Alex Hill: Whispers at White Oak Inn

I have to be honest, it's a bit "Nancy Drew from TEMU". Bunch of typos, missing full stops, missing capital letters for words. Lots of Unreal Engine jank. For example if you click on a door a lot of times, the door opening/closing sound effect will play many times in a row. When you talk to the characters, the background behind them becomes a low resolution jpg image. The facial expressions are jarring as hell because when the NPCs talk it's all rapid eyebrow movement and lower jaw movement. I just don't think Unreal Engine is the right choice for this type of a game. But is the game charming and has that Nancy Drew vibe? Yes it does. And that's all I was asking for because HeR has not been delivering in the last decade. Will come back for the sequel that has a Steam page at the time of this review.

Honestly, I think the "Very Positive" rating for this game is a little misleading. If you read through the positive reviews, many of them acknowledge significant issues with the game (bugs that soft-lock the game, repetitive gameplay, difficult-to-see items, simplistic dialogue), but they ultimately give the game a "thumbs-up" because it's reminiscent of the good old days of HeR and because was made by a fellow fan. I love the idea of a fan stepping up to resurrect a beloved style of game, but $20 is a lot to pay for an unrealized aspiration. I finished the entire game in 3 hours (not counting the time I spent on the demo). I didn't try to speed-run, to be clear. I played all the extra games, exhausted the dialogue options, etc. However, I did often skip through the dialogue since I read quickly and the voice acting was not very strong. I found it difficult to feel invested in the characters because I knew so little about them. Puzzles were few and far between, and they didn't feel like they were organically integrated into the setting. The settings were pretty plain too. I know some other reviewers were annoyed by the many spots that allow you to look at an area more closely even though there was no item to find. I'm actually okay with that as a concept--something I enjoyed about the early HeR games was that you had to actually look for what seemed important rather than just hunting for hotspots--but it doesn't work here because even with all the extra environmental items, the world feels undeveloped and unlived-in. On top of that, it is extremely difficult to find items sometimes, whether because of poor lighting, because the item blends into the environment so much, or because the hotspot is so small. Almost the entire game is spent going back and forth between five suspects across four locations. That in itself is not an issue, but the conversations are short and repetitive, so you're never really learning anything that helps you solve individual puzzles or firmly eliminate suspects. To progress, you're forced to talk to two phone characters (also a reference to HeR's ND games), but with one small exception, those characters can't offer you any useful advice. In HeR games, I never really called Nancy's phone friends to get hints, but because they usually had their own silly adventures going on in the background, so it was a good way to have a laugh while thinking about what to do next. The way you advance in the game makes it feel like you have no control. If you run out of things to do and people to talk to, you kind of just have to wander around until you trigger an event. Since the to-do list is pretty vague and most people will not feel invested in the phone friends, you might just click around for a long time before you remember that you have to tell both your boss and work friend about nearly every conversation you have. I think the strongest part of the game was the sense I got of a larger story going on in the protagonist's life. It was interesting to start the game knowing that the MC had just been suspended from work for an unknown issue. However, you don't learn anything more about this later in the game. You just have an overall impression that she has made mistakes in the past because of her willingness to do whatever it takes to solve a case. There are little details that made me feel more connected to the character--like the text message chain with her mom--but I still felt like I was waiting to unlock some greater narrative. This is kind of how you end the game, too. You learn so little about the characters' voices and the central mysteries of the case. I don't mind a game having an ambiguous ending or choosing to withhold certain forms of closure from the player. But in this case, I didn't feel like I was being encouraged to speculate and think more deeply. Instead, I felt like the developer hadn't figured out the full story yet--and maybe also hadn't decided how dark they wanted the game to be. I would really like to see a more developed version of this game in the future--or another project that expands on this style. But in the meantime, I wouldn't recommend buying the game unless you're solely doing it to support a fellow fan of the HeR series. **Edited to fix some typos!**

It is exactly what it says it is. This is the classic Nancy Drew game vibe Her Interactive has abandoned. If you've never played them, be warned, you might find it a bit tedious talking to people over and over again to progress the game. That said, you can zip right through it as it is a point and click. You can talk to all the characters in less than a minute as most scene changes are instant. They mystery is a great start. It feels a tab bit more mature than the ND games and it flows pretty well I would say. I'm looking forward to seeing what the dev creates in the future and am pleased 3D Rendered Point and Click community is alive again. Also, I know I can't point to how clunky the old ND games were and ask you to cut this game some slack, but I am gonna anyway. You could genuinely softlock those early games simply because you talked to someone out of order. You also couldn't skip dialogue. EVER. And if you ever got stuck, you had to wait for someone to type out the walkthrough and post it to their site. You can't actually softlock yourself in this game, you just are missing something. You can skip through people yapping to your hearts content and their is a community to help you figure things out. Lastly, not every game has to be replayable. The original ND games were definitely not made with replayablity in mind. It's pretty hard for mysteries in general to keep you interested when the reveal is done. If you lived through the ND game, you will feel right at home. If you didn't and you still wanna play this, play it with a grain of salt. Pretend it is 2004, get a snack, pen and paper, and just have fun.

[h1][b] TLDR: Cozy setting and solid mystery, but dragged down by emotionless voice acting, bad graphics, clunky navigation, weak puzzles, and low replay value.[/b] [/h1] [h1]PROS: [/h1] ➕Pleasant setting [h1]NEUTRALS: [/h1] 🔹Mystery/narrative is good….but emotionless voice acting takes the “Oomph” out of it 🔹Achievements are a bit lazy - Do x thing y amount of times 🔹Minigames can be fun…but most of them are just repetitive and/or gimmicky [h1]CONS: [/h1] ➖Super low audio ➖Terrible graphics ➖Progression gated behind conversations and/or random items to inspect ➖Navigation is terrible ➖Emotionless writing/voice acting - lacks character [h1] [b] Content (Game world/Narrative) – [7/10] [/b] [/h1] The game world takes place at an inn in what seems to be the rural countryside. There is some decent exploration to be had, as I enjoyed the player interactivity between objects. Simple things like stuffed hamsters or 3D glasses can evoke a quip from Alex, while other things like food can be eaten or crossword puzzles can be solved. In addition to the interactivity, I found the vibe of the inn to be rather cozy and quaint. It’s a good game world. The narrative is good as well. You’re sent to the inn to unravel the mystery around ghost sightings. You end up discovering many potential suspects and red herrings to throw you off. The slight issue I have with the reveal is that (small spoilers)[spoiler]there wasn’t any real indication that this person was the culprit. Maybe it’s a byproduct of the game being so short that the characters weren’t given enough time to be fleshed out, but I was both surprised and disappointed in the reveal because it seemed obvious that the character who was the culprit was chosen because it would be the biggest impact to the “Gotcha!” mystery and not because they had a clear motive. [/spoiler] [h1][b] Gameplay (Mechanics/Difficulty) – [4/10] [/b] [/h1] I didn’t find the mechanics to be great here for two main reasons - movement and puzzle logic. You spend a lot of the time moving around the scenes of the world, and I found this to be cumbersome, perhaps intentionally as a homage to Nancy Drew (which I never played any). But there were some definite improvements that could be made, both in the movement and in the transition. I just wasn’t a fan of the “Warping” around. The puzzle logic is probably my bigger issue. My progress was gate kept a lot of the time because of some insignificant reason like talking to an NPC about something meaningless, or finding a random item. I was stuck at the beginning for a good hour because I missed turning a specific direction and inspecting a bookshelf to find a puzzle box, mind you no NPC or any clues were given about this puzzle box, it’s just at the start of the game, and I’m supposed to pick a random thing off the shelf that contains a very important item. Aside from the lackluster mechanics, the difficulty varies, it can be hard at time when you’re dealing with puzzles that you were given the answer to hours ago with no way of knowing that the hint was significant. And when the game did bash you over the head with obvious hints, and even a type of puzzle you’ve seen many times before, it felt needlessly difficult due to how the puzzle is presented visually (door puzzle at the end). [h1] [b] Graphics (Quality/Technical) – [2/10] [/b] [/h1] As a segue about puzzle difficulty due to visual presentation, the graphics there are terrible. It reminds me of Playstation 1 graphics when you have terrible static backgrounds and then nice looking cutscenes with movement. Again, perhaps an homage to Nancy Drew, but the graphics were terrible. The game ran fine, though I did have some issues with screen tearing, even with v-sync on. I didn’t notice any bugs. i9-13900KF | RTX 4090 | 64GB RAM | 1440p @ 240hz | Windows 11 installed on SSD [h1] [b] Audio – [4/10] [/b] [/h1] The music is okay, it can get repetitive, but still good. There is ample voice acting, and some of it is good, while other lines are obviously bad. I’d say it sounds like most of the characters just deliver lines devoid of emotion. Alex was a big one. When she remarks on items with funny banter, it's good, but when she’s conversing with another character, it sounds wooden. [h1] [b] Replay Factor (Longevity) – [2/10] [/b] [/h1] Very low replay value, this is a mystery game and no choices or diverging paths to take. The only reason to replay is achievements. [h1] [b] Final Verdict – [5/10] [/b] [/h1] Alex Hill: Whispers at White Oak Inn (WWOI) is a mystery point-and-click game that seems to be heavily inspired by Nancy Drew. I have never played a Nancy Drew game, so it's possible that many of what I consider shortcomings are there for a specific reason - to pay homage to ND. That being said, I’m approaching the game from the standpoint of someone that doesn’t have that history or nostalgic influence, and as such, WWOI is hard to recommend. To me, the strongest part of the game is the narrative and game world. I enjoyed the setting and the narrative, while not great, is good enough for a short detective game. Yes, the visuals are terrible, but I couldn’t help but feel a small, cozy vibe from the rural inn that reminded me a bit like Midsomer Murders. And while I did have that pleasant feeling, it’s hard to fully embrace since there is no real exploration, and you're stuck on-rails throughout the entire game. Overall, WWOI has some highs and lows that stick it right in the middle of average for me, and 5’s are generally hard to recommend or not. In the end, I’m going to say no because the mechanics, graphics, emotionless voice acting, and low replay value sour an otherwise decent experience. I would only recommend this if you are hungering for a Nancy Drew game. [h1] [b] Recommend? (Price) [Y/N] [/b] [/h1] [h1]No[/h1] Base price of $20 should only be considered if you want to support the devs. Otherwise, the low replay value and short content are not worth that price. Even the historical low of $15 is a stretch. Under $10 is much more fair. You can find my curator page here: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Synik_GR

As a Nancy Drew fan I really wanted to like this game, but I'm so frustrated with the gameplay I can't even finish it. I'm just running around with empty inventory and no dialogue options. The game's not optimized for the level of graphics that it has, compiling shaders before gameplay is ridiculous (and still my laptop is trying to launch itself into space after). A lot more resource-intense games don't do that. As for the gameplay - the graphics are mid, the voiceover could be better, but the things that annoyed me the most are the amount of things placed there for no reason (objects you can inspect closer that leads to nothing), navigation and directions. For example, I played the first time and spoke to a character, who told me to speak to A, B and C. I save the game, exit and don't play it for a while, then when I open the game again I see on my task list 'you need to speak to suspects' but it doesn't list the said suspects and I don't remember who they are, so I'm running around trying to talk to everyone, but no one has dialogue options. Also, I find a bike that needs fixing. I can't start fixing it before I talk to a guy, who asks me to fix it. Then I go to the boat&bike shop, which SURELY has everything needed to fix the bike (and the boat that also needs fixing) but NO, for some reason the game makes me run around again looking under every bush to find a bike pump (and no indication in the dialogue as to why they don't have a bike pump and that I need to look for it elsewhere). If you need to collect more than 1 item to do something, a nice example of subtle navigation would be to have MC say 'I still need a bike pump, I can ask around / look around for it' instead of them just say 'It won't work'. Also every time I think something would work through game logic (like going to the bike/boat shop to fix the said bike/boat, using a magnet to unlock a magnetic lock, using a hole patcher slime to patch the boat, etc) it doesn't work. That's just extremely frustrating. As I've said, I would love to support the games like old-style ND but with the current level of development I don't think it's worth the money.

progression is locked behind just re-talking to all characters you've met so far, which is just not engaging gameplay

This felt like 80% dialogue, 20% tasks. Very talking heavy, and frustrating when I knew what to do but hadn't triggered the ability to do it. I like this format, though. I hope Alex Hill can get to classic Nancy Drew level.

If you liked the old-school Nancy Drew games, you'll enjoy this!

A short puzzle game that reminds me of the adventure games from earlier PC days. The story isn't anything new, but if you're like me and you like a good mystery involving ghosts then you'll enjoy it. I will say I had to use the official guide to get me through a couple puzzles, and the guide has a sorting puzzle wrong (Instead of another bike helmet, they've seemed to replace it with a drawstring bag? At least in my game). The arthritis mode is pretty cool, I haven't seen a mode like that and I'm sure it would help those with it.

Wow wow wow wow wow wow wow Perfect balance of puzzles and story. Loved being able to discover additional locations later in the game. Good range of characters with well-developed backstories. The storyline also had a good progression spanning multiple days. This game was everything I had hoped for. Thank you Hannahontrek! I did need a hint a few times so it would have been nice to have a hint system integrated with the tasklist or a notepad that would update automatically whenever important information was discovered, but it wasn't necessary as there is a walkthrough on the website if you do get stuck. Good mystery. Good culprit. I really don't have much in terms of feedback. I know the characters were a bit clunky at times, but it is only the first game, and it didn't affect the gameplay at all. I'm sure that aspect will only improve as time goes on. Looking forward to The Body at Clearwater Bay!