Draculaland

I played this engagingly silly game with my 7 year old nephew, and he absolutely loved it. The terse text and clever button interface were an ideal introduction to the medium of IF, and though we went on to play a couple of traditional parser games, he liked this one the best.

We played on a mobile phone, and I hope Robin goes on to release more games for mobiles. I hope, also, that he releases an authoring tool for Versificator so that other authors can use it!

Draculaland riffs on a host of classic monster movie tropes and features (mostly) logical puzzles. We resorted to the hints once or twice. The only really disappointing thing was that (Spoiler - click to show)in spite of the title, you don't get to see a lot of the eponymous vampire. It might have been fun if he'd turned up earlier in the story.

Draculaland gave me several hours of playtime, even though I resorted to hints near the end of my playing time. It uses an innovative system where it is a parser, but all commands are chosen by clicking buttons instead of typing them in.

This is definitely a parser with some web UI thrown in as opposed to games such as Hallowmoor or the Axolotl Project which were Twine games but with heavy parser elements.

The parser effect is achieved by having an actual parser on half of the screen, with commands passed to it when you click on the buttons on the right-side (which consists of an inventory and room description).

The big worry here of course is that the button system might detract from the freedom of the parser, and that was my experience at first. It was difficult going back and forth between the two interfaces, and I felt like I was just trying every button in every situation.

However, as the game progressed, the dual interface became more natural, and as the inventory and its options grew, I was no longer able to get anyway by random button presses. I had to resort to the hallmark of the parser system, which is planning and carrying out a complex sequence of events.

Overall, I found the writing charming when the game wasn't being frustrating. That ended up being the one drawback of the game; I felt that many of the puzzle solutions, even in hindsight, didn't make sense or didn't allow for reasonable alternatives. (Spoiler - click to show)For instance, I felt like you should be able to distract the magpie with shiny objects or hide the keys in the box or bury them or kill the bird in its nest, or that you could slow the flies down by having them get drunk just like you did with the Magpie, etc. However, I would still rank the puzzles in the top half of all adventure games, especially for a patient player.

Overall, I recommend it; as an experiment, it's worth spending some time with, and as a game, it should appeal to the minimalist Scott Adams fans (which includes me).

I thought this was a really fun diversion. I play games to relax, and often times don't want to put a huge effort into them (games are play, not work, yes?), so I liked that it was a choice based game instead of a parser based game.

The writing is clever and not overwrought. The puzzles are difficult enough to be challenging without being frustrating, and the hint system is un-spoilery so that it helps if you get stuck without leading too much. The layout and formatting of the game is clever and fits with the theme. There are some extras which are fun to reveal.

All in all, a fun game.

Play it!