Reached one of the endings of "R3D STAR"!

Continue the game!

After playing D3AD HAND, by Duck Made Of Wood, it was only natural to continue the story with the next chapter, R3D STAR. You can start this second game from the main menu of D3AD HAND, but personally I think it should just start automatically since it is essentially one big story.

A raging river and a ravenous polar bear, easy peasy...

In R3D STAR, the Sputnik satellite has crashed into earth and as Yuri, you go and investigate. This time, there aren't that many mechanical/logical puzzles. Instead, it's mostly inventory puzzles, but a new gameplay element has been added as well: this time, you can also play as Stalin the cat!

Stalin, the fabulous feline!

Stalin can squeeze through small places and climb on ledges and thus access areas Yuri can't get to. This way, you can reach items and make them available for Yuri. Stalin can also scratch stuff open or sever them. And he can sniff out clues and so link hotspots together, informing Yuri there's something more to them. 

Remember to explore this map thoroughly!

I must admit I got stuck pretty early on, but that's because I didn't listen very well to my orders. I received a map of the area and was told to explore fully, but this means you can and have to also check the areas where there's no obvious location. After I realized that, the immensity of this chapter compared to D3AD HAND really became apparent.

I'd be careful around this hole...

After three hours, I finished the game but my particular ending wasn't exactly environmentally friendly. So I'm going to dive back in and see if I can play the end game a bit differently this time. After all, another character informed me there were three different tactics I could use, and for now I just did the most obvious. So hopefully I can dig a bit deeper and figure out how to achieve a more peaceful ending...

You can find D3AD HAND and R3D STAR together on Steam and on itch.io!

I just saved the world from nuclear annihilation in "D3AD HAND"!

New game!

Duck Made Of Wood is a very charismatic solo developer. I bumped into him at AdventureX in London last November and sat down to play his game D3AD HAND. I didn't finish this hour long game there and then, because there were lots of other games and people to check out, but I promised him I'd definitely play it at home because I was quite enjoying it and loving the humor, and he even was so kind to gift me a free copy! So finally, here I am, making good on that promise! (Sorry it took me so long, Duck!)

Monday mornings...

I'm Yuri, a Soviet military man in charge of a nuclear missile base. My direct supervisor there is a white cat with a black "mustache" patch under its nose named Stalin. The systems at the base should be automatic, but, you know, it's still man-made... So it's my job to make sure no missiles are fired accidentally, leading to World War 3 and total annihilation.

Let's keep these things closed, shall we?

But before I can do my job, I have to find my way inside, which takes a couple of fun puzzles. There's a gear puzzle, and a code puzzle, and a password you have to uncover. The game is actually full of these mechanical/logical puzzles and it's perfectly balanced with the more traditional inventory puzzle stuff. D3AD HAND also has cool pixel art, full Russian-accented voice overs, and funny dialogues which often break the fourth wall, but not to excess. I particularly enjoyed the sound of crunching snow beneath your boots as you walk, and the synth soundtrack.

Shoddy piping...

As soon as I've entered the base, a pipe bursts and steam is blocking my way, so I have to turn some valve wheels to shut down the system. Then I finally meet Stalin, my boss so to speak. But the cat refuses to come into action until I've fed it, and apparently only eats caviar-flavored cat food...

Thankfully this isn't a translation game...

Then all hell breaks loose, a missile is about to be launched and I have to reset all systems to prevent catastrophe. With a fun series of puzzles I'm able to save the day!  I'm not quite sure how some of the puzzles actually worked, like the one with the seismic sensors, but I'm happy I seemed to click the right buttons by chance and didn't get totally stuck on it. It was rather a short experience, lasting only for an hour, but there's more to come with the second part of the story, R3D STAR! 

Plenty of logical puzzles in this game!

So I'll be back soon with a continuation of my playthrough. I've already heard R3D STAR is more extensive and even offers Stalin the cat as a second playable character, so that's definitely something to look forward to!

You can find D3AD HAND and R3D STAR together on Steam and on itch.io!

I completed Chapter One of "A Vampyre Story"!

The lovely village of Vlad's Landing...

The last part of A Vampyre Story played out a lot more smoothly than the previous part, where I had to escape the castle. Even though it was still quite chunky, taking almost two and a half hours to get through. But the new location was quite interesting to explore. The backgrounds in this game are just wonderful to gaze at, as well.

Drat, my horse has been leg clamped...

So I had to get a horse, a cart, some grave dirt and my coffin. The coffin was easily obtained again. After all, I had just rowed it across the lake. During my first tour of the village of Vlad's Landing I had already passed by a horse, and once my tour was finished it was easily acquired. It helps that all objects you can interact with have a sharper outline and stand out somewhat compared to the rest of the surroundings.

This almost looks like a Caribbean port...

Getting the cart was a bigger issue: I didn't see it anywhere. But there was also one location I couldn't freely explore, and that took most of my time to remedy, interacting with three separate people, plus a family of four. Mona showed off her singing and dancing skills as well. It took some back and forth, but it was all very logically accomplished.

The Mona Dance, not as popular as Wednesday's I guess...

Then an adventure game peculiarity came up again: each time I find myself in a single room with limited resources, it seems to be more difficult for me to come up with the solution than when there's a whole town to explore. First I was locked inside a shed, then when I finally got out I was once more limited in my movements and while the solution was very simple, I lost time trying out other things first, examining and trying to interact with many hotspots that were just there for filling, or to throw me off, I guess.

This guy needs more than a lullaby to shut him up...

But after almost 9,5 hours, that final act led to the game's ending cinematic, which I was warned about plenty beforehand. Instead of boarding a ship to Paris, Mona and Froderick are sent to a mysterious doctor Rigor Mortis or something like that (I don't know for sure, the cutscenes don't have subtitles...) but the credits roll before they arrive, announcing a continuation of their adventure in Chapter Two. I can totally understand how this set a lot of bad blood when that second chapter didn't show up year after year. So I'm glad that the project has been resurrected by developer Tag of Joy, of Crowns and Pawns: Kingdom of Deceit fame.

I'm also very glad I finally played this original Vampyre Story. It takes you back decades into the past by its pace, visuals, puzzles and gameplay style. It's one of those more "famous" titles that always slipped through the cracks with me, so I'm looking forward to that sequel. But since A Vampyre Story: A Bat's Tale is still in development, it'll be a while until we get to play it. Thankfully there are many other adventure games to keep us entertained! Next up, I'll finally be tackling one of the games I started playing at AdventureX last November, where I have to save the world from nuclear annihilation because of a malfunctioning Soviet missile base...

You can find A Vampyre Story on Steam!

"Cantaloupe Chronicle", my Adventure Game Hotspot review!

Read my full review on Adventure Game Hotspot!

Excerpt: "For a game that promotes its innovative article-writing system, Cantaloupe Chronicle focuses more on character interaction and inventory puzzles like a traditional point-and-click adventure. It allows only a little freedom in the writing itself – except for the final article – but even with its limitations, I appreciated the chance to let my creative juices flow. Being a writer myself, I definitely had more fun trying to be a journalist than traipsing all over town exploring every location repeatedly to find elusive items that are only accessible after you’ve been given the task to find them. Thankfully the puzzles themselves are quite logical and fun to solve, and I never had to call the in-game hint line. Personally I would have appreciated the game better with voice acting and a more appealing visual style, but the relaxing atmosphere and the genuine small-town feel were cozy reasons to escape the real world’s unsettling news stories for a few hours of creating my own."

Reached the shore in "A Vampyre Story"!

Took me a while to figure out how to lower this bridge...

While further exploring the secret rooms of Warg Castle in A Vampyre Story, finally I could use a code I had already discovered during my previous playing session, and which I thought I had to use to open the bookcase at first. I had some fun in a secret laboratory, but suddenly I did something wrong and had to start over. I think it was a glitch, though. I accidentally clicked the exit while mixing the potion on the bunsen burner, and when I went back the game apparently thought the potion was already complete (it was suddenly bubbling), so when I added the next part, it blew up.

Quite a fun mechanical puzzle, this one!

Indeed, it's not very handy that they linked the use of the right mouse button both to opening up the inventory, and fast-travelling the exits (which I only discovered by accident because of this issue, since first I kept double-clicking them). It happened constantly that I wanted to use an inventory item but accidentally changed locations instead. One of the cons of this game...

Outta my way, Inky!

At least the puzzle difficulty is quite challenging, although that's mostly because it's often hard to find the right items. They tend to be hidden away somewhat. There are so many hotspots to examine, it's really a big game that has already taken me seven hours so far, and I've just reached a new location with so many different rooms, it's a bit overwhelming.

Don't really know whether I should trust her...

Yes, I was finally able to escape the castle, cross the lake and enter the village of Vlad's Landing. After having mixed a couple of potions and tricking a ghost in the part I just played through, now I'm on a mission to gather the necessary means to travel to Paris: a horse, a cart, and Mona's coffin with the necessary grave dirt to sleep in during the day. 

Time to fully explore my new surroundings!

I already have the coffin, I found the horse but can't barter with its owner because they have garlic hanging by their door, located the cemetery to get some grave dirt but can't enter because of all the crosses, but no lead on a cart yet. But there are some corners of the village I haven't explored yet, so I better get to what's probably the last big part of the game!

You can find A Vampyre Story on Steam!

Further exploring Warg Castle in "A Vampyre Story"

The next big objective: getting rid of this guy...

After my first playing session of A Vampyre Story, I was stuck getting into the rest of the castle, the door locked, the key guarded by a talking gargoyle. Exploring the other part of Castle Warg some more, I discovered there were more characters to talk to than I had initially thought. So that revealed some new options, and finally I vanquished that gargoyle, opened the door and...
 

Cozy...

...had my further escape plans foiled by another creature of the night. So I was very much still a captive of this place, and with no clear idea of how to get past this particular obstacle. At least I had a couple of new locations to explore, like the grand dining hall, the adjoining kitchen, and an office space.

Ah, a lovely library to peruse...

To solve the next c ouple of puzzles, though, it turned out that I had to walk back and forth between this newly discovered and the first part of the castle a couple of times, wishing Mona could fast-travel over there, or at least turn bat and fly (at least if the transformation animation didn't take so long...) In general, this game feels much slower than the new games coming out today, and the double dialogues (both Mona's and Froderick's comments when you perform an action) aren't always that much to the point. But that's just how games were back in the day; even though this was only released in 2008, it has the look and feel of one of the late 90s classics like The Longest Journey and The Curse of Monkey Island.

This cat is very particular of what it eats...

So finally one thing led to another and I was able to open a secret passage, hopefully leading to something that could help me get rid of that flying abomination preventing me from boarding the boat and rowing to shore. Even though there are some puzzles in the first part of the castle I haven't touch on yet, like the plant box on the balcony and the theater controls. But after 3,5 hours of game time, I thought it a good place to save and continue another day...

Castle Warg has some very weird plumbing...

You can find A Vampyre Story on Steam!

New game: "A Vampyre Story"!

New game!

Bill Tiller released A Vampyre Story about ten years after LucasArts' The Curse of Monkey Island was the height of point 'n click adventure gaming, yet it shows many similarities to that classic. The backgrounds have this amazing, Don Bluth animated movie type of graphics style, and the user interface utilizes a variety of the verb coin. Having played for the first hour, this feels like a very slow-paced game, where you need patience to explore since there are quite a lot of hotspots to examine. 

No, Harry, they're gargoyles, not flying house elves...

You play as Mona De Lafitte, a former Parisian opera singer who fell under the spell of vampire Shrowdy von Kiefer. Shrowdy kidnaps Mona and takes her to live with him at Castle Warg in Draxilvania. One day, however, Shrowdy is killed by vampire hunters, and Mona is left alone to escape the castle and return to Paris, finally free of her vampire master's spell.

A verb cross instead of a coin...

Though alone she actually is not. Froderick the bat is her constant companion, good for most of the jokes in this game, the way Max was in Sam & Max Hit the Road. They kind of have the same accent as well, by the way. It's an awesome voice actor in any case. Mona herself has a higher pitched voice in a French accent that totally fits the role yet might not be for everyone's ears. Examining objects does take longer than in other adventure games, however, since Froderick often insists on giving his own opinion as well after Mona's, usually including one pun or other - which might get to feel a bit tiresome if you're an impatient gamer who wants to move on.

Oeh la la, ze bedroom!

Mona is obviously a lady, wearing a pocketless dress, and only limited space in her coffin for keepsakes. So she doesn't pick up everything she encounters, even if she admits the items could be useful. But she does store the idea of the items away, remembering where she can find them should the need ever arise to use them. I thought this was both quite funny and more realistic than your average adventure game.

Appropriate inventory system...

It's funny that Mona doesn't acknowledge her actually being a vampire herself, insisting that she's drinking wine instead of blood. Funny, because she does have the ability to change into a bat herself, with one option in the verb cross allowing her to fly over things. Also when you want to use a heavier or larger item she didn't pick up yet, she turns into a bat to go retrieve up from wherever she saw it earlier.

Let it go, let it goooo!

The primary objective is to get a secret key from a gargoyle so Mona can leave her limited living quarters and explore the rest of the castle. A typical tit for tat presents itself, so figuring out how exactly to accomplish that will be my next endeavour. I was also able to open up a hatch in the torture chamber, but neither Mona nor Froderick will go down there because of the smell, and Mona's small perfume bottles aren't enough to banish the odor. So I'm hoping to discover a solution for this puzzle as I play on.

You can find A Vampyre Story on Steam!