Complete Ranking List from Worst-to-Best

In case you missed parts of my daily ranking list of the Nancy Drew games, There’s the complete order of the games from “worst” to best.

Click on the hyperlinked title of each game for the reasoning behind its placement (trust me, I’ve provided plenty of information about each game in its post). As I’ve said again and again, none of these games are completely “bad.”

32. “Labyrinth of Lies”
31. “Secrets Can Kill”
30. “Tomb of the Lost Queen”
29. “The White Wolf of Icicle Creek”
28. “Secret of the Old Clock”
27. “The Creature of Kapu Cave”
26. “The Shattered Medallion”
25. “Trail of the Twister”
24. “Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake”
23. “Message in a Haunted Mansion”
22. “Danger by Design”
21. “Legend of the Crystal Skull”
20. “The Silent Spy”
19. “The Captive Curse”
18. “Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon”
17. “Sea of Darkness”
16. “The Haunting of Castle Malloy”
15. “Ransom of the Seven Ships”
14. “Secret of the Scarlet Hand”
13. “The Deadly Device”
12. “Ghost of Thornton Hall”
11. “Warnings at Waverly Academy”
10. “Shadow at the Water’s Edge”
9. “Curse of Blackmoor Manor”
8. “The Secret of Shadow Ranch”
7. “The Haunted Carousel”
6. “Treasure in the Royal Tower”
5. “The Final Scene”
4. “Danger on Deception Island”
3. “The Phantom of Venice”
2. “Stay Tuned for Danger”
1. “Alibi in Ashes”

Thank you all for reading my ranking list! Do you agree or disagree with any of my choices? Please let me know! I’d love to hear your opinions.

Be sure and share this post with your sleuthy friends to see how well their tastes match mine! Also, if you have any thoughts as to what you want to see from this blog, let me know, please!

18 Comments

  1. Very cool list! I’ve only played about half of them (mostly the early games), so I don’t really have the right to rank them all, but I’ve always adored The Curse of Blackmoor Manor and Secret of the Scarlet Hand. I like the ones where I feel like I’ve learned something, even if it’s just useless trivia, haha. I’m interested in trying out Alibi in Ashes now, though!

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  2. This is so interesting, our lists are so different. For me my two least favorites are Danger on Deception Island and The Haunted Carousel (back when it was first released I had problems figuring it out, so I stopped and went back to it a few years later). My favorites are Ghost of Thornton Hall and Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake (that forest scared me as a child, and I loved the speakeasy. I played it multiple times), with Secret of Shadow Ranch and Shadow at Water’s Edge close behind.

    It’s sad though, because some of these I haven’t played since their release and I completely forgot what they’re about (Haunting of Castle Malloy, Ransom of the Seven Ships, and The Phantom of Venice specifically).

    But Loulou will always be my favorite character =)

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  3. I’ve played all of them except for “Stay Tuned for Danger” because I couldn’t find it. I’ll probably have to download it.
    It’s interesting, because my list would be quite different! My favorit ones are the scariest ones along with Treasure in the Royal Tower since it was the first one I’ve ever played 😀 I’m from Brazil so I only started playing the games a few years ago when I traveled to the US and I simply fell in live with them. Who wouldn’t, right??

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    • It’s virtually impossible not to become obsessed with these games! I highly recommend that you either download “Stay Tuned for Danger” or buy it online somewhere. (The duo pack with “Message in a Haunted Mansion is new,and works better with newer computers than the original disk!). Thanks for reading!

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  4. Having played all of these games as well, I thought I’d share my own ranking with you. 🙂 Some are pretty similarly ranked, some vary because of personal opinion and sentimental attachment, haha. Also, I didn’t include the Dossier series, but I honestly really enjoyed those – they were low-key mysteries and totally different than the main games.

    32. Secrets Can Kill
    31. Labyrinth of Lies
    30. Tomb of the Lost Queen
    29. The Shattered Medallion
    28. Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake
    27. Secret of the Old Clock
    26. The Creature of Kapu Cave
    25. Stay Tuned for Danger
    24. Trail of the Twister
    23. Message in a Haunted Mansion
    22. The White Wolf of Icicle Creek
    21. Danger by Design
    20. The Captive Curse
    19. The Silent Spy
    18. The Haunted Carousel
    17. The Haunting of Castle Malloy
    16. Ransom of the Seven Ships
    15. Secret of the Scarlet Hand
    14. The Deadly Device
    13. Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon
    12. Sea of Darkness
    11. Secrets of Shadow Ranch
    10. The Final Scene
    9. Curse of Blackmoor Manor
    8. Treasure in the Royal Tower
    7. The Phantom of Venice
    6. Warnings at Waverly Academy
    5. Danger on Deception Island
    4. Alibi in Ashes
    3. Legend of the Crystal Skull
    2. Shadow at the Water’s Edge (I loved the puzzles. I still play nonograms online because of this game…)
    1. Ghost of Thornton Hall

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  6. I am just starting these games. I did Ghost of Thornton Hall on my iPad which is how I found out these exist! It was sooo fun–I’ve done it several times! I read all the ND books as a young girl and now my dd is hooked! We play these games together now..we got a set of 4 games on one disc and are currently doing Legend of the Crystal Skull.
    So far, I prefer iPad, but since there seems to only be the one (Thornton Hall–correct me if I’m wrong), we are enjoying the PC games and will certainly buy more!

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  7. From Best to Worst:

    Message in a Haunted Mansion
    Warnings at Waverly Academy
    Shadow at the Water’s Edge
    Phantom of Venice
    Secret of the Old Clock
    Treasure in the Royal Tower
    Secret of Shadow Ranch
    Last Train to Blue Moon Canyon
    Curse of Blackmoor Manor
    Stay Tuned For Danger
    Ghost of Thornton Hall
    Secret of the Scarlet Hand
    The Final Scene
    Danger by Design
    Legend of the Crystal Skull
    Danger on Deception Island

    Ransom of the Seven Ships

    White Wolf of Icicle Creek
    Haunting of Malloy Castle
    Sea of Darkness
    The Captive Curse
    The Silent Spy
    Ghost Dogs of Moon Lake
    Alibi in Ashes
    Tomb of the Lost Queen
    The Shattered Medallion
    The Deadly Device
    Labyrinth of Lies
    Secrets Can Kill Remastered
    The Haunted Carousel
    Trail of the Twister
    Creature of Kapu Cave
    Secrets Can Kill

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  8. The Haunted Carousel is an oddly over-rated game. The idea of a theme park game is nice, but the actual game is heavily flawed.

    For one thing, there’s not enough story for a game (they try to pad it out with the totally irrelevant Miles subplot, but it still comes up short. It’s small (they tried to pad it with a roller coaster that’s only used in one puzzle, but it still comes up small). And it feels very cramped and claustrophic. An amusement park should give you a big open feeling, but the map is small, all the locations seem to be indoors, and there’s only a very crude map to show movement from place to place. So, it seems as though they were aware of all the problems, and tried to fix them, but the game still suffers from them.

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  9. im not going to list them all but I will give you my top 5 and bottom 5……and granted like any true ND fan it does change from time to time 🙂
    Top 5 in no particular order drum roll \o/ (my victory guy)
    Venice, Captive Curse, Ghost Dogs, White Wolf, Waters Edge
    Least fave 5 no order–
    SCK, Haunted Carousel, Royal Tower, The final Scene, Silent Spy

    Honourable Mentions (sooo good mmmm)

    Alibi in Ashes, Warnings at Waverly, Shadow Ranch, Danger by Design and Castle Malloy

    thanks! good chat

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