Incredible Dracula: Chasing Love
In Alawar and New Bridge Games' quirky casual time-management game Incredible Dracula: Chasing Love, the count is looking for romance online, but the flaxen-haired beauty who answers his personal ad is a human, and every good vampire knows humans are wicked, cruel creatures who hunt them! The princess is convinced she and Dracula are meant to be, but he's not so sure, and he's only got a little more than a month to escape from her... with a little help from his long-suffering but loyal zombie horde. In each level, you'll need to use your undead lackeys to accomplish tasks, everything from gathering food and resources to building structures to help you get around, and the faster the better, since accomplishing stages quickly means a better rating, and, well, the princess is literally beating down your door! Incredible Dracula: Chasing Love is a ghoulishly goofy good time, with fast-paced and addictive gameplay that blends resource management with puzzle elements, with enough challenge and variety to keep you clicking all the way to sunrise.
Though the tutorial will guide you through the basics, you'll probably know the ropes if you've played similar games. Clicking on various objects on the path sends a free zombie trundling over to it. Resources like food and building materials can be picked up and ferried back to your base, where specific amounts of each are needed to clear obstacles on the path for the Count, or make new structures to help him along. You've got a finite number of resources on each map, apart from a few that regrow, so making sure you gather everything in the proper order to leave you with enough food and materials to complete every task is important. You've also got potions are your disposal that you can brew with the proper ingredients to help you get by. Sound easy? Well, it starts out that way, but as things get more complex and the princess gets more determined, you'll really have to plan and act fast to avoid an eternity of immortal bliss. Later, you'll gain the help of burly trolls who can perform heavy tasks for you (for a prince), build tasty BloodDonalds franchises to keep your energy up, and even upgrade the Zombie Mobile to add more workers, but the princess is never far behind...
Incredible Dracula: Chasing Love is the sort of time-management game that knows exactly what it's about. Its design is fantastic, with cartoonish characters full of personality and levels heaving with creepy cute details, while the overall tongue-in-cheek tone (zombies eat cocoa beans, not brains!) makes it a pleasure to play, apart from the mildly meanspirited way the plot snidely plays up the princess being chubby as just as much of an issue as her being human. The difficulty ramps up early on, quickly layering multiple tasks and objects for each level that require a fair amount of planning if you're aiming for a perfect score, though some objectives feel a little arbitrary. Why do I need to place all three scarecrows to chase away hunters if only two are actually on the path to the exit? The lack of permanent upgrades for the Zombie Mobile is also a little annoying, since it means you have to regain additional workers every time you start a new level. Still, it's hard to stay mad at Incredible Dracula: Chasing Love for long. It's unapologetically cute and weird in equal measure, with a satisfying amount of challenge to its gameplay that will scratch that time-management itch for fans of the genre looking for something a little Halloweeny that can be enjoyed any time of the year.
Please note that currently only the Collector's Edition version of this title is available. The Standard Edition will be made available at a later date.
Windows:
Download the demo
Get the full version
Mac OS X:
Download the demo
Get the full version
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