Customer Reviews

Fury of Dracula

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

FFG has been making quality Board Games of late. This one takes place 8 years after the events of the novel and it is appearant to anyone familiar with the book that the people who made this game know the book, as well.

Knowledge of the novel is not required for play, though it certainly does help the players to understand their roles.

This game is competitive. The Dracula Player is competing against the Hunter player(s) by completing a certain set of objectives to score a determined set of victory points.

This would seem basic if it were not for the mystery and sleuthing element of Dracula's movement. The Dracula player's moves are kept secret and noted by playing face-down cards showing his location. A certain number of cards are kept on the board providing a trail. If a hunter lands on a place where Dracula has been, they recieve encounters and clues noting his passage and must then determine where he went next.

Educationally it really focuses memory and reasoning skills. Especially if the Dracula player is exceptionally cunning. The game will never repeat itself and makes each session unique.

The encounter resolution system allows combat to take place in less than three minutes. This gets the encounter resolved quickly and puts the players back into tracking down the vampire.

The player markers are plastic but well sculpted/molded and surprisingly rubust. The counters and tokens are of a thick and sturdy card board, not flimsy card stock. The board, sheets, and cards are of excellent durability and visually helpful by showing each hunter's unique powers right on the card for easy reference and having card icons to indicate the size of your maximum inventory.

A quick action summary card (one for every player) means that you will never have to flip open the rulebook to check sequence of events or timing issues since that is all one one handy card.

The game only has two detractions.

1.) The Dracula Player's powers and movement requires full and complete understanding of the rule book.
I could explain the rules the hunters needed to know in all of five minutes. Explaining the Dracula role is something I would not be able to do without ruining the experience.

2.) The contents for the price.
The box is of a decent, and almost standard, Board Game size. This betrays the size of the contents.
Four Dice, Two stacks of cards, a fistful of counters, player sheets, and a game board. At a price of $50- it is a bit much. $35- is a little more reasonable for the contents of the game.

First I would like to say this is a great game! I was impressed with the entire package from the box down to the little game pieces inside. My entire family loved it once we moved through a few rounds of play to work out the kinks and understand the rules.

The game recommends the most experienced player be Dracula. This is true. As my boys are only 10 and 8, they would have struggled to be Dracula right out of the box so I took that role first game. After our first game, my 10 year old handled Dracula like a champ! After our second game, my 8 year old did a great job as Dracula with only one hiccup during the game - he got a little excited and forgot what city he was in! Aside from that, he handled Dracula perfectly for the rest of the game. Three games and 11 hours later, the kids finally had to go to bed - they were exhausted.

I bought this game specifically to help develop my childrens deductive reasoning by tracking Dracula and following the clues. This is also a great game to teach kids how to work together as a team, communicate with each other, strategize, teach them to see how their actions have an impact on future rounds of the game and realize where they went wrong.

Long story short, the game has a lot of pieces to it and it appears to be complicated, but once you get a game under your belt and pick up on the rules it is a lot of fun.

Our next game - Arkham Horror!!!

This game was a big hit with my gaming group. We played it twice in three days; once with a full group of five (the maximum), and the other time with only two players (the minimum). Both times were really fun and, despite the long playing time, didn't drag.

Overview
The game is based on the Bram Stoker novel with the major characters of the book hunting Dracula. Basically, one player plays Dracula against four hunters. The four hunters are always used despite the number of players, one to four, that are controlling them. The object of the game is for the hunters to deduce where Dracula is hiding and kill him. Naturally, the object for Dracula is to try to prevent this from happening through his powers and cunning (including bluffing).

Components
The board is well laid out and printed on high-quality cardstock. The same can be said for the cards and tokens.
The box has pretty good storage space already, but it would be a good idea to buy two small containers to hold the tokens.

Mechanics/Gimmicks
The game has a few clever mechanics that make the game quite fun. First, Dracula doesn't say where he is or place his miniature on the board; instead, he places "Location" cards facedown on his "Trail", a row of the most recent places that he has been. Hunters can reveal Locations by going to one of the cities on the Trail, either by accident or through deduction (e.g. "Let's see, Dracula was here and then played two Location cards. He is probably either here or here."), or by playing certain cards that reveal Locations.

The second mechanic we liked is the way the players draw from the "Event" deck. The Event deck has cards that benefit either the hunters or Dracula; the two different types of cards being indicated by a symbol on the back. The twist is that only the hunters draw from the deck (well, normally) and they draw from the bottom of the deck. This makes the card draw a little suspenseful.

Rules
The rules are pretty straightforward and surprisingly easy to pick up. Another reviewer mentioned that the Dracula player has to remember a lot more rules than the hunters and this is absolutely true. The rulebook recommends that the player who knows the rules the best play Dracula, at least initially. This is sound advice and should be followed. Even if you normally fight on the side of good, if you're teaching other people to play the game, you need to be Dracula.

Appeal
My gaming group includes different levels of gamers: from those that will play a game to just hang out with friends to those that listen to podcasts of Magic: The Gathering tournaments on their MP3 players (For the record, it's not me.). This game was a hit with everyone. I think that there is enough going on in this game to appeal to the "serious" gamer and it's accessible enough to be a great family game.

Educational note: The game is not designed to be an introduction into the Bram Stoker classic, but I could see it being used that way. Also, the game relies heavily on deduction, which helps to keep the brain limber.

I got this game for christmas and absolutely love it. If you are a fan of horror novels this one follows as a sequel to Dracula, set about 6 years later. The premise is that Dracula survived and is plotting his revenge to take over Europe and create as many vampire slaves as possible. One player takes on the role of the dreaded Count, the other players (minimum 2 but ideally the game is best played with 3-4, up to 5) play the famous vampire hunters, Dr. Van Helsing, Mina Harker, Dr. Seward and Lord Godalming. Each hunter has special abilities, such as Van Helsing being an expert undead hunter and Mina, having been bitten in the course of the novel, possessing a supernatural bond with Count Dracula. The object of the game is to find and destroy Dracula's vampire minions, and ultimately, to find Dracula (who moves hidden on the board) and destroy him. It really is a game of cat and mouse and very enjoyable. If you play with only two players the course of game play is longer, as one of the players has to play all 4 hunters. The is probably one of my favorite board games because it combines geography, literature, adventure, detective mystery and strategy (particularly amongst the hunter players).
Fantasy Flight games, which publishes the game even has additional resources online you can download, such as optional rules. The figures are highly detailed molded plastic suitable for painting and all the cards and game pieces are of heavy card-stock that withstands many hours of play, it is really a very handsome board game with beautifully gothic illustrations.

If you play a lot of obscure games, as I do, you'll find this game to be similar to Ghost Chase. However, Fury of Dracula includes a combat phase during encounters. In addition, more traps can be placed. The game board is a map of Europe and one moves through various European cities. Dracula's movements are the most complex as they are hidden. Players try to deduce his trail and eventually corner and kill him before he creates the number of vampires to win or stays ahead of the vampire hunters long enough to win. The movements of Dracula might be difficult for children to master but they can play the role of vampire hunters. It does teach deductive reasoning if you play a vampire hunter. For fans of horror films, Dracula and vampires, this games is just great fun.

This game is something of a pumped up version of Scotland Yard. The game play remains unique and exciting with endless variations for each side's strategy. The rules can be a bit of a burden if you're unfamiliar with them (especially for Dracula), however, if you play a few rounds with the same group of people the assimilation of new players becomes much easier. The game can run a little long if the Dracula player is especially crafty or players take too long deciding where they would like to move, so it's essential that all players learn to act on their turns quickly. This problem can usually be avoided if one or more players is very familiar with the rules of play.

The game offers great variation on both sides of the board that can be adjusted mid-play or often pursued simultameousley, making repeated play very enjoyable.

Well, I won't bog this review down with an overly detailed explanation of how the game plays. If you'd like to know more about that, other reviewers have done a great job, and the rulebook is available to download for free on the game's website. In short, one player is Dracula and he must spend the game trying to outrun and outwit the humans hunting him. If he can do so for long enough (and help himself by making new vampires), then he wins the game. The humans win, of course, if Dracula is killed.

The game itself is fairly easy to pick up and play, for the hunters. Their role is fairly easy to understand and one game or two will have them very familiar with the flow. The Dracula player takes a bit more reading and thought, but I don't think it's anything most would have a problem picking up.

The real highlight of the game is the hunters working together to chase down Dracula. The Dracula player has to keep track of his route, and he has to tell the hunters if they find themselves in a city he's been in lately. It usually leads to an exciting cat-and-mouse finale.

The game itself is quite well made. The large map of Europe that the game is played on is durable and attractive. The cards, tokens, and pieces are likewise well made. The player figurines are plastic and unpainted, but are still well-made.

All in all, I think this is a great strategy game. And if you happen to be a fan of the original Dracula novel, it's even more engaging.

Before you start this game, make sure you have plenty of time. Some sessions will end up being longer than a full session of Monopoly. Also, the first time you play, you may not even finish the game due to time constraints. Everyone will be learning the rules, and there are a lot of them to learn. Once everyone is familiar with the rules, though, the game starts to fly.

I've played the game with my family about a half a dozen times, and my wife, my ten year old daughter, and I have a lot of fun every time. Once you're comfortable with the rules, this elaborate game of hide and seek is quite engaging.

I bought this game after having played it with some friends a few times. It's definitely one of those nerdy/geeky games that has a small booklet of rules and many pieces. I really enjoy those type of games and have several. If you also enjoy that type of game and enjoy Dracula, then this game is for you. One thing I might consider though is laminating the cards for each character. They aren't on as thin of paper as the character sheets for Android, but it could still be a good idea. But this game really is sturdy and a lot of fun to play when you have a couple hours to play. I have found it is best with 4-5 players although you can play it with less.