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Castle Dracula is a text adventure that starts off in a deserted village within sight of the castle of the fanged fiend Count Dracula. The object of the adventure is to make your way to the castle and explore it to discover the whereabouts of the evil vampire and destroy him by driving a stake through his heart.

The guy who wrote this adventure obviously fancies himself as a writer of comedy scripts. Unfortunately, although some of the jokes are funny, it all tends to get a little tedious after a while. After you are killed you get a "Fangs for the game" which is a mite predictable to say the least.

I was none too impressed by the false error message "Mistake at line 10" (and the BASIC prompt on the next line) which appeared at one point in the game. It had the desired effect of making me believe the game had crashed, but I might well have pressed Break in disgust. As it happens, any other key causes the game to resume and the message "Had you worried!" appears.

There are 100 locations in the game, so it's quite small compared to some of the adventures around for the Beeb. I don't think seasoned adventurers will find it much of a challenge but it is about right for a beginner.

One serious gripe is that after you are kiled and wish to restart, you have to reload in the game status again which takes a fair while.

I was not over enthralled by this adventure for the reasons forestated and would probably have felt robbed had I shelled out £7.95 for it myself.