The Reluctant Vampire Reviews
Author: David Whyld
Date: 2006
ADRIFT 4.0

Reviewed by Ren

What can I say - it’s a very nice game. Considering I don’t always engage with the author’s writing style and sense of humour, I was very pleasantly surprised. It’s still not quite my goblet of blood, but it was always enjoyable. The Reluctant Vampire had excellent presentation and, as ever, fantastic use of ALR. There is little in the way of spelling/grammatical errors and I encountered very few bugs (some ADRIFT parser issues confused Maltormo with his painting during the game’s final scenes, but that was all, more or less).

The hint system was nicely implemented, and while it didn’t actually help me defeat the game in any way shape or form, I didn’t get too stuck. I ran into a few GTV issues with the sledgehammer, but the issue didn't arise again. I liked the dead room (though you go there if you don’t escape from Maltormo’s study quick enough, which makes no sense – you don’t die, you just end up dead, it could use a cut-scene or some kind of explanation, even if it is just some henchmen bursting in), and the end sequence room.

There seemed to be randomised combat, though on my first run-through the game I kicked vampiric ass without any trouble whatsoever. Every move I picked hit him, and he didn’t lay an undead finger on me. Perhaps it isn’t implemented quite correctly, or perhaps I am just an expert bloodsucking fighter.

The only criticisms I have are that, for such a big game, it isn’t actually very long and it’s pretty linear. There is some replayability what with the 4 searchable locations (of which I only saw 1, the hospital), but the end result of the game isn’t affected. Still, this is still my favourite David Whyld game, by far the most visually pleasing and technically proficient game in the summer comp, and my second favourite game of the comp.

Reviews should be considered copyrighted by their respective authors.