A Vampyre Story

A Vampyre Story
by Autumn Moon Entertainment - November, 2008

Available at:
Amazon.com
GamersGate
Vote to get it at GOG HERE
Steam



The point-and-click adventure game A Vampyre Story tells the tale of the beautiful, gifted opera singer Mona De Lafitte, whose life is brought to an abrupt end by a vampire baron named Shrowdy Von Kiefer. Henceforth, she is doomed to a miserable existence as a creature of the night in Von Kiefer's gloomy castle in Draxsylvania. Confronted with her seemingly hopeless fate, she decides to run away and try to fulfill her dream of singing at the Paris Opera. Accompanied by her mischievous bat Froderick, Mona must face a number of challenges in her odyssey and learn not only to accept her vampire nature, but also to use the abilities she has acquired to her advantage.

In more than 50 hand-drawn locations, the player's task is to guide Mona through Draxsylvania and to Paris by using his powers of deduction.  Having a bent for extremely dark humor also helps... Along the way, Mona meets a wealth of partly endearing, partly frightening, but often just plain weird characters, including the inventor Dr. Riga Mortus, the gypsy Madame Strigoi, and Carpathia the wolfwoman.

A Vampyre Story has been penned by Bill Tiller, the founder of Autumn Moon Entertainment. A former employee of Lucas Arts, Tiller won himself a place in the hearts of adventure fans through his work on titles such as Steven Spielberg's The Dig, the legendary The Curse of Monkey Island, and Indiana Jones. A Vampyre Story combines modern 3D animation with the qualities of classic 2D adventure design and a highly unusual style which can best be compared with the works of Tim Burton or Edward Gorey.

All of this contributes toward making A Vampyre Story the first classic adventure for players of the 21st century, with the look and feel, humor and class of the cult graphic adventures by the Californian developer.

• A point-and-click adventure game created by former LucasArts employees.
  
• Over 50 hand-painted locations, in part over several screens, to explore and investigate.
  
• Over 20 characters, from plain weird to downright terrifying.
  
• Over 20 hours of brainteasing fun.
  
• Vampire abilities influence game events.
  
• Walkthrough by MaGtRo (GameBoomers)
  
• You can find the game manual HERE
  

From the booklet included with the boxed game:

The Story So Far:

Draxsylvania, 1895
Deep within the walls of a gloomy castle in equally gloomy Draxsylvania, Mona de Lafitte, a young, up-and-coming opera singer, is being held captive by her tormentor, the even gloomier Baron Shrowdy von Kiefer, a vampire. Ever since Shrowdy transformed her into a vampire, kidnapped her and sped her off to  Draxsylvania, her heart’s desire has been to be able to return to Paris and set her vocal training forth so that one day she can appear on the stage of the Paris Opera as a star.

When Shrowdy doesn’t return from a nocturnal search for prey one night, she sees that her chance to escape has come at last: Together with Froderick, a wise-cracking bat but the only being she feels she can trust, she attempts to flee from her prison and find the way back to Paris. Now “on the run” across Draxsylvania, as she meets up with the land’s bizarre inhabitants and is confronted more and more often with equally bizarre problems, Mona has to learn not only to accept what being a vampire is like, but to use those traits to her advantage.

Find the group play-through HERE.

A Vampyre Story (Adventure)

Options include separate sliders for Music, Effects, Voice, and Anti-aliasing, plus subtitles and high-quality lighting.  It automatically adjusted for my widescreen, and looks great that way.

• Esc. takes you to the main menu, where you can save or load your game, adjust your settings, or exit the game.
  
• Left-click anywhere on the screen to move to that spot, and to bring up an options bubble, click and hold until the options pop up.  Options are:  Examine object, use/pick up, talk, and fly.
  
• Right-click to access your inventory.  To combine objects in your inventory, simply left-click once on each object.  To use an item on your surroundings, left-click on item, then move the cursor to the edge of the screen, which will close your inventory.
  
• Right-clicking on an exit will also allow you to jump directly to a different scene without having to wait.
  
• Holding down the Space Bar will make Mona walk faster, and tapping it will allow you to skip dialogue and cutscenes, if you wish.
  
• Press the Tab Key will show you all of the hot spots on the scene.  Be sure to move to the edges of the scene to see everything.
  

The game starts out with a LONG intro.  I'm talking about ten minutes long.  OK, I looked it up on youtube, and it's only 8.14 minutes long, but I was close!   This isn't a bad thing, you understand, but if the idea of a lot of story doesn't appeal to you, then adventure games probably aren't for you   Right off the bat I knew what I was supposed to be doing, but no idea how I was supposed to do it.  Was I supposed to wander around, or could what I needed to accomplish be done right where I already was?  To be honest, if not for the fact that I OWN this game, I probably would have given up early on and not looked back.  Since I DO own it, I didn't let my impatience get the best of me, and I'm SO glad I stuck with it!

In case you didn't read my quick-guide above, when you want to interact with something, you need to click and HOLD the mouse button for the options bubble to pop up.  Don't let go until you choose how you want to interact!  I had trouble remembering to keep the button depressed...  

There is no HINT button, no MAP, no JOURNAL.  You're on your own!  The space bar and/or right-clicking on a directional arrow will be your besssst friend!  Instant transfers to where you want to go are a wonderful thing!  While watching Mona sashay across the screen is entertaining, you'll tire of it quickly, believe me!  You will do quite a bit of back-and-forth whilst you play -- mostly to find things that you missed the first time around   Hitting the Tab key will show you all of the active areas on the screen, but I STILL missed things here and there, mostly because I simply did not expect something to be there!

There is a TON of talking in this game -- no black bar tips -- everything is remarked upon verbally by either our character, Mona, and/or by her helpful, wisecracking, bat-sidekick Froderick.  You will spend a LOT of time listening to the characters, but you can speed them up a bit with the space bar.  You might miss part of the conversation if you're too space bar-happy, but you CAN have them repeat what they said (most of the time.)  While interacting with characters, you have multiple choices of things to say/ask.  Anything you've already said gets grayed out to help you remember what's been talked about, but you CAN click on the grayed-out options to see/hear them again.  You'll want to check out every option when talking to someone to be sure you don't miss something.  There are hints scattered throughout conversations and item descriptions, but very few are blatant.  You're going to have to THINK on this one!

You should, of course, pick up anything that can be picked up, but be aware that some items have descriptions and interactions simply to help set the scene and help immerse you in the game... and that some items that you THINK don't matter are actually important!

Something I really love about this game is the way the inventory is handled.  Right-click to access your inventory, which pops up on the page in the form of a coffin   There you'll see anything you've picked up, as well as a picture of Froderick.  Click once on any item in there to pick it up, then drag it to the edge of the screen to have the coffin disappear so you can use it on the screen -OR- drop it on another item in your inventory to combine them.  Click and hold on item for the options bubble to pop up.  Here's the part I really love:  REALITY!  Heavy and/or bulky items aren't going to be dragged around with us!  When you try to pick it up, Mona will say something like, "This might come in handy, but I'm not carrying it around with me.  I'll keep it in mind for later."  The item then goes into your inventory, but is blued-out.  When you get to a place where you need said item, select it and drop it where needed, and Mona will automatically go and grab it.  You'll get to watch a short cutscene of her grabbing it, then coming back to the scene to use it.  AWESOME!!    And don't forget that Froderick is an inventory item!  Sometimes he'll need to be combined with an inventory item.  When this happens, a picture of him with the item will show up in your inventory, ready to be used.  Puzzle solutions can also show up in your inventory -- only once that I can think of did I need to write down the information I needed for a puzzle.

As for the puzzles, there aren't a lot of mini-games, per se -- the whole of the game is a puzzle to be solved.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that almost everything we were required to do completely made sense!  There was one sequence towards the end that had me stumped, and I was progressing, but not understanding WHY I was doing these things... and then it hit me!  Wheeee, I love those A-HAH! moments!

This game is a comedy-adventure, rife with humor every which way you go.  During our group play, RenaissanceMom mentioned that the humor is a bit juvenile, and I have to agree, but it's still a hoot.  It was the pop culture references that had me rolling.  The devs poke fun at everything from music to Stephen King to snot to Edgar Allan Poe to Ozzy Osbourne (much funnier if you've heard Ozzy speak)!  They even make anachronisms (items from the wrong time period) funny!  I love the quirky art style, too.

Mona is naive, airheaded, and completely in denial about her situation, despite her ability to turn into a bat. Our helpful companion, Froderick, always has some kind of snarky remark on hand (so to speak   ) and can be incredibly helpful.  Every character seems to have a different kind of accent, and ALL are not only well done, but beautifully cast -- nice since there is soooo much talking in the game!

I did have a couple of technical problems with the game, but they didn't affect my enjoyment of the game all the much.  First off, I was running the game on Windows 7.  The transition cutscenes did not have any subtitles (so I had to turn the sound up, so as not to miss anything!) and these scenes wanted to repeat immediately.  Luckily, I knew to hit the space bar to skip the second play-through of these scenes.  I also had a problem with characters sometimes talking over each other towards the end of sentences, but I think that this may be a timing issue related to having the game available in multiple languages.

RM had a game-stopping glitch, so be sure to SAVE OFTEN!!! -- always a good idea with adventure games.  The glitch had to do with the fertilizer, and I will post the info here, so that you don't have the same problem:

Spoiler:

This is not just a straightforward, quickie solution-type of game.  As I mentioned, you will have to THINK.  You'll get to a point where you know just what to do, and then... realize there are more layers to your task than you originally thought.  Despite this, I didn't need the walkthrough all that much -- mostly because I missed seeing an exit or a hotspot   I found the game to be a lot of fun, and was sad when it ended!  The game is described as having over 20 hours gameplay, and while I didn't get that much time from it, I'm sure I hit half that... but again, I did sometimes use the walkthrough

Now, it turns out that this is only chapter ONE of the game!   It ends at a satisfying place, and I was very happy to have played it.  Even if chapter two never comes out (it's on hold,) I'm very happy that I played this game.  You see news about A Vampyre Story: A Bat's Tale HERE, and there was a failed Kickstarter Campaign for a prequel last year (just found that out today!)  There is a newsletter you can sign up for if you'd like to keep in-the-know about A Vampyre Story: Year One HERE.

I absolutely had a ball with this game, and I will be playing it again one day.  I REALLY hope to see more Vampyre games soon!  In the meantime, I must get Ghost Pirates of Vooju Island and play it, because it's the most recent game by these devs, and I need more!

Definitely recommended for lovers of comedy and adventure!  

GREAT review, Genki!   
I will be restarting from an earlier save but I haven't been able to do so yet because this week turned out to be a little crazy, time-wise. (Don't you hate when RL interferes with gaming?!   )

So I'll pick up either starting this evening or tomorrow, because I want to finish this game!      

Yay~  I'm happy to see that you'll be finishing it   Hate that you had a glitch, but I think it's worth it even with an older save.

Okay, I don't want to pull my hair out, but--
I went to an earlier save, then got the fertilizer and made sure Froderick said his piece. Once again I applied the fertilizer and, exactly like last time, Mona says "Hmm, nothing happened. I guess we'll have to wait 6 weeks to see if anything grows".....What am I doing wrong?!?! I really really don't want to keep playing this game over and over; I MUST be missing something???

Did you read the recipe mentioning the belladonna first?

EDIT:  I'm going to go in to one of my earlier saves to see if I can duplicate the problem.

***ALL SPOILERS***

Crap!  I loaded the game right at the lock we have to do in order to stop the demon snot, which reveals the Book of Shrouds and unlocks the refrigerator (which has the fertilizer inside.) I tried to recreate the situation by not unlocking the clue in the book, grabbing the fertilizer (did you see the shortcut, by the way?  When you leave the room, go LEFT.  There's a hole at the top of the screen   ), then going to the flower box and pouring it.  I had wiped the snow off when I'd first discovered the planter box.  It worked!

So I tried again, this time not opening the book at all, then repeated the above.  Same result!  I didn't have Froderick look at the planter box either time!

Have you tried looking at the walkthrough to see if there's something you've missed?

OH, I just remembered!

Did you

Spoiler:

genkicoll wrote:OH, I just remembered!

Did you

Spoiler:

  No I didn't! I'm sorry -- thanks for your concerned posts but I was away from the PC and hadn't checked them. So, no I didn't read the complete walkthrough (b/c I hate following walkthroughs) but that was going to be my next course of action. I'm going to see if I can figure out what you're talking about and will report back. Thanks again!  

Genki, I just looked through a walkthrough for

Spoiler:

and didn't see them mentioned. Where do I find them?
ETA - Oh wait! Never mind, I think I know....   <-- feeling hopeful, lol

ETAA - JACKPOT!!!!!  
It just didn't make sense that it was some kind of glitch; that's not how these games typically work. It was just dumb me, overlooking something (but not knowing WHAT). Thanks again Genki!  

Yay, I'm so glad you got it!   Thank goodness!

Now out at Steam!   That may not seem like a reason to celebrate, but hopefully it will bring attention to the game, and more votes at GOG! (added a link to vote for GOG release to the first post)

Pay no mind to the comments that the game doesn't run on Windows 7 -- I had no problem!

I have it somewhere.  I didn't get too far in it, but that is because I have such a short attention span when it comes to games.