Jeremy’s Gaming Gratons: DRACULA’S CURSE

Board Game Gumbo is pleased to present another game night recap with Jeremy Dobler. This time, eremy looks at Dracula’s Curse from Retro Plus Games.

Think Betrayal at House on the Hill meets Castlevania without the annoying player elimination, and wild variable rules for each side or scenario. (Though the rules aren’t great here, more on that later.)

When I saw this one on crowdfunding, I was immediately enamored with the theming, production company (Panda GM), and the promise of a Castlevania-like experience smashed together with the Betrayal system of exploration.

It’s designed to be played as a One vs Many games with one person playing Dracula, and up to 5 others playing as Slayers entering his castle keep and fighting monsters of varying strengths while growing their power to take on the big bad at the top spire, Dracula himself. But Dracula won’t just wait for them to arrive and attempt to defeat him, he has a turn each round where he can move 1-4 shadows around the castle that can ‘attack’ players, or even combine with each other to increase their own strength. If they manage to combine 4 together they create a Shadow Dracula which can be lethal to the Slayers on its own, with 25 health they must overcome to defeat it.

Dracula also builds out rooms in the castle for Slayers to block Slayers progress, as his rooms are usually very bad for them. Each room has its own Events, generally they are compulsory where you must discard a matching card type to overcome it, or lose 1 health if you can’t. Some of them also cause you to gain curses (always bad), or give Dracula more Essence (his form of special action points). That’s not to mention the potential level 1, 2, or 3 monsters you might encounter in the rooms which each have their own health pool and special abilities you must overcome or lose HP to.

Fret not though, because overcoming them gives you valuable blood points you can use to enhance your base character with subclasses like Samurai, Assassin, or Ranger, each giving you special persistent, or triggered abilities to make you a more deadly Slayer. That’s on top of the Mind, Speed, or Force cards you draw each turn that give you even more powerful equipment, traits, spells, or attacks you can equip or use during combat to slay your foes.

Remember Player elimination? Not in this game, if you lose all your HP, you turn into a Vampire, now capable of attacking other players and benefitting form Dracula’s cursed rooms. You even get a special Vampire Quest card that you must complete to win your own personal game, regardless of whether or not Dracula or the Slayers wins. Your player card flips over and all of the subclasses do too, revealing NEW abilities and powers of your undead form.

It can’t all be good can it? Well no, firstly, that rulebook is in dire need of some work. It’s only 15 pages, only 7 pages are actual rules for the main game. Most of Dracula’s turn is only outlined on the reference sheet, which is inconveniently also the Slayer reference sheet.

Then, instead of including the room effects text on the tile, you have a reference sheet that has all of the effects on it you’ll have to constantly look to for info. I also felt like the Slayers are incredibly weak early game wherein the monsters have a minimum of 12 health, and the starting characters range from 3-6. Meaning you MUST get cards to increase your power, otherwise you’re losing health with each explored room or combat, because you just don’t have enough attack power to survive.

It’s kind of a complete 180 once you do find a couple items, as none of the monsters can stand up to your new minimum attack power of 12-15. Sure Dracula can boost them a bit by playing previous defeated monsters to add 2-6 extra power to them, but he might want to save those for himself later.

I definitely need another play or two at various player counts, and I’d like to give the Blood Dojo (solo/co-op mode) a try to see how it differs from the normal game, as there is an AI deck for Dracula. Overall it feels a bit undercooked, and needed a bit more rules refinement. It’s hard to really play/enjoy a game when you only barely understand how to play it, because of a poorly written rulebook.

Just a little something to chew on — Jeremy

Jeremy is an omni-gamer from Lafayette, Louisiana, who games at home with his wife and young son, but also can be frequently hosting or visiting game nights with friends all over Acadiana. Jeremy loves games about nature, IP games involving turtles and batmen, and games appropriate to play with his young son, but expect lots of different games discussed here each time.