forward, forward, left, forward, forward, left, forward, right, forward ×3, right, forward, left, forward ×2, left, forward ×3, left, forward ×3, right, forward ×2, right, forward ×2, left, forward, left, forward ×2, right, forward ×2, left, forward, left, forward ×2, right, forward, right, forward ×4, right, forward ×4, right, forward ×2, left, forward ×2, right, forward ×2, left, forward. Ellie’s phone: lines sum to 21. Etchant: two parts HF, two parts nitric, one part water.