Hi guys!!! My name is Gabby, and this is my first dev vlog for ‘Co-Ed Casualty: A Chandler Chase Case”!!!:) Although I’ll wait to share full details, ‘Co-Ed Casualty’ is a Nancy Drew inspired mystery game that takes place on a college campus.
I have been a Nancy Drew fan since I was around eight years old- the first game I ever played was The Curse of Blackmoor Manor, which may still be my favorite in the series! I still so vividly remember playing Message in a Haunted Mansion and having to call my friends on the phone because I was so afraid to play it by myself (also, did anyone else have the version of MHM that came in all black??? It scared me so much!!). In my teenage years, I even had a ND tumblr page (which you can find here, although it hasn’t been updated in 11 years). Needless to say, I wasn’t the coolest kid at school, but I was very good at escape rooms and guessing the plot to a movie ten minutes in.
I was inspired to begin making this game after playing other Nancy Drew Revival games (such as Penelope Pendrick and Alex Hill). I had always wondered, ‘how hard could it possibly be to make a Nancy Drew game?!’ as its essentially a very complicated slideshow. I’ve found my answer: harder than I thought, BUT, not impossible. Mostly, it just takes a lot of time, dedication, and youtube tutorials. Luckily, I work an overnight position with lots of downtime, so I’ve been able to dedicate most of my work day to learning game design.
I actually only started learning Unity in early December 2025, so less than three months ago- I’m also using the Unity plugin Adventure Creator, which I highly suggest to anyone that’s looking to create a similar point-and-click game. I likely won’t be sharing this dev log for a few months until I’m much deeper into development. There’s still A LOT I don’t know and a lot of issues that are still popping up for me, but with a little research, I’ve always found a solution (so far!).
Although I won’t be sharing plot or characters yet, I wanted to share some EARLY, EARLY screenshots of some work I’ve done on my game.
→ Early building shells
→ Early map design
→ Early item rendering
When I first started making this game, it became apparent to me that there aren’t a ton of tutorials or information on making this specific type of game. There’s a lot of little pieces of information that I’ve had to stitch together like Frankenstein. One thing that I’ve kept in mind the entire time throughout development is that I want to the share resources & information I’ve found in order to make building an ND-inspired game super easy to anyone else who’s interested. Making these games is actually much more simple when you have tools and information available to you, but the issue lies in gathering these tools/info. Below is a basic list of tools I’ve used to help me in my game design:
Genuinely, will be naming my first born child after the man that made this plug in. This plug-in takes out ALL of the coding that would normally be necessary for a game of this scope. Not only is it insanely intuitive, it’s stuuuupid detailed. Literally, this plug-in has an answer for all of your game design issues. It covers different types of movement, cutscenes, inventory, variables, dialogue… everything. Not only does it come with multiple tutorials on how to make certain things in your game (like a save screen, inventory bar, etc), it has a 500-paged manual that covers everything it’s capable of, in detail. And, ON TOP OF THAT, there’s a forum where the developer of the plug-in himself answers your questions personally. I’ve asked him so many questions on there, he basically deserves a credit in my game process. It currently costs $80, but I got it for $40 during a black friday sale, and I promise you it’s worth every penny.
→ Shapr3D
I’ll be honest, I’ve spent most of my time in Unity and almost no time in Blender. Although I’m sure Blender is a great tool (which I’ll have to learn eventually), I wanted a platform I could use on my iPad. I got Shapr3D, which is free to students and also free for a basic account (limiting you to only two projects- I made most of my items, however, in one project, so it ended up being completely fine). Shapr3D is made mostly for 3D printing and is therefore mostly good for basic items that aren’t detail heavy or require any sculpting. I’ve made all my buildings using the app, and its incredibly intuitive. For other 3D assets, I’ve used the Unity Store and also CGtrader which has lots of free, royalty free assets to use as well.
→ Reallusion: Character Creator
I am adding this only because this is what I used to create the characters in my game, although I have mixed feelings towards it. For what it is, it works very well, but it’s incredibly expensive. You get your first month free, but afterwards (at the very most basic level) it’s $40 a month, and even then, you end up having to pay more to get the real ‘full’ access. I didn’t want to create my characters by hand and I didn’t want to rig them either, so I’m literally paying the price for it. AGH!
Almost forgot to put this, but I am LITERALLY MAKING THIS ENTIRE GAME ON A $400 LAPTOP by using an EXTERNAL HARD DRIVE!!! Genuinely the one I got is from Amazon for $30, it has so much memory and runs pretty smoothly (there’s a little bit of load lag, but that more has to do with it being run on an external hard drive than anything else). I have been able to develop this game from ANYWHERE without having to upgrade any of my tech. It’s been a life saver.
→ Videos
There’s lots of different videos that have greatly helped my during my game development, which I’ll list here:
There’s a million different ways to make this style of game, and like I said, there’s still a lot I don’t know. Above is what I’ve used, and there’s likely a lot more that I haven’t touched on. In time, I’ll likely develop a Notion page that has more extensive resources, as well as Youtube videos on how go about this.
I likely won’t be making a lot of updates for awhile, as it takes away precious game-design time, so if you’ve read this far, thank you!!! You can get in touch with me on my instagram, @freekygirlgames if you have any questions or better yet, information to help me on my process!! Thanks guys:)