Young Mysteries: The Secret of the Old Clock (1930)

A missing will. A family of snobs. A sixteen-year-old who won't let it go.

River Heights, 1930. Old Josiah Crowley promised to provide for the people who had been good to him: the Horner sisters on their struggling farm, the Turner sisters, old Abigail Rowen out on the West Lake Road. Then he died, and the Tophams, the most insufferable family in town, inherited every cent.

Everyone says there was a later will. Nobody can find it.

Nancy is sixteen, drives her own blue roadster a little too fast, and has no intention of letting the Tophams keep what isn't theirs. You make her choices, and when she's bold, impulsive or overconfident, you live with the results.

Her mistakes are yours

Young Mysteries is a branching mystery told in illustrated prose. Push your luck or play it safe, question the right people or the wrong ones, and follow the trail to one of four endings, from the perfect case to a clock recovered and a will still lost.

Detective work you do yourself

Drive through a storm on a flooded country road. Pry open a jammed door. Hold perfectly still in a dark closet while the thieves go by. Work out what the evidence actually proves.

The story as it was first written

This is the original 1930 story, before the 1959 rewrite most readers remember. Its heroine is sharper, bolder and funnier than the one that replaced her.

As you play, the complete 1930 first edition unlocks chapter by chapter, with its restored original illustrations and a public-domain audiobook read by Louise Jaeschke for LibriVox. The 1930 chapters are included unaltered and reflect some attitudes of their time.

Features

• A branching interactive novel: 25 chapters, over 300 story scenes, more than 40,000 words, four endings
  
• Choices that reward boldness, and setbacks that come from her own impulsiveness rather than contrived villains
  
• Hands-on scenes: steer through the storm, pry the door, hold still, read the ground, work out what the clues prove
  
• Read to me: the whole story read aloud as you play, by a narrator and a cast of character voices, with each word highlighted and a choice of four reading speeds
  
• An evidence board that tracks what you've found
  
• The complete 1930 first edition, unlocking as you play
  
• The 1930 audiobook, read by Louise Jaeschke (LibriVox)
  
• Restored 1930 illustrations
  
• One purchase: no ads, no in-app purchases

Based on the original 1930 edition of The Secret of the Old Clock, which is in the U.S. public domain. This is an independent adaptation, not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by the book's publishers or the developers of other game adaptations.