A Vampyre Story
Preview
Adventure in the vein of the old Monkey Island classics
by Marko Susimetsä
previewed on PC
Adventure games aren't dead – they are undead!
If you are a fan of good, funny adventure games, such as the Curse of the Monkey Island, Indiana Jones and the Infernal Machine from Lucasarts, you may already know who Bill Tiller is. Anyway, Bill Tiller has recently founded a company of his own, called Autumn Moon Entertainment and has been, for several years now, working on the next big adventure title, called A Vampyre Story, with a bunch of other ex-Lucasarts talents. The work has been delayed by problems with publishers, but with the deal struck with Crimson Cow, we should finally be treated to a new adventure title later this year!
The title of the game already reveals it - we are talking about vampires. Therefore, the backstory is pretty... morbid. However, the developers promise that the game will offer lots of humourous entertainment and should cater to all those who loved the Monkey Island games.
A wannabe opera star gets bitten
The story begins in Paris, at the Parisian Institute for the Operatic Arts, where a young starlet is performing the lead part in a opera piece called A Vampyre Story. All that the starlet in question, Mona De Lafitte, wants from life is to become a famous opera starlet and live the high life in the city of art and love - Paris. However, when her performance is seen by Shrowdy Von Kiefer, an old vampire who has recently lost his mother, her life is turned around forever.
Von Kiefer spirits Mona away to his castle in Draxsylvania and turns Mona into a vampire without her better knowledge. He keeps her imprisoned and feeds her with strangely salty variety of Merlot every night and thus Mona never realises what's happened to her. Finally, when Von Kiefer is hunted down and destroyed by professional vampire hunters, Mona attempts to return to Paris and, oblivious of her condition, to resume her career at the opera. And, naturally, she will be chased by the very same vampire hunters who did away with her sire.
Learning to be a vampire
During the adventure, Mona will slowly learn what it is to be a vampire. With new skills, such as turning into a bat and talking with animals, Mona also realises that she cannot tolerate water. And, surprisingly, water will play a part in many of the puzzles that she will have to solve before she will reach Paris and return to her old life. Of course, the necessity to feed on human blood will also prove bothersome to her plans for her life. During her adventures, Mona will get help from a bat named Froderic, a sarcastic and funny sidekick who will apparently provide a comedic constrast to the cautious and ladylike Mona.
The game interface is the good old fashioned two-dimensional point&click affair that reminds you of the old Lucasarts classics. You also get an inventory where you can place items – including Froderic the Bat. When you click on an item in the inventory, a context menu will appear, showing you the actions that you can do with the item in question. In addition to specific items, the inventory will apparently also be used to manipulate various sorts of ideas during the game. What this means specifically, remains to be seen.
Macabre art style
Bill Tiller says that his inspiration to the artistic style of A Vampyre Story comes from Edward Gorey, an artist who is known for his black-and-white ink drawings of Victorian aristocrats in funny situations. In fact, early plans for the game would have used similar black-and-white graphics. Perhaps luckily, we will get a bit more cheery colourful graphics instead.
The develpers' other inspirations include Dr Seuss and Tim Burton – the latter is pretty clearly evident in the art that we've seen thus far. But, the art style also reminds me of the good old Monkey Island games where the perspective was tweaked just enough to make buildings and environments into strangely entertaining caricatyres of ”themselves”.
A gem?
In all respects, the point&click interface and the cartoony graphics take you back to the days of Lucasarts adventures and it can only be hoped that the game will deliver and breath some new life into a genre that has seemed almost dead for a long long time. At least the developers believe in their product, as they are already talking about a trilogy of games. If the quality will get even close to the adventures of the old, I'm all for it!
