YOUNG MYSTERIES™ The Secret of the Old Clock (1930)
River Heights, 1930. Josiah Crowley promised to provide for those who had been good to him, then died, and the snobbish Tophams got everything. A sixteen-year-old with a blue roadster and no patience for snobs goes looking for a missing will, in a branching mystery from the original 1930 novel.
A missing will. A family of snobs. A sixteen-year-old who won't let it go.
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.
In the game
What you do
Her mistakes are yours
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.
Every clue kept
An evidence board tracks what you've found, so you can work the case the way she does: one fact at a time.
Read to me
The whole story read aloud as you play, by a narrator and a cast of character voices, with each word highlighted.
25 chapters, more than 300 scenes, over 40,000 words and four endings. One purchase: no ads, no in-app purchases.
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, and you can read it or listen to it.
- The complete 1930 first edition, unlocking as you play
- The 1930 audiobook, read by Louise Jaeschke for LibriVox
- The original 1930 illustrations, restored
The 1930 chapters are included unaltered and reflect some attitudes of their time.
The Secret of the Old Clock (1930) is coming to Steam. Add it to your wishlist.
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.
Most illustrations (portraits, locations and objects) are AI-generated in the style of the 1930 artwork, from public-domain references only, and selected by the studio. The original 1930 illustrations by Russell H. Tandy are restored and included. The novel text and the audiobook are public domain and were not AI-generated. The read-along narration is AI-generated synthetic speech created from the game's text, in voices selected by the studio. Story prose was written by the studio with AI assistance, adapted solely from the 1930 text. The music and some ambient sound effects were AI-generated according to studio parameters and selected by the studio.