Reviews

NosferatuTheVampyre.tap.zip crashes when pressing 1 (New Game) at the game menu.

A sombre, atmospheric dynamic adventure based upon Werner Herzog's 1979 classic movie starring Klaus Kinski, which in turn is an adaptation of Bram Stoker's Dracula novel.

As Jonathan Harker your task is first of all to escape from Count Dracula's castle, battling giant spiders and bats and avoiding, should you meet him, the Count himself. Once this has been done, you must cooperate with other characters - Jonathan's wife and Dr. Van Helsing - in order to lure Dracula out of his place and destroy him, while avoiding or neutralizing the fellow townsfolk, who are been largely vampirized by the Count.

Graphics are effective, although characters look a bit woody, especially when moving. Sound is limited to a grating tune, which can thankfully be turned off, and some effects.

The whole game is more than the sum of its parts, though; although it feels a little sparse at times, it will require some considerable efforts to be completed, due to the many tasks you will have to perform and the many things you must discover by yourself.

1986 Piranha (UK)
by Graham Stafford

Nosferatu is a very well thought out game. The dark atmosphere of the movie is nicely portrait here and even with the cartoonish feel of the characters it still manages to unsettle you, specially after the long 5 minutes of loading the game and looking at that strange but beautiful loading screen.

Before I read the instructions and started playing it properly I used to just wander around the rooms exploring trap doors or secret passages. My winter nights became filled with uncanny and eerie entertainment!
Then my first girlfriend came along, and my nights changed dramatically, but that's a different story!

Back to the game, by this time I was fed up with all the isometric games, still this game was different, it captured my imagination and really compelled me. It looked and felt different.
The game is played in three parts each with the same design but with different tasks to do, some easy, some not. The ending is nice but a bit sudden.
I still consider this as one of the best games ever made to the Speccy, even better than Fairlight, which seems to gather more fans, but doesn't have that 'je ne sais quoi' thing I love from Nosferatu.

A game based on the film that was based on Bram Stoker's Dracula! Not the 1922 original but the 1979 Werner Herzog remake....

Unfortunately, it's one of those isometric 3D wander-a-round-a-thons that there seem to be approximately 7 kajillion and 1 of on the Speccy. I've only played it briefly though, and it does seem to be a pretty good example of one. I did manage to get stuck fairly early on though and couldn't work out where I was supposed to go, and my interest really wasn't held long enough for me to continue.....

It all looks suitably creepy though, and has a nice day-to-night lighting thing going on and is probably really good once you get into it..I'll need to revisit it some other time though, when I get the urge for isometric stuff..which does happen every now and again actually!

Anyway, if you're looking for exactly the same sort of thing, why not give this a try and see what you make of it? If you find it to be the most amazing game ever you can always write your own review and tell me and then I might be persuaded to give it another go....

by Graham Stafford (Design Design Software)

This is a cool 3d isometric arcade/adventure with an eerie atmosphere and long fangs
waiting in the darkness, plus one of the most agonizing in-game music ever [it can be turned off]. It's pretty good. Very nice and detailed graphics, explorative gameplay, fleets of bats sucking your blood like no other bats before or since, a never ending, anguishing descent through a spiral staircase into the catacombs of the castle [that's if you find a light and the passage]. Played it again tonight, I had forgotten how good it was. And it's got three sections. Creepy.
4,25/5

An atmospheric horror adventure based on the classic film (based in turn on the excellent Bram Stoker Novel).

In a moment in which isometric games started to saturate the market (many of them didn't stand out) this game came out with a surprisingly good horror atmosphere.

The game has three parts: Dracula's castle, the town of Wismar and Lucy's house. You are Jonathan Harker and must escape from the castle and go to Wismar to fight against the vampyre and finally kill him with the help of Van Helsing and your girlfriend Lucy (you can control the three characters in Wismar). Vampyre beasts, rats, bats and other terrific creatures will try to stop you in your mission.

A very interesting game by Piranha with correct graphics with just a little 'objection': a repetitive tune that after some minutes makes you get mad.

Fortunately you can turn it off.

It's an isometric game, a genre of games I cannot get on with now, but this had potential though ultimately falls flat. A lot of isometric games had awkward control issues were you can only move forward in the direction he is facing and spinning your man only adds to the confusion, here the controls are much more straightforward and exploring the rooms was much more simplified compared to other isometric games I've played in the past. The problem though is the rooms themselves are a confusing mess especially when the game changes colour randomly, so what looks like a different path turns out to be the very same one you just took like a minute only a different colour. Then I died and scored no points and that was the end of that, also less said about that tune the better. Aw such a shame because it had potential and I was enjoying for a bit before realising I had practically been going in circles for about 90 seconds. But at least it's a step up from most isometric games I've played and with a bit more patience I might have gotten somewhere with it.

That's great! the page works again
And trying classic games with isometric perspective, like the ones I like!

This one with vampires and with Van Helsing is not perfect but quite good indeed. I think A.Grussu sums it up very well.
The music is strange and I thought they intended to give it a harrowing touch !
Its graphics were used by me for an essay in the popular SFML library!