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Interview with Creators of the original Secrets Can Kill game

It's honestly a very interesting interview about the early days of HI and it includes some foreshadowing to Alibi in Ashes, Tomb of the Lost Queen, and Labyrinth of Lies. (There was also a mention of possibly remastering Message in a Haunted Mansion! Although that likely wasn't in development.)

The following is a transcript from a video titled, Interview with Creators of the original Secrets Can Kill game | Nancy Drew Games | HeR Interactive. Published Aug 20, 2010. It was created in promotion for Secrets Can Kill Remastered, as seen in the video description:

"We interview Megan, Kris, Robert, and Tim about their experiences making the original version of Nancy Drew: Secrets Can Kill from 12 years ago! They share funny stories and give a few little known clues about the game. It's a look back at how far Her Interactive has come and where it's going with the upcoming release of Nancy Drew: Secrets Can Kill REMASTERED (PC/Mac, available on August 24)."

Interviewer: Hello, so we are here today, with four of the original people who worked on the very first Secrets Can Kill game:

Megan, our CEO, what were you back when we made Secrets Can Kill?

Megan: I was the Creative Director when I got hired in 1997, and then Robert was…

Robert: The Program Manager. I had been recruited from the accounting department in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

Kris: I’m Kris, I was hired as a 2D artist and I came in to work with Tim…

Tim: who was also a contract artist and then, I kind of took over the 3D part at the very tail end of the project.

Interviewer: Did you know anything about creating games when you first started on Secrets Kill?

Robert: I did a little. I made games when I was a kid. When I got my first computer, all I did was make games for it, especially adventure-type of text-based games, so I knew just a little, but definitely not enough. I was really surprised and overwhelmed by the amount of work that it took to make a computer game.

Kris: I used to do computer day camps with my father who taught us to to program to program games in BASIC. But beyond, that no.

Tim: Oh I played a lot of computer games, but mainly board games was my big thing. I had a little board gaming group that would just play tons of a lot of German board games. And I think that helped because a lot of those mechanics and bargains translate over into, you know, mini games and puzzles and stuff. So that was fun, but I had no design experience or [anything] at that point.

Interviewer: So what is the biggest challenge that you guys had to face when you were making Secrets Can Kill?

Megan: Well, first, we were a new team and half the team was in Albuquerque. Then it shifted and I guess everyone moved to Bellevue by the end of the game, really, we were all learning how to work as a team and to kind of create this game around Nancy Drew. So communication I think was probably the hardest.

Robert: yeah, because there there was a lot of assets, but not a lot of documentation to go with.

Megan: No documentation.

Robert: Yeah, I remember you, you brought down your, the art director at that time, Laura Henion, to Albuquerque so we could all meet.

Tim: I think the hardest part was just finishing it. It went really long, much longer than we have [now]. I mean, we got it down to a science now.

I remember [that] I would take my work home. [I would] then get up at like 3:00 in the morning and start another render on the computer, then go back to bed and get up another half hour and check it and make some tweaks and keep running. I was doing that almost every night it seems for a while there just to get it done.

Kris: That's really true. There were three of us in the art department at that time- counting Laura the art director. So it was a big push at the end to get work finished. That was a challenge.

Megan: I think you know, communication was the biggest challenge, but the good part was that everybody was so excited and enthusiastic and passionate. It didn't seem to matter what obstacle came up, because we just figured out a way to overcome it. So there's a lot of trial and error in the first game.

Interviewer: What is something funny or memorable that you remember from the process when you made that first game?

Robert: So remember we just had a recorder, a voice recorder. So we thought, let's make silly, silly voicemail messages when you would call different places like Maxines or Aunt Eloise. So we all gathered around the microphone and and just add libbed and it was really funny.

Tim: When I was just basically just kind of an art assitant and helping Laura, the art director, and I just came in and sat down and started doing some work and I heard some rough rustling going on. What's going on? And I looked behind me and Glenn, who was our contract 3D artist at the time (three years at the time) came out of a sleeping bag from underneath his desk.

Interviewer: Kris, do you have any memories?

Kris: I remember the marketing at the end. When we finished the game, Megan gave me a huge stack of cell sheets to take with me to spread around town. And I remember I was going to visit my family back east, so I was supposed to take them across the country and spread them around.

And so there was really some guerrilla marketing that went on at that point.

Interviewer: Come a long way for sure. Say, what do you think of the original Secrets Can Kill now that's been 12 years since you've made it?

Robert: It's always, it was, it's very, it was very surprising to replay it when we're when we're looking at it to remaster Master. I mean, it's just it's so much more different. It was shorter. The storyline wasn’t as as intricate as our current ones. The puzzles were pretty primitive and I think there was only like. I don't know, like 7 inventory objects. Now we have at least 30.

Tim: We also kind of approach it little differently. It was I think the only game where we hid these hidden messages all throughout the game that had really. That we're really outside of Nancy's world and universe. It was just like like the designer hitting hiding messages in there maybe about the game.

But it was, you know, if you look at different book spine titles in the library, you could actually, spell out a sentence or something that that might say something, mysterious.

Megan: Meaningful? Tim: But it was like, if you were actually a player in the world, you’d be like, “where did that come from?” So we kind of changed our design tactic on that later on, but that was the one game where we did kind of funny things like that.

Kris: A player wouldn’t notice, but a lot of the articles were written by our family members. Or you know, some of the photos in the game, like for example, in the student dome where Hal Tanaka sits, there's the bulletin board for student of the Month.

Tim: That's where Connie was at.

Kris: Oh, it’s where Connie is. And so that's, you know, pictures of ourselves and our friends and family.

Interviewer: What kind of other things did you put in there that you don't think our fans would necessarily have picked up on playing through the games that you guys hid in there?

Robert: Ohh, I remember in the opening cinematic Darrell does that, [pulls his ear] which is an old Carol Burnett move to say “hi Mom!”.

Tim: My son Sam is in the teacher's lounge, he’s in a photo, and he was like a year or two years old and now he's like a grown man, you know, it feels like (he's like 13 now).

Megan: So I can't remember if that's the one my nieces were in, but when I told them [that they were in a game] they said, “do we talk when you press on us?” And I said “no, maybe in the next game.”

So what was really neat was when we got together with girls to have them play games at that time to see what they thought about Nancy Drew and games in general.

And girls didn't really play games back then. And so their feedback actually helped us to improve on existing gameplay rather than just perpetuate stereotypes.

They would say, when they're playing a shooter, “you know, we don't mind shooting, however, we prefer a reason before we shoot. Like if they were beating up my little sister, I'd be all over them.” So they really helped us with their input in terms of making the games, that that they wanted.

Interviewer: What are some of the changes that you think have made the biggest impact in the newer games versus the original one?

Tim: I think the design, the tighter design, kind of the overarching puzzle that is woven into the game is very compelling and interesting to follow for this new game. I think.

The old game was much more open and just kind of, I mean, you could explore, but. There was a little bit more wandering and trying to piece together what was going on. This one, it's just more cleverly put together. Also the graphics. I think make a big difference with the new lighting and just a little bit updated the 3D characters definitely is a huge difference.

Robert: Something the players won’t notice is that we now use Lua rather than our proprietary scripting language. It was horrendous. Very 20th century, so even though that doesn't affect the players, it really affected us and made it much more easy to put the the games together.

Kris: I feel really nostalgic playing this game going back but as far as the fun factor is concerned, I really liked that the arcade-style mini-games are now included

Interviewer: Barnacle Blast!

Kris: Yeah.

Megan: I remember when we were on our first or second game people would say so what are you gonna do after that i mean nobody's gonna play a third Nancy Drew game.

Interviewer: Did you imagine that you guys would be still making these games 23 games later?

Everyone: No [visibly shaking heads]

Tim: It’s pretty incredible just to think about. Every once in a while I’ll just pull up the codes and stuff because I can’t keep track of which games are in what order anymore. I’ll just look through this list and think “I’ve been here for all of these.” It’s crazy. I mean, it’s something I’m really prud of, that we’ve been able to last that long and create just this wonderful collection.

Megan: I think there’s just the team that you know, that we had all these years. Everyone is so talented and creative. There’s this creative collaboration from the beginning where everybody feels comfortable to add their ideas to the mix.

Robert: The sky’s the limit for Nancy Drew. There’s so many stories you can tell, so many places you can go, so many people you can meet. It’s fun reinventing Nancy Drew for other platforms as well.

Tim: We get feedback all the time from players who are like “I really wanna see Nancy go to Egypt or to Greece” and we

Megan: We’re all storytellers. We all come from very different backgrounds. Math, architecture, film, art, but we all love to tell a story. And in these Nancy Drew games, there’s a weave of fact and fiction. And it’s a lot of meaningful content. Historical references and characters, cultural discovery, you learn about the folklore. You learn, but you’re having so much fun you don’t even realize.

Interviewer: What mystery would you like to see Nancy Drew solve in the future now that we’re talking about how the sky’s the limit? Robert: I actually liked going back to Secrets Can Kill. And I kind of wanna do some retro stuff. So I wouldn't mind going back to like Haunted Mansion and maybe something was left unfound.

Kris: I might like to see Nancy go to Thailand so we could showcase the architecture of Thailand.

Tim: So many great characters. some of these secondary characters that you never see like Krolmeister and Sonny Joon and all these people that have kind of built up this universe. It's it's great to be able to go back and and draw from some of that and create more content from that.

Megan: Traveling just to different countries. I think that's so interesting. Egypt would be fascinating.

Robert: I think it'd be also fun to take her back home. You know, we we haven't explored River Heights and there's just so much there too and this just wide geography of River Heights. It would be fun to look at.

Interviewer: Do you guys have anything else that you'd like our fans to know about the new version of Secrets Can Kill Remastered?

Robert: There's clues everywhere so…

[laughter from everyone]

Megan: What made you give that away!

Interviewer: We hope to see a lot more games from you guys. Megan & the others: thank you, Thank you! We hope you enjoyed this.

#clue crew

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