Platform: PC
Developer: SDJ Enterprises, Inc.
Publisher: SDJ Enterprises, Inc.
Release Date (NA): 1988
Genre: Adventure
Nerd Rating: 6 out of 10
Reviewed by Space Invader
It’s strange to admit that one of the more obsessive gaming experiences of recent years came to me in the form of a 1988 DOS game whose graphics are primarily rendered using ASCII characters.
Dracula in London, nevertheless, caught my imagination and would not let go. My first impression wasn’t all roses, though. Initially, the player is confronted with a sizable menu in which he/she/it reads a lot of background information, much of it quoted directly from Bram Stoker’s novel. Then, it is revealed that you are to play this game with five of your closest friends, passing the keyboard to the left by turn.
“Arthur kills a spider” may sound mundane, but these arachnids are jerks. I’ve lost more hunters to spiders than vampires, no joke.
Sound mundane? Nope. Or… yep! I had a little help from Dewar’s scotch for my first stretch of playing, and it didn’t hurt that while traversing this creepy tale of a castle on a hill, I was house-sitting in …. a creepy house on a hill, far beyond my own financial means.
Dracula in London picks up about ¾ through Stoker’s Dracula. Jonathan has stayed in Drac’s castle on business, and has escaped terrified, blithering about vampire this and vampire that. Mina, Johnny’s fiance, may be under Dracula’s power, or may not be – it’s hard to tell at first. The team has recruited Van Helsing, notorious vampire hunter, and also includes Arthur, who knows his way around turpentine (deadly to Spiders) and Quincy, who knows his way around horses, wink wink.
Right so let’s go in then? If we don’t get arrested breaking in, that is …
This is to say that the characters, nay the vampire hunters in Dracula in London all have interesting traits and abilities. As you gain clues, leads surface in regard to real estate the good Count has purchased, and can visit them. Van Helsing is equipped with the only crucifix, the greedy hog, and this makes him valuable during battles with Dracula. Arthur is rather affluent, and when cops stop by whilst breaking into a house, he can usually use his white privilege to talk them down.
Slow day at the Wharf
Dr. Seward, on the other hand, has no need to break in – he’s an expert locksmith, and one of the only two 
charterers
who may equip the medical bag (Van can have one as well)
Mina, the poor lass, has been weak and strange after her encounter with the count, and can alas only carry one item, the damsel, while the other hunters may carry two each.
Dracula in London prompts you to pass the keyboard to your left every now and again, but it isn’t ever clear which character is meant to be prompted in doing so. Since I have no friends, I did not in fact play this with five other gamers, and I wouldn’t suppose you would have an easier time convincing five of your closest chums to gather around the computer monitor and dive into an artifact from the 1980s.
Even solo, though,
Drac was just wiggin in this house. Honestly, you go on an innocent trip to bless some dirt …
this game is a regular hoot. The learning curve is real – really real, you might say, but after you’ve got the basics down, you’re exploring houses, blessing dirt, visiting the wharf, checking on Renfield … all the things.
Many of your clues come from questioning the locals about the Count’s shipments – he’s ordered crates and crates of dirt, and since Amazon Prime was not quite a thing back then, had them delivered to various houses in the area. In the dirt he sleeps, so it would seem. Or something.
I never figured out how I was supposed to be passing this keyboard around.
Anyway, you can slip on into a house and bless his dirt using wafers, and take that, Count! When breaking into a house, as mentioned, there’s a chance the cops will wonder why a team of vampire hunters is fiddling with someone’s front door. When you have Arthur, with you, they just sort of wave and smile, probably because they played golf with the rich bastard earlier that morning.
Sometimes, however, Scotland Yard apprehends some of your party – usually two members, laughably leaving the remainder of the party to fiddle around the house they were breaking into.
The insides of the estates of Carafax, Jamaca :Lane, etc. are never the same building twice, which is to say the scenery of Dracula in London is different with every session. While the aforementioned ASCII graphics make up the bulk of the visuals here, some imagination is used, rendering suits of armor, pianos, grandfather clocks, and other scenery to some effect, given the limitations.
Renfield, you nail-clubbed sunnuvabitch.
If I haven’t made it clear, the game is highly randomized. Renfield, a dangerous inmate at Dr. Seward’s asylum who also seems to be Dracula’s underling and/or henchman, must be visited now and then, lest he go on a murderous spree. He spends much of his time catching spiders and small animals, but keep your eye on him, because he can well kick the door in on a house you’re rummaging through with the intention of kicking ass and chewing gum, being on every occasion entirely out of bubble gum.
Mina has a fair chance of becoming a vampire during the course of any given game, necessitating blood transfusions, just like at home with, say, your ol mum. If she dies, you have the option of keeping vigil over the graveyard, watching for her to pop up or not – she usually does, indicating she really was a vampire, for what it’s worth.
Renfield’s tough.. So’s the count – most of the time, you won’t encounter Drac until you chase him to his castle at the end of the game, but sometimes he’s just wiggin’ there in a house, and you’re confronted with some tough combat you probably weren’t ready for.
Dracula eats it.
To say nothing of the spiders. Spiders in this game are complete assholes, gentle reader. You might think you can just step on them, but oh, no, not these fellas. You need turpentine to kill these bastards, and they will bite the characters repeatedly until they DIE. One of the stranger facts of Dracula in London is that the most exciting line you often see is “Arther kills the spider.” What a gruesome foe, this arachnid.
Obsessed though I was with this game, playing through it several times, there are still elements that surprised me, and still others I never got to see. For instance, you may visit the wharf. Most occasions, you get there, there is nothing doing, and you leave. Or, it’ll tell you that high and low tides occur at midnight and noon, respectively. On one occasion, you hear of the ghost ship that wandered in with the dead captain tied to its wheel – a direct excerpt from the book.
And then, occasionally, a captain lets you on his boat, and it turns out Dracula’s just hanging out there, waiting to murder you. It pays to send Arthur or Quincy to the wharf. They get more information, because apparently they belong to the fucking yacht club or something.
I still have yet to run into the female vampires, but I know they’re in there. Just today I ran into my first rabid wolf – mice show up sometimes at the castle – there is just so much that can happen in this little, tiny game.
Consider that “Dracula in London” was produced my a lone hacker at a keyboard. Mind-bending stuff. Even the graphics for the era were not bad, considering they were likely generated in-game, using code. MS Paint would have been a wet dream for this poor sod.
If you have any affinity for old computer games, I would highly suggest you invest some time in Dracula in London before October is through. It starts slow, but may surprise you. Oh, and for those of you who followed the click-bait-ey lead, then remarkably read all the way down — no, Dracula in London will not make you puke and wet the bed. It’s a lot of fun though.
