Ned Nickerson

Other than that, it's entirely different.

And actually, this is the first appearance of Ned in the game since the final scene.

There were a couple games where he was absent.

And it's the first departure of the phone contacts of Bess and George and the Hardy Boys since The Scarlet Hand.

That's one thing that was kind of odd to me in replaying this game.

You have to rely on this parrot for hints, mostly.

You can kind of talk to Ned a little bit about the mystery, but there's not all these people that you can call and bounce ideas off of and ask for hints.

You do have a task list, though, which I very much appreciate because I'm always playing junior detective slash amateur sleuth over here because, in my opinion, the games are supposed to be fun and mildly challenging, not like make me want to pull my hair out with some of these puzzles, which this game kind of can bring that out in me a little bit, which I kind of skipped over my memories of this game and went straight into the fun facts, so I guess I'll backtrack a little bit here, but When I first played this game, I loved the atmosphere, the characters, but some of the puzzles were very, very hard for me.

... who secretly writes a blog about happy endings, where she gives every character in every book a happy ending.

Nancy Drew [laughs] does not marry Ned Nickerson, but she marries a criminal defense attorney, and she goes off to be a, a, a, a, a-

[laughs]

... a justice activist.

And Bess and George are present for this one.

Ned is still not around.

He has not been around for like at least 10 plus books now.

I'm a little concerned.

If he's at a football conference, it's been like the most abnormally long football conference ever.

Or maybe he's off being a camp counselor somewhere or selling insurance, but I'm kind of like Team Nancy, you need to go check on Ned.

See what's going on with Ned Nickerson right about now.

But yeah, when I saw that this was the next book in the lineup to read, I kind of wondered if it would be similar at all to The Clue of the Tapping Heels.

They're solving mysteries together.

For some reason, Ned Nickerson, he's old ancient history.

Nancy and Fred or Frank, whatever his name is.

I think it's Frank Hardy.