Nancy Drew Scares: Playing with Expectations

I have spoken in the past of the Nancy Drew games by HeR Interactive and despite the continued contrivance of its puzzle design and placement, I do thoroughly enjoy every title in the series I have played so far. Mind you, I didn’t start at the beginning of the series but jumped in around the 16th entry, The White Wolf of Icicle Creek after I saw it on an episode of Game Grumps—I am now going back to the earlier titles.

The Nancy Drew adventures are usually light-hearted and even if there is something sinister afoot, it’s never scary or tense—except for those timed-puzzles, those are nerve-wracking. So my expectations when playing one is that I’ll just have a good time with puzzles and some nice if sometimes over the top voice acting. Continue reading Nancy Drew Scares: Playing with Expectations

The Seduction of Horror

What makes good Horror? These past weeks, recording playthroughs with my good friend John Heatz and the 1001-Up crew, I’ve wondered about that, and I found the answer in Romance, Seduction and Sex; their principles and that of horror are similar, they just seek different outcomes; though interestingly enough, the physical side of them are astoundingly similar. Continue reading The Seduction of Horror