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This serious adaption of a Dracula novel of the last century, written by Bram Stoker, comes from Rod Pike the author of Pilgrim. Rod assures me that the book makes heavy reading, and is not an essential read to complete the game. In fact, it is out of print, and should you wish to read it, the public library is probably your best bet.

But the Victorian air of horror is conveyed well in the game, without being heavy going. This is a game with screenfuls of atmospheric text, plenty of things to keep you guessing, but very few locations and objects. There is not much carting and carrying objects from place to place, but a lot to do, and a lot to get right, in a small space!

Dracula is in three parts. The first is entitled The Fright Night, and concerns your arrival at the Hotel Krone for an overnight stop. A young solicitor, you are en route to visit your client, Count Dracula, on whose behalf you have purchased a house in England. The night does not pass pleasantly, despite your being very tired. Perhaps you should have selected more carefully from the menu...? If ghoulies and ghosties don't strike in the night, next morning you could be on a coach heading into the mountains - at breakneck speed!

Next comes The Arrival. A mysterious old woman is your travelling companion aboard a coach which eventually arrives at a rendezvous with the coachman of Count Dracula, for the final leg of your journey. A somewhat brutish man, he conveys you to your destination, from where you soon begin to suspect you may never escape alive...

In Part 3, The Hunt, you play the part of a different character, Dr. Seward, proprietor of an asylum for the insane, in England. A bit forgetful, you wander down into the local village, not at all sure why you wanted to go there. There is something on your mind... As a relief from the building tension, you could discover the contents of page three of the newspaper of the day!

Although this is a quilled adventure, the graphics are not drawn with the Illustrator, Dracula has digitised graphics created in-house at CRL. Digitised graphics means that the pictures are not cartoon-type drawings, but more photographic in style and detail. They pop up at moments of high drama, to horrify you, accompanied by suitably chilling music.

My only criticisms of the game would be the use of arbitrary combinations of different actions that makes one problem rather tedious and a bit illogical; and its tendency to leave you where you are without a nudge now and again, if you fail to hit upon the expected action. Vocab is no problem here, it is the solution itself.

Having said that, if you enjoy a cracking good horror story, with plenty of chilling descriptive passages, this is for you! By the way, Dracula has been issued a '15' certificate by the British Board of Film Classification.