19 Jun 2009: Five years since last update this site has been closed and archived for historical purposes.

The Tomb of Dracula was originally a Sinclair ZX81 game. It was released by K-Tel Productions in 1983, and soon ported to the ZX Spectrum. The vast majority of contemporary reviewers despised the game; in fact, it was a very primitive and deficient title even by 1984's standards. Let's read some authorized opinions:

"Tomb of Dracula" is a simple graphics adventure in which you attempt to find your way through a tomb haunted by ghouls and zombies and reach a staircase leading to Dracula's treasure. On your way, you must collect silver stakes with which to defend yourself and be careful to avoid the slime pit. You may find yourself repeatedly entering empty vaults and neither the story line nor the graphics is original enough to compensate."Sinclair User, issue 22, January 1984

"Tomb of Draculais an unexciting game, with too many obstacles." Your Spectrum, issue 2, March 1984

There were, however, a couple of slightly merciful reviews. This is one of them:

"Both games on this tape [The Tomb of Dracula and It's Only Rock 'n Roll] are quite acceptable, but they're not as good as they could be. It's Only Rock 'n' Roll is by far the best." Your Spectrum, Ibid

Okay. So The Tomb of Dracula is not a great game. So it's boring, ugly and uninspiring. Why, then, have I taken the trouble to convert it to the C64 no less than twenty years after its release? Well, because I like it, and I still think it's a nice little game. Besides I wanted to know the state of my old (and humble) programming skills after all these years. And of course I was bored. I wrote the game during two or three days back in 2002, but for some reason it was never released. Now the game is finally afoot. Hope you like it. It almost gets exciting after a couple of levels.