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Nancy's visit to Paris hits both new highs and lows
Date of Review: Mar 17, 2007
The Bottom Line: Strong educational elements and the chance to explore Paris make this one a winner, if you can forgive the terrible ending.
"Danger by Design" marks Nancy's fourteenth adventure from Her Interactive. This time around, Nancy finds herself in the City of Light (and love), Paris, investigating the mysterious, moody plus-size clothing designer Minette. Minette is exotic to say the least: she throws massive temper tantrums, fires assistants left and right, and lately she's been wearing a mysterious, Phantom-of-the-Opera-like mask.
Nancy arrives at Minette's design studio in an old windmill ("Moulin" in French) as her new intern, and receives anything but a warm greeting after losing her luggage. Minette's assistant Heather McKay shows Nancy the ropes instead. Nancy is staying with Jing Jing Ling, a plus-size model, at her luxurious apartment.
As usual, strange going-ons signal a new mystery for Nancy to solve. Danger By Design is based on the historical German occupation of Paris during WWII, including the French Resistance, so the educational element is high here. Nancy follows the trail of one Noisette Tournade, former owner of Minette's windmill and French Resistance heroine. Along the way, she meets a colourful cast of characters from the world of high fashion: Hugo Butterly, Minette's rival; Jean-Michel Traquenard, fashion editor for GlamGlam; and Dieter von Swesterkrank, fashion photographer extraordinaire.
The game does recycle tired puzzles from former ND games, including ever-present sliders, clock puzzles, and "build the food" combinations, but manages to create fresh puzzling experiences using an M380 decoder based on the WWII Enigma machine. The puzzles in Danger by Design are more difficult than those in the last few ND games.
New elements include a daring underwater exploration of Paris's catacombs, navigating Paris's metro system, and Nancy speaking (and reading) some French. Unfortunately, Her Interactive chose not to include famous landmarks such as the Eiffel Tower and Sacre Coeur, even though they are shown on the map.
Some attempts were not as successful. The game seems to be sending a mixed message with Jing Jing, a plus-size model who's forced to constantly bake and eat cookies in order to gain the three pounds needed to be a perfect size 12. Add the fact that she's a pathological liar, and she's not the best role model. Also, the game involves one puzzle focused on a bottle of rare wine, even though it's referred to as a "beverage."
Voice acting is consistently above average. The German and French accents were heavy-handed and overdone. Background music was unobtrusive: the occasional lilting accordion breezing in and out, and excellent ambient sounds. Visuals were colourful and detailed, although some of the character modeling looked awkward (Jean-Mi's face seemed to slide into his chest like molten wax, and the veiled woman in the park seemed off).
The lowest point was the ending. I sat there in shock at the absurdity of the ending (think Rocky and Bullwinkle), and lameness of the final confrontation. After such an excellent setup, I expected far more. The game's ending is as weak as Blue Moon Canyon, which also felt hasty and inadequate. However, Danger By Design still has many redeeming features to recommend it, and is educational to boot.
