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!