Nancy Drew: Stay Tuned for Danger

Nancy Drew: Stay Tuned for Danger
Developer(s)	Her Interactive
Publisher(s)	DreamCatcher
Platform(s)	PC
Release date(s)	November 13, 1999
Genre(s)	Adventure
Mode(s)	Single player

Stay Tuned for Danger was the 2nd installment in the Nancy Drew point-and-click adventure game series by Her Interactive.^[1][2][3] It was officially discontinued in 2011. The game had an ESRB rating of E for moments of mild violence and peril. Players took on the first-person view of fictional amateur sleuth Nancy Drew and solved the mystery through interrogation of suspects, solving puzzles, and discovering clues. The game featured longer game play and improved graphics compared to the previous game, Nancy Drew: Secrets Can Kill. It was also the first game in the series to feature three-dimensional suspects. There were three levels of gameplay, Junior, Senior, and Master detective modes, each offering a different difficulty level of puzzles and hints, however none of these changes affected the actual plot of the game. The game was loosely based on a book of the same name Stay Tuned for Danger (1987).^[4]

Plot

Nancy Drew is invited to New York City to stay with Mattie Jensen, a popular soap opera star. Mattie wants Nancy to investigate the death threats that her co-star, Rick Arlen, has been receiving.

Throughout the game, Nancy discovers each character has a motive for threatening Rick:

• Millie Strathorn who sometimes confuses reality and fiction, believed that everything happening on the soap opera was real. Because she hated Rick's character, she hated Rick, so she submitted storylines that killed off Rick to the show’s writers. However, the writers never included any of her stories in the show.
• Mattie Jensen used to date Rick, but Rick dumped her in order to date Lillian. Mattie then went on to date her agent Dwayne Powers.
• Lillian Weiss dated Rick for a short period of time. She felt that Rick was only using her to advance his career, so she sent some bitter threats to Rick, including poisoned chocolates and an angry love poem. However, when Rick started to receive additional threats, Lillian began to investigate.
• William Pappas was afraid that Rick leaving the show would cause low ratings and potential cancellation. He was also furious that Rick reneged on his contract.
• Dwayne Powers was jealous of Rick’s success as an actor and the fact that Mattie still cared for him.
• Rick Arlen himself He wanted to move out to Hollywood to pursue work in films, but because of his reputation with the ladies and his disloyalty with his contract, he was causing people to gossip.

Development

Toledo Blade reported that the game was in development in an issue released on April 3, 1999.^[5]

Characters

• Nancy Drew - Nancy is an eighteen-year-old amateur detective from the fictional town of River Heights in the United States. She is the only playable character in the game, which means the player must solve the mystery from her perspective.
• Mattie Jensen - A soap opera star who's currently renting out Aunt Eloise's apartment. She works at Worldwide Broadcasting Studios with co-star Rick Arlen. Her agent is Dwayne Powers. She says that she and Rick used to date.
• Rick Arlen - He is Mattie Jensen's co-star on Light of Our Love. Rick is breaking his contract in order to transfer to films. He's an infamous skirt-chaser and has quite a few broken hearts in his wake. Rick has been getting numerous death threats, notes, poisoned chocolates, dead flowers, bombs, and a broken watch, but is he just trying to get more attention?
• Dwayne Powers - Dwayne is a failed actor who knew Mattie and Rick from their early days of summer stock theater. He's now a talent agent who seems knowledgeable in acting and stagecraft. Is he jealous of Rick's success and seeking revenge on the set?
• Mildred "Millie" Strathorn - Millie is an eccentric old lady that is the owner and prop room master of World Wide Broadcasting. She also has trouble distinguishing reality from fiction. She has been trying to write Rick's character out of the show for quite some time. Is she trying to write Rick out permanently?
• Lillian Weiss - The cranky director of Light of Our Love. Lillian is one of the hearts that Rick has broken, and she seems very angry about it. Is she making sure he doesn't ever cross her again?
• William "Bill" Pappas - Bill Pappas is the producer for "Light of Our Love" and Rick Arlen broke a deal with him. Could he be sending the threats for revenge?
• Owen W. Spayder - Owen is a mysterious stagehand that always seems to be onset when accidents and threats appear, yet you never are able to come face to face with him. He's recently been employed by the Dwayne Powers Agency.
• Ralph Guardino - Ralph is the security guard for WWB.

Cast

• Nancy Drew / Millie Strathorn - Lani Minella
• Mattie Jensen - Moriah Seebold Angeline
• Rick Arlen - Ryan Drummond
• Dwayne Powers / Ralph Guardino - Bob Heath
• Lillian Weiss - J'eral Fontaine
• Owen W. Spayder - Roger Jensen
• Ned Nickerson - Ryan Campbell
• Bess Marvin - Katie Denny
• George Fayne - Lindsey Newman
• William Pappas - Frank Martin ^[6]

Discontinuance

Stay Tuned for Danger was officially discontinued on November 17, 2011 due to incompatibility issues with sound cards in newer computers. Although Her Interactive released a remastered version of its first game Nancy Drew: Secrets Can Kill, they have not announced plans to remaster any other older games, including Stay Tuned for Danger.^[7]

Critical reception

New Strait Times wrote that while Stay Tuned for Danger "had a certain voyeuristic charm", the game "suffered from some of the most contrived puzzles ever put in an adventure game"^[8][9]

References