Nancy Drew: Tomb of the Lost Queen

Nancy Drew: Tomb of the Lost Queen is the twenty-sixth game in Her Interactive’s series. Nancy joins a Kingston University dig a hundred kilometres from Cairo after its leader is injured, and finds a tomb that may hold Nefertari, a curse that everyone half believes in, and a team where nobody is quite what they claim. This walkthrough covers the Junior Detective game, all three Easter eggs and every title, with the Senior Detective solutions at the end.

How the game plays

• Controls: left button for everything, right button rotates pieces. The cursor is a magnifying glass: a hand to take or use, a lit glass to zoom in, arrows to move, circular arrows to rotate, a speech bubble to talk. Films and dialogue cannot be skipped.
• Inventory: along the bottom, always open; hover for names, scroll if it fills. Items do not combine and are used automatically. Nancy’s phone is on the left, the task notebook on the right.
• Saves: Documents\Tomb of the Lost Queen. Played on Junior Detective; Senior solutions at the end.

Titles

• Water Drinker: drink exactly six cups of water in one go.
• Decipherer: translate eight texts with the dictionary without Quick Translate.
• Cursed: see every sign of the curse.
• Egyptologist: read every book and note found in the game.
• Easter Egg: find at least one egg.
• Friend of Feathers: before the golden bird-tile ceiling puzzle, press the hoopoe tile seven times.
• Gamer: play Senet at least five times.
• Light Bringer: put the dead torch back on its charger and watch it burn out.
• Professor’s Assistant: answer Professor Hotchkiss’s eight questions correctly.
• Scarab Handler: move the scarab tiles at least 40 times.
• Translator: translate eight phrases with the dictionary.
• Expert: answer the closing quiz correctly.

Dig site KU67: the main tent

After the opening film you are in the main tent with the expedition. Talk to the injured Professor John Boyle, then step forward. A board game sits on the table. Go left along the curved arrow to the bed and talk to Lily about everything. Play Senet with her; the rules are explained first and can be reread from the question mark bottom right. Choose moves that land on Lily’s pieces so she has to fall back, and advance all your pieces together rather than racing one to the finish, blocking her best moves. Five games for the title.

In your own section on the right, take The Lost Queens of Egypt by Professor Hotchkiss from the bedside table, signed; her number goes into your phone’s contacts. Open your trunk at the bed’s foot and take only the dictionary and the workbook; the chocolate and the photographs of Bess and George are for fun. Lily stops you looking in someone else’s trunk. On the tent’s other side, click Professor Boyle’s trunk; when Lily objects, say you have his permission. Read Professor Rose’s recommendation, take the lighter from the trousers, and step forward for the professor’s notebook. Leaf to the end: the last entry is missing.

The research tent

Leave, step forward, turn right into the next tent. At the right-hand tables take the pick and the wide brush. Read the list of found amulets on the left, and on the right find the shards of a broken amulet. Assemble the cat, rotating with the right button; one piece is missing. Note the tag C13B2 bottom left. At the left tables take the hoopoe tile and the book of amulets; use the dictionary on the hieroglyph stone. Behind the plastic bottle is a Sonny Joon flyer: photograph it with your phone so the red diagonal digits show. Take the torch from the table’s left. Take the dig plan from the centre and study it. From the shelf on the right, open the site map and find by tag number the tunnel where the cat was found.

Easter egg one

The vase on the left shelf has no hotspot. Break it with the pick for the first egg.

Outside the tents

At the water tank, drink exactly six cups in one go for the title. Turn to the dig, down the steps into the tomb.

The tomb

From the entrance turn left and meet Abdullah Bakhoum. Discuss everything and get permission to study the fresco above; climb the ladder right of him and translate the wall with the dictionary. Down to the table in the centre of the hall and take the small trowel. Into the central passage, forward all the way, to sand by a wall: the plan says the amulet pieces were found here. Use the trowel several times for the missing fragment. Study the wall, chip the vulture tile off the panel with the pick, photograph the panel. Back to the research tent, click the assembled amulet: the fragment sets itself. Take the cat statuette. Phone every contact and talk about everything. Back to the tomb.

The tunnels

At the centre table, look up left: a hidden passage high in the wall, to reach somehow. Fix the tunnel directions relative to the table. Left tunnels first: translate the inscriptions left and right of the entrance, then the one over the portico; dead end; back. Right passage: forward, hieroglyphs over the hall entrance on the right. The dictionary gives scrambled letters: the first substitution puzzle. The book from your trunk and the page from John’s notebook give the symbols. Select a symbol, then the letter above it; all instances fill. Note the left wall is missing a red scarab. Translate the hieroglyphs over the next portico. At the tunnel’s end, look left: the queen’s titles from Boyle’s notebook. Rules: a glyph appears in the bottom row if every glyph in its column is the same; a column with a single symbol counts as filled; two or more identical symbols count as filled; no symbol or different symbols leave it empty. Slide the sliders right until a message forms and translate it. The chamber door opens; touch the rotten rope, click the door, forward, use the torch in the dark. A short film, and you wake in your tent.

Ask Lily a few questions. In the research tent, put the torch on its charger and click: it burns out. Click again: a burnt wire under the table. Light Bringer. At the water tank take the bottle of oil. Turn right and meet Dylan Carter, the local guide; talk about everything, and take the incomplete pantheon list from his table.

The burial chamber

Talk to Abdullah, then down the central tunnel to the hall where you found the fragment and meet Jamila. Discuss everything, then tell Abdullah about her; he vanishes and a row breaks out. Save. The hieroglyphs he was studying are free: translate, and solve the second substitution puzzle for the untranslatable end. Back to Jamila’s hall: she is gone, and the red scarab tile is in the sand. From the central hall to the right tunnel and click the scarab wall; the tile sets itself. Save.

Easter egg two

Before solving, send all four scarab tiles to the corners of the grid for the second egg. For Scarab Handler, then move tiles randomly 20 times and press reset.

Put each scarab on the space of its colour; tiles slide both ways. White up to the stop, white left to the stop, green left, green up: green home. Black down, red right to the black, white right, white down, red left: red home. Black up, black left, black down to the green, black right home. White up to the black, white right, white up, red up, white left to the red, white down home. Red down home. A panel opens on another wall puzzle that needs more information. Go on past Jamila’s hall to the burial chamber, open the door, step into the dark and turn: a lamp on the right. Pour in the oil, light it with the lighter, click it and solve the mirrors: turn them so the beam reaches the light source at the far end; turning one changes which mirrors show. Turn the last mirror and the chamber is lit.

Try the sarcophagus lid; it will not move, and something rumbles. Left of the entrance, slide the lid off a box and take out the four canopic jars, taking four tokens: bird, jackal, human head, baboon. Translate the wall over the box. Right, the hieroglyphs over the lamp: translate the first part, click again, solve the substitution. Quick Translate is now offered top left; using it costs the Decipherer title. Left wall, take the spears; the puzzle there needs something more. In the central hall the scaffolding by Abdullah has collapsed; ask him about it, take a plank, back to the chamber. Fit spear and plank into the lid’s slot, press the levers. The lid slides: a mummiform inner coffin. Click the upper plate on its chest and translate; the second puzzle on its belly activates, for later.

Back at the tents, question Lily, then note wet sand under the tank: a cut, all the water gone. Click the cut for a piece of model aircraft plastic. Agree a trade with Dylan: he distracts Lily, you put in a word for him with Abdullah. Phone everyone. Back to the tomb.

The sons of Horus

Before the chamber, the wall opposite the scarabs. The workbook holds the translation of the four sons of Horus. Baboon on top: Hapi guarded the lungs, which fill with air. Jackal on the right: the hunter Duamutef watches the sunrise. Human head at the bottom: Imsety guards the south. Bird on the left: the falcon Qebehsenuef flies to the sunset. A click; turn the human-head token and something rumbles. In the central hall the columns have changed height and carry the same four faces. Back at the puzzle, set the columns from lowest to highest by turning tokens: falcon three times, baboon once. The columns form a stair to the upper entrance. Talk to Abdullah and put in a word for Dylan. Climb the ladder on the right, turn, jump to the first column top and on to the secret room. Take the diary page from the floor and read it. At the dead end, photograph the coloured panel of birds. At the exit, overhear Lily and Abdullah. Jump back and leave.

Talk to Dylan, who goes to distract Lily; open his bag: an empty live-snake sack and guide IDs from several tour companies. Put everything back. In the main tent, Abdullah’s trunk is locked. From Lily’s bed take her book and leaf through; note the inactive rhinestone sunglasses on her table and the strange lock on her trunk. To the tomb: ask Abdullah why he was rude to Lily, then tell Jamila you opened the coffin; she goes to look and you open her bag. Its lock is an eye. Jamila is a Sonny Joon fan, and the flyer photo has red diagonal digits; the amulet book shows the wedjat, the eye of Horus, but the book’s is the right eye and the bag’s the left, so press the parts mirrored. Inside: the model plane that holed the tank, a sheet with a colour code, two books. Close it and leave.

Dylan gives you the other half of the code. Phone everyone. Click Jamila’s note in the inventory: fill the columns with letters from the upper text to form Egypt-related words; click a cell, then a letter, erase with the rubber top right. When all are right, the words highlight and a second puzzle forms from the initials, “sixteen initials lead to the entrance”: unscramble the words, then order them into a sentence.

The amulets

Lily asks you to sort the amulets by meaning. In the research tent, open the wooden box; the amulet book’s second page, the photos from Jamila’s bag and the list left of the box are the clues. One is missing: the obsidian jackal. Round the back of the tent, find the cut and dig with the trowel until a note turns up (its spot is random). Read it, phone Boyle about the antiquities trade, and question Abdullah and Jamila about thefts. In the chamber, click the belly plate.

The inner coffins

Strips slide both ways; put the right symbols in the marked squares, in the order from the secret room’s panel: first column jackal, scarab; second heron, crocodile; third eagle, cat. Bring each symbol under its niche with the horizontal strips, then slide the vertical one. Click between the two plates: a third coffin. Translate its upper plate: Nefertari’s children. The lower plate needs more; go up and phone Hotchkiss. Sons: Amunherkhepeshef, Amun with his strong arm; Pareherwenemef, Ra with his strong arm; Meryre, beloved of Ra; Meryatum, beloved of Atum. Her first question: the goddess over the doors in the main hall. Look, check the pantheon: Maat. Call back. Daughters: Meritamen, beloved of Amun; Henuttawy, lady of the two lands; Nebettawy, mistress of the two lands.

Compose the names on the lower plate. Find the glyphs for Amun in the pantheon; Boyle’s notebook has all of Pareherwenemef and “with his strong arm”; end each name with the royal son or daughter sign; the diary page helps too, two strokes meaning two. Nancy comments on each correct name. A click; the inner coffin holds a torn papyrus. Assemble it, rotating with the right button, and decode: a further burial chamber exists. Out and into the opposite tunnel’s dead end, now active: “a blue cat guards the entrance”. Brush the wall twice and set the green cat statuette in the niche. Dylan rushes through the door and the entrance collapses; pull the stones out carefully to free him (random layout, any order works).

The cat’s chamber

You wake in the tent. Phone Boyle, then Hotchkiss for question two: which bird does the cat hold in the wall painting? Phone Dylan and Bess. Peek into the research tent and overhear Jamila with a stranger. Locusts on the tank: see them for Cursed. In the tomb, through the hall of cat statues; oil and light the lamp left of the door, click it and solve the lenses: take lenses from the right into the empty holes, rotating as needed, until the room is lit. Inside, the shelf of mice: translate, click again, decode: a hiding place. Open the small sarcophagus on the pedestal and take the scarab amulet. Translate the left frescoes; note the comb in the golden bowl. Translate the right frescoes; the cat-headed goddess holds an ankh in her left hand; note the ball with bells in the other bowl. Back to the mice: find the lightest.

Easter egg three

Before weighing, put the green egg in the empty niche, then take it out and take the third egg instead.

Three weighings, random. Four on each pan: if they balance, the lightest is one left below. Otherwise, remove the four from the pan that sank; move two from the risen pan to the other pan and weigh; remove the two from the pan that sank; move one from the risen pan across and weigh; the one on the higher pan is the lightest. Put it in the dark niche: a cache opens. Take the diary pages, photograph the cat’s name plate with the glyphs enlarged, close the cache. Click the ceiling tiles over the cat’s sarcophagus; your two bird tiles set themselves, one is still missing. Question Jamila (if absent, step into the next passage and back), then in the burial chamber set the scarab medallion in the odd niche and turn it.

The cobras

The papyrus in the workbook gives the order, clockwise from the bird top left: gold (yellow), amethyst (purple), emerald (green), lapis (blue), carnelian (red). Pieces move round to empty cells ahead or behind, and across where empty. Move: green, yellow, purple, blue, red, blue, red, yellow, green, blue, red, yellow, red, blue, green. A hidden entrance opens opposite.

The true tomb

Two steps in, hieroglyphs on the floor block the way. Translate the stone papyrus on the left statue and the right. Back in the burial chamber, slide all the coffin lids: a mummy that was not there before. In the central tunnel, photograph the fresco: the cat holds a hoopoe. Tell Abdullah, go out, phone Hotchkiss and the others. In the main tent, hissing: a cobra on your bed. Push the yellow urn to the bed, take the forked stick from the wall, use it on the snake, click the urn twice to carry it off. Phone Hotchkiss for question three: what is on the head of the goddess beside Horus in the sarcophagus chamber?

In the true tomb, look at the sculpture left of the way to the golden sarcophagus; the pantheon names her Mut, with a vulture on her head. Click the floor. Nefertari’s cat was called Fate; open the phone photo of the cat’s plate, Meskhenet, and step only on the stones spelling it, left column top to bottom then right column: fox (M), three flowers (E), frog (S), gate (K), long oval (H), three flowers (E), bracket (N), three flowers (E), rectangle (T). A bridge extends. Up the steps, examine the golden sarcophagus several times: its symbols resemble the Senet board, ask Lily. Take the ibis plate by the sarcophagus; a passage opens on the left. Follow it to a fork; left, a locked grille, remember it. Straight on, press the hand plate by the right door, left, straight, turn at the exit and count the vases: four. Tell Abdullah, who goes to see the sarcophagus. Take the bunch of keys from the scaffolding on the right. Outside, tell Hotchkiss: a vulture headdress. Tell Dylan and Bess.

Ask Lily about the Senet symbols and everything else, then say Abdullah wants her. Open Abdullah’s trunk with the keys, read two letters. Phone Hotchkiss for question four: what does the Osiris statue in the main hall hold? Phone the rest. Find a pretext to send Jamila away (her bag’s false bottom only appears once Dylan has mentioned it), move the camera aside, open the false bottom: the London Herald with Jamila’s margin notes calling Abdullah a thief. In the main hall, look at the Osiris fresco and statue: a flail and a crook, as in the pantheon. Over the entrance, a fresco with a UFO. In the cat’s chamber, click the ceiling: all tiles gathered. Press the hoopoe seven times first for Friend of Feathers. The diary page and the bird fresco give the order: held in the paws, hoopoe; nesting in reeds, pelican; soaring on rainbow wings, ibis; sitting on the boat’s prow, vulture; held in the teeth, duck; flying over reeds, waxwing; standing in the boat, goose; walking on water, heron. A passage opens. In the first room, tracks in the sand hold the first half of a transparent stencil and a blue stone from Lily’s glasses; click the tracks again. On through the room with the fallen column for another diary page, press the hand panel by the door, out to the golden sarcophagus and through to Jamila. Talk about everything and learn her secret; she gives the stencil’s second half. Phone everyone.

Lily is out. Read the LED lock manual at her trunk; the stencil halves join. Click the lock: press a square and drag it over as many cells as the stencil’s number says; colours vary, the principle holds. Inside: a book on reptiles, a pet-shop card, John’s torn diary page, a letter to Bianca. Look at the sunglasses again. Hotchkiss asks question five: how many vases stand on pedestals in the corridor to the bird-and-cat painting? A sandstorm outside; into the tomb.

Count the four vases from the doorway if you have not, go out and tell her: four. The remaining questions: six, what is in the bowls in the cat’s chamber corners? A comb and a ball with bells. Seven, anything unusual in the painting over the main entrance? Aliens drawn in. Eight, what is in Sekhmet’s left hand in the cat’s chamber? An ankh.

The golden sarcophagus

The order is on Boyle’s diary scrap; the meanings came from Lily’s Senet explanation. Press: ankh, House of Rebirth; falcon, House of Happiness; eye of Horus, House of Re-Atum; three dots, House of Three Truths; three wavy lines, House of Water. Inside, Nefertari’s true mummy. Click the collapse, talk to Lily, and find Jamila at her usual place: she gives a beacon, a key to the back entrance and part of a code. The main exit is blocked; remember the grille. Through the golden chamber’s hidden passage, straight, left after the bird hall, unlock the grille and climb. Out onto the upper balustrade: four platforms, with clues in Jamila’s paper and the pantheon. Turn the disc and confirm on the centre: crocodile head; bird head; green lioness head; woman’s head with a red sun. Cross, follow the arrow, and at the last line, a trap. Save.

Build the shortest path from start to finish; each of your steps is one for the villain. Turn stone blocks so their edge colours match: click block 1 to start; block 2 twice anticlockwise (reds); 3 once clockwise (blues); 4 once clockwise (whites); 5 once clockwise (blues); 6 twice anticlockwise (yellows); 7 once anticlockwise (whites). Out first; watch the ending. Save before the quiz, answer, and collect your titles. With every title, the credits carry extra bloopers.

Senior Detective solutions

• Cat statuette: assemble the incomplete figure, find the shard, complete it.
• Queen’s titles: decode after the chamber doors open.
• Scarabs: black right, black down; green right, green down; white right, white down, white left (home); green up, green left; black up, black left; red up (home); white right, black right, green right; green down, green left, white left; black down, black left (home); green up, green right, green down, green left, green up, green left, green up (home).
• Symbol table: the secret room fresco gives the order; work by columns. First column needs bird above crocodile: line up the falcon and crocodile strips under it, pull the vertical strip up. Second column already has the crocodile below; bring the bird under it, pull up. Same for the rest; vertical strips move both ways.
• Papyrus: jigsaw then decode; it is the cobra clue.
• Rockfall: random; any order.
• Mice: thirteen mice, three weighings. Four per pan, weigh, remove the four from the pan that sank; halve the rest onto the pans, weigh; remove two from the sunk pan; the remaining go on the pans, weigh; the lightest is found.
• Jamila’s note: decode the main text, then the code as on Junior.
• Cobras: yellow, purple, blue, red, yellow, green, purple, green, yellow, red, blue, green, yellow, purple, blue, red, purple, blue, red, purple, blue, red, yellow.
• Colour code: same principle as Junior.