Alex Hill: Whispers at White Oak Inn

Oof. This is rough. It very obvious that many of the high reviews are from fans of HER Interactive's old limited point-and-click Nancy Drew games, whose eagerness for something new made them see this with rose-coloured glasses. I am also a fan of those, which is how I heard about this game. I was looking forward to this. I wanted to support it. I wanted to like it. I'm delighted that Nancy fans are trying to create a similar product for fellow fans. But I can't lie and say this is a decent game. It's not even close to on par with the oldest Nancy games, which had their own issues with controls and soft locking. The difference is, those still are delightfully entertaining. This one has very few puzzles and tasks, and those that are are very simple for the most part. They took me 20 seconds to 2 minutes, except for a puzzle at the end which gave you zero direction on what the end goal is so it's all annoying guesswork (or looking up the answer). I wouldn't necessarily mind the simpler tasks and like that they make sense in context of the story (The Final Scene is my favourite Nancy game, for comparison and I don't like ridiculously hard puzzles or too quick time frames that aren't accessible) but you need to be engaging in other ways. The Alex Hill characters are dull. They aren't physically expressive and are kind of a Titanic: Adventure Out of Time-esque. The voice acting is mostly bland and unexpressive also - including Alex. The characters are just boring. And 95% of what you do is talking to people and calling them and then doing it all over again, so you must have interesting characters. There is nothing to keep me caring about the story or the people. The dialogue is also hard to read with the white words and black outline, and sometimes the screen is so dark that even with the brightness at 100% and looking up where I am supposed to be clicking, I couldn't always see it. The ending is also unsatisfactory as it doesn't entirely wrap up. This game was just not ready and is not worth spending more than $5 on, and even then I'm not sure it's worth it. But I do hope the creator willl take the feedback and use it to improve their next game.

Great little game. It took me about 15 hours to play, with some minor cheats. The love the small team of developers put into this game is obvious. Very reminiscent of the original HeR Nancy Drew games. Definitely worth a play!

This was a great little game, and I look forward to seeing what will become of the series as the dev refines their style and has more resources. It definitely has OG Nancy Drew game vibes! Most of the puzzles were well-balanced, although there was one visual puzzle at the end that was absolutely brutal for me. It worked way better than expected out of the box on Deck for an indie point and click. It did crash twice during dialogue scenes, but if you save often, it’s totally playable. Bless skippable dialogue. I only needed the on-screen keyboard for two password tasks.

Overall, I had a fun time playing the game! It's perfect for Nancy Drew lovers. I see a lot of potential and hope for another game, but when playing, it feels like it's an indie artist's first game and it could use some refinement in the future. Pros: good overall storyline and characters, moments of humor and charm, the Nancy Drew easter eggs, and loved that you can actually SKIP dialogue to speed up conversations! Cons: A couple of things are unecessarily difficult such as having to talk to one last person to progress, having to resolve puzzles to re-enter a room was annoying, and sometimes you have to click on a very specific, small thing that was hard to see that can easily make you stuck and frustrated when you realize what it was. One time, you're literally stuck with nothing else to do and you have to go back to your room to find a note -- I definitely like a prompt from Alex to go to bed and rest was needed there. Second thing, there was an annoying bug. Every time I saved, it failed to load correctly. I had everything in my inventory from last time, but nothing on my to do list and the game behaved as if it was the start of the game. I had to load the last autosave instead. If this happens to you, try something that prompts a "second chance" so that there's an autosave before you quit - never got to test the theory but that might work until it gets fixed.

I can't really speak to the gameplay or story line because the game won't even open.

This game was a fun time and reminded me of the Point and Click Nancy Drew games I grew up loving. This is a solid first entry for a small studio, and I hope this is a great launching point for improvements in later games: primarily with puzzles, game length, and direction. I needed a guide to help navigate what needed to happen and when quite a bit. Most of the puzzles were of the chore variety, which made me wish there was more of a balance between them and the puzzles directly related to the mystery itself. My biggest issue with this game was not quite knowing who it's intended for (some of the puzzles and minigames felt on the mark for a younger audience while others were considerable more difficult, plus [spoiler]a character's dead body is discovered by Alex[/spoiler] which seems like a significant tone shift) but I am hopeful this is something that will be honed as the series continues. I look forward to see what is next for hannahontrek and Alex Hill!

scratches the nancy drew itch!

Had a lot of fun!

Perfect 10/10.

Very promising start to what I hope will be a series of Alex Hill games.