Upcoming mystery revealed to be Penelope Pendrick and the Art of Deceit

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Nancy Drew-styled first-person point-and-click investigative adventure coming to PC in 2025

If you're hankering for a little point-and-click, first-person investigating in between your Nancy Drew and Carol Reed adventures, indie developer Default Cube Games may have just what you're looking for in the upcoming Penelope Pendrick and the Art of Deceit.

Penelope is not a detective but rather a writer who's only solved one "teensy little case ... practically by accident." But that didn't stop the police force from the quaint town of Carlisle, Connecticut from contacting her for help in solving three missing persons cases. The victims, including "an older man who owns a local bookstore, a mysterious woman who keeps to herself, and a troublemaking teenage boy," have no apparent connection, but all of them disappeared without a trace within a week of each other. As often happens with these seemingly idyllic small towns, however, Penelope soon discovers that there is "something deeper – stranger – going on here." She begins drawing links between "four deceptive suspects," and elusive answers seem to trace all the way back to an enigmatic artist who died fifty years earlier. To succeed, Penelope will need to make full use of her "wits and penchant for rule-breaking," but "as the danger escalates, a timer begins to tick down on the lives of the missing." Not only does she have limited time to save them, if she's not careful she may just find herself the next victim instead.

Penelope Pendrick and the Art of Deceit is presented in first-person perspective, with point-and-click controls and panaoramic camera movement in some scenes. If that sounds very Nancy Drew-ish, the similarity is certainly no accident, as designer Julia Holdnack was very much inspired by HeR Interactive's longrunning series. Gameplay, too, will be very familiar to fans of the teen sleuth, as you will explore the town, scour every nook and cranny using your trusty magnifying glass, collect items and solve a variety of puzzles, call friends on the phone, and interrogate the four main suspects through nonlinear dialogue where your choice of what to say very much matters. You'll also get to snoop where you're not meant to go, though to avoid getting caught you'll want to keep your eye on the clock to monitor who will be where, and when. For help in your investigation, you can refer to the in-game notes with a checklist of objectives, or you can switch the game's difficulty between three different levels. 

The mystery of when Penelope Pendrick and the Art of Deceit will be finished has yet to be completely revealed, but the game is on track to be launched on Steam for Windows PC sometime in 2025. To keep tabs on its progress in the meantime, be sure to visit the official website for ongoing details.