J.J Thompson Dear Mr. Houdini: Congratulations on your latest unbelievable feat! Never have I seen the crowd at the Royal Palladium so enthralled by a performer. Stupendous! Honestly, I was assured that the “Watery Grave” was inescapable, even for a master such as yourself. Really, if I’d had any notions of risking my money, I might not have offered so grandiose a reward. After all, what made is made of money? Is that right, Mr. Houdini?
My point is—well, I must admit that I cash flow is a little tight at the moment. More specifically, I do not have the $50,000 available to give you at this time. The theater is young (but bound for glory, I’m sure you’ll agree!) and my bank account is still recovering from the building expense. I’m sure you understand, sir. However! This letter is an announcement of golden opportunity, Mr. Houdini, not one of gloomy regret. In lieu of cash (and in accordance with my lawyer’s counsel), I am prepared to offer you a reward far more valuable than cash!
Louisa Falcone My grandma, Louisa Falcone, designed the molds for all the insane plasterwork that you see in this lobby and in the auditorium. … But there’s more. I guess the architect-owner guy J.J. Thompson ran out of cash before the building was done. He never paid my grandma dime one, and then denied that she had ever done the work in the first place! She was the artist type, not a deal-maker. I guess she’d never signed any contractual stuff with J.J. and she didn’t have the resources to sue him, or any of that. So I guess she just had to let it go.
Eustacia Andropov Harry was only my cousin by marriage, but my husband is dead and so is Harry, so I guess that makes me nobody’s cousin. … Harry made a plan to give his half of the theater to someone he admired, a young magician, I assume. Perhaps a protégé. I remember my husband telling me this.
Hello, everyone! I know my presence on Tumblr has dwindled a bit over the last few months (real life has been a wild ride and a half lately), but I’m happy to announce the addition of another bundle of ND Notes Posters to My Etsy Shop! Digital posters for Treasure in the Royal Tower,The Final Scene, and Danger on Deception Island have now been added to my listings!
[click images for better quality]
I once again want to thank everyone for taking the time to like and reblogmy posts promoting this shop! Anything and everything is greatly appreciated.
At this time, I am still only able to provide digital copies, but once again, please check out the shop listings for additional information regarding digital downloads!
Please spread the word! Even a reblog or referral to a friend provides tremendous support to my shop at this time. I appreciate you all so much!
Les Coulisses de l'Opera by Jules Chéret; color lithograph 1890 with a bonus postcard because ephemera is cool
For the show ‘Backstage at the Opera’ at the Grevin Museum, we observe a bevy of enchantresses practicing their dance steps, their movements caught so vividly we can practically feel the whiff of air stirred up by their pirouettes. This is one of Chéret’s masterpieces. The place where shows like this were held is a Paris original: originally a waxworks founded around 1880 by caricaturist Alfred Grevin, it included a 500 seat auditorium were live performances were given to supplement the meagre income Grevin was making from the museum part of the operation. The theatre had mirrored walls, and Chéret himself painted the ceiling. The presentations included a mix of magic shows, revues and concerts, anything to bring in the patrons. What’s perhaps most amazing is that the place is still in business and still uses the same approach of museum (22 tableaux from the Belle Epoque) and live entertainment. [x]
I was thinking about the ranking of ND suspects by @aniceworld (if you haven’t seen it then go check it out because it’s the best) and felt inspired to do something similar.
Methodology: I included characters who left us puzzles to solve. I judged STFD, CRE, VEN, TOT, and ASH as not having characters who met those criteria. CAR was the only game with two. I lumped all the Penvellyns together because ain’t nobody got time for that. If I forgot anyone, let me know. All rankings are personal taste.
28. J.J. Thompson (FIN) Does he count? Between fucking over Louisa Falcone and betting against Harry Houdini pulling off a trick, ol’ J.J. just can’t overcome his P.T.-Barnum-knockoff origin story.
27. ??? (CAP) To be honest, I spent this whole game trying to figure out how I could break up with Ned and ask Frank out, so I don’t remember who put the puzzles here. They were stupid, though.
26. Ezra Wickford (TRT) You can’t just adopt a kid and then disown him if he has behavioral problems. And I frankly don’t believe your claim that you invented chocolate milk. Enjoy your hidden sadness shrines, you sack of shit.
25. Lizzie Applegate (MHM) I guess I’m just not sure why she left the treasure in the floor instead of using it at any point. Sorry your outlaw husband ditched you, though. Dirk Valentine would never do a thing like that.
24. Trapper Dan (ICE) Apparently Lizzie Applegate is the one who told Dan to riddle the Lodge with puzzles: a pointless callback in an overwhelmingly frustrating game.
23. El Toro (RAN) The hourglass puzzle makes me cry, but he deliberately died in a ridiculous position so his corpse could trigger a booby trap, which I respect.
22. King Pacal (SSH) The scribe’s desiccated corpse has haunted my dreams for years, so while I appreciate Pacal’s level of loopholed pettiness, I hate him.
21. Ramses II (TMB) I’m not particularly impressed by anything Ramses set up to guard Nefertari’s tomb, but at least his actions were justified in-character, and I minored in classical civilizations so he gets an automatic bonus for Ancient Egypt.
20. Rita Hallowell (WAC) Her motivations are unclear at best, but she gains rank for clearly being an emo lesbian cat lady.
19. Kasumi Shimizu (SAW) Maybe just tell your daughters that they can leave the family business instead of making them solve a nonogram to find out. No wonder your family fell apart.
18. Kate Drew (SPY) Many parts of this game are beautifully, emotionally moving, but up until the new engine fuckery, Nancy’s mom being a spy was the dumbest idea HER has had since RAN.
17. Rolfe Kessler (CAR) I’m sorry that neither your wife nor your era could handle your mental illness.
16. The Forgery Ring (LIE) I love the culprit in this game, but everyone’s first clue that they weren’t a real theater troupe should’ve been their requirement to solve complex puzzles to do a goddamn set change. Hire a prop manager to keep all those dumb pieces in order.
15. Charlotte Thornton (GTH) The audacity of entrusting a vital clue to finding her will to an approximately five-year-old child just proves that Charlotte was not fit to run the family business. It’s hard to like her when all she does is murder me while I am actively avenging her.
14. Jin Soo Seung (MED) I don’t know how or why Sonny’s grandpa hid these artifact pieces all over this specific area of New Zealand. Unfortunately, I am one of those people who loves Sonny Joon enough to put up with a fair amount of bullshit.
13. Captain Lawrence (SEA) Like the Penvellyns, it is amazing that his treasure-hiding gambit was even marginally successful. However, that skeleton hands post helps him skate all the way to spot #13 on my list.
12. Brendan Malloy (HAU) His double-agent scientist backstory is the only redeeming thing about this absurd game.
11. Noisette Tornade (DAN) Great name, cool job, noble deeds, but did you need to lock me in the basement after I went to all the trouble of solving your encrypted clues?
10. Jake Rogers (SCK) Jake Rogers decided to be a blackmail kingpin at the age of 17. Minus points for being skeevy about Connie (her secret is that she can beat the shit out of you, dude, please have more foresight), props for sheer ballsiness. Is he the one who left all the weird rhyming clues everywhere in SCK1? Because if so he would shoot up at least five spots.
9. Penvellyn Family (CUR) Props for dedicating their lives to continuing this convoluted, pointless gambit. It’s just impressive none of them fucked it up over the last few centuries. However: if the point was for your family members to solve an elaborate series of puzzles to find the treasure, why trap them in a box to suffocate at the end?
8. Darryl Trent (CAR) He clearly made a lot of poor decisions in his life, but leaving his daughter a baffling robot to remember him by makes up for most of them.
7. Jake Hurley (TRN) I need a private sadness train with a mystical gemstone contraption, like, yesterday.
6. Bruno Bolet (CRY) What a fucking weirdo. If it weren’t for the crystal skull thing he might rank higher, because all of his other obsessions are positively delightful.
5. Josiah Crowley (CLK) I have a bunch of nerdy internet friends who use nicknames for each other, so I appreciate his group of radio Mechanicals. Also disguising yourself in drag to mess with your friends and neighbors is hilarious. Truly a man ahead of his time.
4. Niko Jovic (DED) Turns out that he was kind of an asshole, but I’ve got to love him for the steampunk lair he built under a privately-owned facility.
3. Dirk Valentine (SHA) If I were Frances Humber, I would’ve left Shadow Ranch the day after I met Dirk and had like eleven outlaw babies with this king of romance.
2. Hilda Swenson (DDI) When I’m a bored widow, I hope I become so disillusioned with the rest of the world that I fuck off and force anyone who wants to talk to me to solve a bunch of puzzles I scattered around my old town.
1. Mickey Malone (DOG) All I aspire to be is a 1920s gangster who owns a private speakeasy under my cabin in the woods and hangs out with my four giant dogs whom I adore.
Day 22. Favorite Treasure: The Royal Palladium Theater (FIN)
I guess the “ends the game when you find it” treasure in this game is the deed signed by Harry Houdini… but that document is just a symbol of the actual treasure, which is the game location itself. This outfit includes several representations of the theater’s history as a home to magicians: a card suit bracelet, a magic wand, necklace, and a rabbit on the purse (”And for my next trick, I will pull money out of this rabbit!”). The theater’s decor is represented by the red velvet dress and the tassel earrings - though there’s sadly nothing capable of recreating Louisa Falcone’s lovely plaster work.
25 ND OUTFITS CHALLENGE: day 2, your favorite game from 1-10
outfits from days 1, 2, and 3 of the final scene. I like to imagine that Nancy’s sense of fashion went continually downhill as the game progressed and she got more panicked and sleep deprived.
