Mojec Hyper Industries - "Dracula's New Friends"

Photos above are property of Mojec Hyper Industries

Company: Mojec Hyper Industries

Game: Dracula's New Friends

Country: USA 🇺🇸

Language: English

Type of Game: Digital Game w/ Live Host 💁

Genre: Fantasy, Sci-Fi

Date Played: October 16, 2021

Difficulty (based on 6 players): 4/10

Size of Team: 2-8 Players

Time: 65 Minutes

Price: $25.00/ pp (min. of 2 ppl required)

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It’s been a long time (if ever?) since I read the original Bram Stoker’s Dracula, but apparently this loosely follows that, in a light-hearted, family-friendly way. You set out to help the young lawyer, Jonathan, as he heads off to meet Dracula...

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I loved the look of this game! It was so charming and whimsical. The art is all original work by 1000 Dead Draculas, and it is colorful, unique, and really draws you into the screen. There is a cute and quirky use of the drawn characters that are filmed in almost a puppet style on little wooden sticks, as part of several story-telling interludes. Interspersed with the beautifully drawn Telescape world, you are also interacting with a live actor (who pulls off a number of quick costume changes)!

As a Telescape-based game, this is largely a point-and-click style. All members of your team will be in the game together, and you can see where others are clicking, for instance. The game tends to alternate between narrative components that progress the story (either via puppet style in a video or the live actor) and more traditional “puzzle-solving” in Telescape. Though, there are aspects that feel a bit more like immersive theater, and you will need to achieve some goals simply through interactions with the live actor. I appreciated that you generally could not access the Telescape game while the other aspects were occurring, so that you did not have to debate whether to ignore the story while you kept puzzling but could fully focus on each as it occurred.

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This is a very family-friendly game, and the puzzles were certainly ones that would be accessible to children or inexperienced players. As experienced adults, we progressed through them quite smoothly and finished in 41 minutes. There were a variety of puzzle types, including searching, deciphering, logic, and assembling jigsaw-type puzzles. There were a few places where people were able to split up to tackle several puzzles simultaneously, which is a nice option if you are in a larger group. There were other puzzles that seemed to be intended to focus on cooperation, where different players would access different information simultaneously. I certainly like these kinds of communication challenges, though there were some frustrating aspects of this in Telescape, where one person’s interactions with an object (e.g., turning the page of a book) have the same effect in everyone else’s version, which can interfere with what they were trying to do or look at. I do enjoy the interactive element of this kind of Telescape game, where you get to flip switches or move objects, and it gives a bit of that sense of agency you would have in an in-person room.

Photos above are property of Mojec Hyper Industries

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"Dracula’s New Friends" is a really cute option for families or those looking for a more accessible (and not scary) Halloween-themed game! There were parts of the story that did not totally make sense to me, but in the end I didn’t really care. The various characters played by the actor and particularly the charming art are all extremely endearing, and the style was unlike any other game that I have played.

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*** We regret to inform this company has closed its doors ***

Disclosure: We thank Mojec Hyper Industries for comping our tickets for this game. Although a complimentary experience was generously provided, it does not impact our opinion on the review whatsoever.

#KristaJones #AtHomeGames #DigitalGames #Fantasy #MojecHyperIndustries #USA