Plot
Nancy Drew returns to her hometown of River Heights, Illinois to compete in the town's annual Clues Challenge along with her boyfriend Ned and her friends Bess and George. A mysterious note leads her to the old town hall, which suddenly catches fire and burns to the ground while she is exploring it. When she escapes, she finds some townspeople outside the building: Deirdre Shannon, an old classmate and "frenemy" of Nancy's; Antonia "Toni" Scallari, a town councilwoman who owns the local ice cream shop; Brenda Carlton, a journalist and newscaster; and Alexei Markovic, a former detective who now owns an antique store. Nancy is interviewed by the police, who subsequently arrest her for arson and send her to the county jail.
The police chief tells Nancy that he will release her if she can prove her innocence. She tasks Ned, Bess, and George with collecting various pieces of evidence and dropping them off in the jail's mailbox. As Nancy's friends work to clear her name, they discover that Deirdre was following Nancy to the town hall on the night of the fire; Toni, who is in the midst of a reelection campaign, had to let all her employees go at the ice cream shop due to financial struggles; Brenda is still bitter about Nancy previously breaking a news story about fake antiques before Brenda could, resulting in Brenda's planned cable special getting canceled; and Alexei was found guilty as a young man of trespass and negligence related to his alleged theft of an antique lens from a local home (although he was found not guilty of theft). Nancy's friends also find ether in Alexei's shop, toluene in Toni's ice cream store, and acetone in Brenda's van.
Eventually, Nancy and her friends gather sufficient evidence against the other suspects to convince the police chief to release Nancy from jail. Nancy interviews the suspects herself, and discovers that Toni is a shareholder in the land that the town hall sat on and thus stands to profit from the destruction of the building. Nancy finds a network of secret underground tunnels beneath River Heights, and realizes Brenda has been using them to get to many interviews in quick succession and also used them to get to the town hall on the day of the fire. She confronts Brenda about leaving her the notes and luring her to the old town hall in an attempt to kill her, which Brenda admits, saying it would have made a great story.
Nancy and George use a jammer to intercept Brenda's news signal before she can break the story implicating Nancy in the arson. Brenda confronts Nancy in the underground tunnels and admits that she started the fire in the town hall with the purpose of framing Nancy to increase Brenda's fame and status as a journalist. Brenda locks Nancy in the tunnel, but Nancy escapes and takes the newfound evidence to the police station. Brenda is arrested live on air, Toni drops out of the town council race after the public learns of her corruption, Alexei is vindicated of his previous crime due to new evidence discovered at the town hall, and the remainder of the town hall is demolished and replaced with a museum celebrating the history of River Heights.
Gameplay
The game is the first in the Nancy Drew series to feature four playable characters: Nancy, Ned, Bess, and George. The player can change which character they are playing at any time by calling that character on the phone and selecting the dialogue option that says "I'm passing the case to you." The playable characters are each liked and disliked by different suspects, and the player must strategize accordingly when trying to get information or favors out of the townspeople. For example, Toni is fond of Bess due to Bess's love for ice cream, but Alexei dislikes Bess because she clumsily knocked over and broke a vase in his store.
Reception
Jinny Gudmundsen of USA Today rated it 2.5/4 stars and wrote, "Alibi in Ashes is a good mystery game, particularly for younger players new to the Nancy Drew franchise; but seasoned players of the series might be disappointed...While it is fun to explore Nancy's hometown of River Heights and her childhood house, the game limits your investigation areas to only a few actual locations. And the switching-between-friends mechanic grows old quickly. It is a good mystery but not a great one." [3] Erin Bell of Gamezebo rated it 3/5 stars and wrote, "Alibi in Ashes should be praised for trying out some new gameplay ideas to shake up the formula, but in the end it’s not as strong as some of the other games in the Nancy Drew series." [4] Merlina McGovern of Adventure Gamers rated it 3.5/5 stars and wrote, "You won’t see Nancy’s home town through state-of-the art graphics, but Alibi in Ashes provides an entertaining window into the teen sleuth’s personal life." [5]
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