
No. 11 Downing Street: The Adventures of Ninja Nanny & Sherrloch Sheltie is an obscure Edutainment Game released in 1993 for Windows 3.1. It's most well known for having an obtuse story, containing poorly-linked educational materal, and being overall extremely unusual. There were at least 2 episodes planned, but only one was released.
The basic plotline of the story is that it follows a cow named Norbertina Onebeer — the titular nanny — as her life goes through a ton of twists and turns, meeting eccentric characters and eventually teaming up with the mastermind detective Sherrloch Sheltie. She also catches the eye of an international criminal named Baron von Moribund who has his team of operatives try to hunt her down for some unknown reason. The educational parts of the game are essentially reading material that can be accessed in the story by hot words, providing text, pictures, and even videos. The hot words also provide low-grade, bizarre animations and describing them doesn't do them justice.
The game is abandonware, and the ISO can be found on on archive.org here
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Tropes found in The Adventures of Ninja Nanny & Sherrloch Sheltie:
- A Fool and His New Money Are Soon Parted: The ice cream pigs received $25 million in inheritance, and blew $24 million of it being horrible tourists all across Europe. They panicked and headed back home when informed that only $1 million was left, putting the rest of it into opening the ice cream parlor.
- Delivery Stork: One is trying to advertise his services in a San Francisco cable car, asking a businessman about if he wants to place an order for a child.
- Edutainment Game: Some of the brightly-colored words lead to material teaching the reader about whatever's vaguely connected to the story.
- Exact Words: Norbertina has to work for the ice cream pigs to make up for the sundae she couldn't pay for, but mentioned "all you can eat" as a benefit. She throws those words back at them when they say they're going to deduct the cost of that sundae from her pay.
- The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You: If Norbertina dies, Baron von Moribund's wrath turns towards you for being a Spanner in the Works."You have ruined the plans of the occupant of No. 11 Downing Street. You will never again live in safety."
- Gluttonous Pig: Ben Hog and Gary Doss, two pigs running an ice cream emporium who are introduced during a fight between them over an extravagant sundae they call the "Ultra Chocolate Zombie". Norbertina ends up eating it instead."That's my Ultra Chocolate Zombie!"
- Gratuitous Ninja: Really the only reason Ninja Nanny is a ninja. And it doesn't even happen by the end of the first (and only) episode.
- Hates Being Alone: Norbertina ran away from her ranch to figure out how to become a nanny because Mrs. Onebeer — the one person there who actually gave her the time of day — was about to become one, leaving her with nobody friendly left.
- Medium Awareness: It's easy to miss, but Nanny is being visibly crowded by the written dialoge being spewed out by the screaming ostrich at the nanny school.
- Medium Blending: It mixes computer drawing, Stock Footage, AVI files and JPEGs.
- Mind Screw: Hoo boy. The story makes no sense, the art is bizarre and confusing, random events and scenes happen for little reason or explanation...
- Morton's Fork: "What side of this busy highway do you think poor Norbetina should walk on?" All of the choices you're given leads to Norbetina either being struck by a semi from behind, or barely missing it.
- NO INDOOR VOICE:
- The ostrich that runs the nanny school is very loud and considering how loud the overall game is, that's quite an accomplishment.
- The pigs in the ice cream parlor argue so loudly, they can be heard throughout the building.
- Non-Indicative Name:
- No, Nanny isn't a ninja by the end of the 1st (and only) episode.
- For that matter, the depiction of a "ninja" on the cover is actually a samurai.
- Press X to Die: The very first hotword makes you pick which side of the highway Norbertina should walk down. One of the choices is the center stripe.note "You have just committed your entire life savings to reconstructive surgery putting our heroine back into a cow from the hood ornament of that truck. Would you like to reconsider your decision?"
- Rainbow Speak: "Hotwords" are hyperlink-like words in the reading material indicated by a black box that takes you to other scenes when clicked.
- Random Events Plot: Everything from random historical figures, pigs running ice cream parlors, fresh oats, moose in post offices, to auction sales get involved in the plot, and there is a lack of any coherence. Reading the many, many pages' worth of story text only makes things only slightly more understandable.
- Sequel Hook: A trailer and a small snippet of episode 2, Blahminster Abbey, was added at the end of the last chapter of episode 1, though it never came to be.
- Show, Don't Tell: The bizarre hot word sequences are given (slightly) more context with the lengthy text pages. Even for an Edutainment Game, this is an ineffective means of motivating players to read and write.
- Talking Animal: Most of the characters are animals who have no trouble speaking. Norbertina, despite being the main character, is the exception, only able to speak through writing. At least until the second chapter, where she could now talk like everyone else.
- Unsound Effect: The words "Fresh oats" are whispered as the sound of the aroma of a bag of oats.
