Nancy Drew: Shadow at the Water's Edge

Shadow at the Water's Edge is the twenty-third game in the Nancy Drew Adventure series and the third game to release in 2010.

Available on: Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10. OS X 10.5.8 Leopard/10.6.6 Snow Leopard/10.7 Lion/10.8 Mountain Lion or higher but will not run on Mojave or Catalina.
ESRB: E10+ for Everyone 10+
PC/Mac Release Date: October 19, 2010
Release MSRP: $19.99 USD
Current MSRP: $19.99 USD
Number of Discs: 2
Game Acronym: SAW
Game Color Code: EF3F42

Game Description: Confront Terrifying Secrets in a Haunted Japanese Inn!
Traditional Japanese family ryokans (inns) are charming places, but a vengeful ghost is terrifying you and other unsuspecting guests. Is there a shadowy specter haunting the placid inn or is something far more sinister driving away business?
PC System Requirements: 1 GHz or greater Pentium or equivalent class CPU. 256 MB of RAM. 1GB or more of hard drive space. 32MB DirectX 9.0 compatible graphics video card. 16-bit DirectX compatible sound card. 24x CD-ROM drive. Mouse and Speakers.
Mac System Requirements: Intel processor. 512 MB RAM. 1.1 GB or more hard drive space. Intel GMA 950, ATI X1600, NVIDIA 7300 graphics card or better. Keyboard and mouse. Internet connection the first time the game is launched. This game will not run on PowerPC (G3/G4/G5) based Mac systems (PowerMac). This game will not run on Mojave or Catalina.

Fun Facts:

This is considered by many to be the scariest Nancy Drew game to date.
If you pre-ordered this game from HeR Interactive starting September 20th, 2010, you would receive the Special Edition of the game which featured the same sticker on the case as was used for Trail of the Twister.
When you try and take Nancy's picture in this game, the camera malfunctions taking a blurry picture of Nancy.
HeR Interactive wrote a mini-blog for Yumi as a promotional item leading up to the game's release. Check out the blog here: http://yumi-shimizu.blogspot.com/
HeR hints at the next game in the series (The Captive Curse) by having the first guest that checks out of the Ryokan be German.
If you replace the last four numbers of Savannah's phone number with letters, it spells out 555-GHST which stands for ghost. Since she's a ghost hunter, it works perfectly.
The guest logs on Miwako's computer feature multiple characters from past and future games who stayed as guests at the Ryokan Hiei. Some of the guests are [Sonny] Joon, [John] Grey, [Chief] McGinnis, [Simone] Mueller, [Elliot] Chen, [Hal] Tanaka, [Maya] Nguyen, and [Helena] Berg.
Yumi has a doll on her shelf that is similar to the one in the general store from Secret of the Old Clock.
This was the final game to use two discs.
This was the first game to include phone charms.
Savannah foreshadows The Captive Curse when Nancy asks her what the scariest place was that she did ghost hunting at. Savannah said it was at a German castle.

Walkthrough

You can watch the full video walkthrough for Nancy Drew: Shadow at the Water's Edge on YouTube!

Ghost Hunter Microsite

As a promo for the game, HeR Interactive created a microsite that acted as an advertisement website for John Grey's Paranormal Tours. You can read up about ghost hunting, ghosts and superstitions, get a tour of the Ryokan Hiei, read an interview of Savannah Woodham as interviewed by John Grey, read about John Grey, and earn a ghost hunter certification. Nancy Drew fan GirlDetective.org remade the microsite as a public website that can be viewed again just as it was originally released.
Check out the site here: https://saw.girldetective.org/index.html

Image Gallery

Characters

Miwako Shimizu

Miwako takes the ryokan very seriously and helps out by running the front desk and virtually everything else. But as the youngest daughter, she, according to tradition, can’t inherit the inn. Is the ghost just a ploy she’s using to help subvert an ancestral custom?

Yumi Shimizu

As the first daughter, Yumi is the rightful heir to the ryokan. She’s chosen to forego this responsibility for a fast-paced city life, much to the disapproval of her family. Are the hauntings merely a scheme to close down the ryokan and prevent her from having to leave her urban lifestyle?

Rentaro Aihara

As a loveable goofball, Rentaro spends most of his time in his shed building or tinkering with the latest technology. That is, when he’s not doting on his girlfriend, Miwako. He dreams of moving with Miwako to the city. A few staged scares could help convince her, but would this quirky technophile destroy a family and their business in the name of love?

Takae Nagai

Having grown up and lived in the ryokan her whole life, Takae has seen many things happen there, including the accidental death of her daughter. Still, she insists on following tradition, even if it’s against both of her granddaughter’s wishes. As an expert on Japanese culture, is she using the Yurei legend to help get her way?

Awards

Parents’ Choice 2011 Gold Award, Best Software, ages 10 & Up