Examining Culprit Means and Opportunity in the Nancy Drew PC Game Series!!
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- Опубліковано 12 кві 2022
- Enjoy this Nancy Drew analysis video where we discuss the means and opportunities of suspects within the Nancy Drew PC series! Like, comment, subscribe, and hit that notification bell for more Nancy Drew and Sims 4 content!
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I've been binge-watching your videos for the past few days and I just wanted to say how grateful I am for your channel! I'm a long-time Nancy Drew fan and own every game, have for several years. Of course, after Sea of Darkness, there were no more new games for me to play, and I had already replayed the previous games many times. So my love for the series inevitably drifted away (Midnight in Salem didn't help). But now that I've found your channel it has been reignited! I'm so excited to be playing the games I treasure again, and it's all thanks to your in-depth, intelligent, and perfectly written analysis'! Thank you so much for giving the gift of Nancy Drew back into my life ♥
That is so wonderful to hear!! I am so glad you've been enjoying the content!!
Honestly, the primary reason why these games don't focus on Means or Opportunity is because of how small the casts traditionally are. In most mystery novels, the cast is approximately 8-12 people at the bare minimum. As such, the means/opportunity act as a primary source of information to reduce the potential pool of suspects to a more Moderate or reasonable number. ND games though typically have 4-6 characters at most. Thus, if you tried applying the means/opportunity approach to these mysteries, 9/10 you would find your culprit without fail because realistically only 1 or 2 people won't have an actual alibi for the crime. Case in point with this Spoiler Culprit Reveal:
Moira Chisham from The Silent Spy is a perfect example of how these two elements can ruin a mystery's premise. By default, she is the only character who is old enough and related to the death of Kate Drew besides Carson himself to have any bearing on the mystery. As such, it wouldn't make sense for anyone else to be responsible out of the remaining cast members (Zoe looks around Nancy's age, Ewan is a millennial, and Alec looks around 30 years old). This ruins the entire mystery surrounding Kate's death because there can only be one person responsible in-game for her death without doing the whole Mitch Dillian thing again. This is a problem because it reduces the player's atonomy to solve the case as it technically is already solved. There's no reason to disbelieve Moira's words because she's literally the only person it could be by default. Likewise, it also limited the potential for the other culprit because her being the first culprit makes her more likely to be the main culprit of the game due to the fact that she's already guaranteed to be responsible for 1 crime. Why wouldn't she be responsible for both then? If you do the math, the likelihood of her being the culprit of both crimes is a whopping 62.5%, which is probably why they swapped her out for someone with lower odds to fix that problem (cough Ewan cough cough).
But yeah, the primary problem is that there's simply not enough characters to make means or opportunity relevant to the mystery without ruining the investigation part of said mystery. Hence why it focuses primarily on motive which opens up new avenues and possibilities for who could have done it. Motive is a great way to increase the suspect list naturally which makes it a much more popular and viable solution to the ND dilemma. How to make characters seem suspicious and capable of a crime without outright eliminating from the pool by default.
An excellent point! The small casts probably do play a role in that!
I’m sure I’ve said it before, but it definitely bears repeating! I so appreciate the care you pour into each and every analysis video! Your attention to detail really makes it evident how much love you have for this series! I love hearing your unique perspectives and admire your ability to dissect each piece! Always enjoyable and fascinating!!
Thank you so so much!! That is so kind of you to say!!
i swear the nancy drew games give me such terrible anxiety because they basically force you to invade people's most private, personal spaces (like bedrooms) and poke all around in order to progress, which always makes me feel bad in real life - because it used to be done to me and made me feel horrible. I think part of it is how nancy doesnt show an ounce of concern about what she's doing? but then, maybe that's SUPPOSED to be what happens - it's written to make you feel uncomfortable, without requiring nancy to spell it out for you?
Yeah, Nancy truly is a relentless snooper! I totally get where you're coming from!