A vampyre story
| A vampyre story | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Studio | Autumn Moon Entertainment | ||
| Publisher |
 Crimson Cow Focus Home Interactive Crimson Cow CyberFront Corporation Akella   
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| Senior Developer | Bill Tiller | ||
| composer | Pedro Macedo Camacho | ||
| Erstveröffent- lichung |
November 17, 2008 | ||
| platform | Windows , Mac OS | ||
| Game engine | Panda3D | ||
| genre | Point-and-click adventure | ||
| Game mode | Single player | ||
| control | Mouse (computer) & keyboard | ||
| medium | DVD-ROM | ||
| language | English German | ||
| Age rating |
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A Vampyre Story is a point-and-click adventure from the US developer studio Autumn Moon Entertainment under the leadership of former LucasArts developer Bill Tiller . It was released in November 2008.
action
The central characters are the opera singer Mona De Lafitte and her companion, the bat Froderick. Mona was kidnapped by the vampire Shrowdy von Kiefer from the Paris Opera to his castle in Draxylvania, as she reminded him of his mother who had once left him. He made her a vampire and has kept her captive in his castle ever since. When one day he falls victim to the stalking of a vampire hunter, Mona tries to take the opportunity to escape from the castle and return to her home country.
Chapter 1
Chapter 1 of the game takes place in the castle, which is located on a lonely island in the middle of the Warg Lake. The main task is to escape from the castle. You will be supported by most of the minor characters and you will find records of the vampire baroness, who previously lived at the castle, created Shrowdy through an experiment and then raised him. It is implied that she is still alive. In the end you are confronted with Shrowdy's ghost and have to defeat him. Only then can you row across the lake.
Chapter 2
Chapter 2 takes place in the location of Vlad's Landing, one of the locations on the lake. Here Mona meets the fortune teller Madame Strigoi, who wants to help her and explains to her that she needs earth from her grave and her coffin in order to survive. The main task in the second chapter is to get a carriage with a horse for the journey, as well as earth and a coffin, so that Mona can make her way to Paris. She has to bite different characters. Again one is confronted with the spirit of Shrowdy. In the end it turns out that the fortune teller Madame Strigoi is working with the vampire hunters and has set a trap for Mona. In the last cutscene you see Shrowdy's ghost secretly driving into Madame Strigoi and giving Mona wrong directions. She then drives to the sawmill at Vlads Landing, where, according to Shrowdy, lives a crazy doctor who works with Shrowdy and is supposed to drive Mona back to the castle.
Characters
| character | German speaker | English speaker | role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mona De Lafitte | Celine Fontanges | Rebecca Schweitzer | A young opera singer who was turned into a vampire by Shrowdy. |
| Froderick | Tetje Mierendorf | Jeremy Koerner | A bat and Mona's constant companion. |
| Baroness von Kiefer | Shrowdy's mother. She is a witch and is mentioned a lot. | ||
| Shrowdy of pine | Hennes Bender | Brian Summers | A Draxylvanian vampire and main antagonist |
| Milton T. Meininger | David Boyle | ||
| Madame Strigoi | Marianne Bernhardt | Liz Mamorsky |
Other important characters are Edgar the Raven, the Iron Maiden, and the Nail Trickster.
Game principle and technology
A Vampyre Story is a 2.5D point-and-click adventure . For polygons composite, three-dimensional figures act before hand-drawn, some animated scenes. The player can use the mouse to move his character through the locations and use the mouse buttons to initiate actions that allow the character to interact with his environment. Mona can find objects, apply them to the environment or other objects and communicate with NPCs . As the story progresses, more locations will be unlocked. The camera shows what is happening from a somewhat variable perspective: If the room in which Mona is located is slightly larger than the screen section, the camera pans horizontally when you leave the image section; if Mona leaves the room, the camera takes a position in the adjacent room. Dialogs take place via context-related selection menus, cut-scenes mostly take place in game graphics. When larger game sections are completed, a cut scene with a length of 5 to 30 seconds is played.
Production notes
The first concepts for A Vampyre Story emerged while Tiller's work for the adventure specialist LucasArts. The game was first announced in June 2004 in The Inventory magazine of the adventure website Justadventures.com, where it was also listed at number 1 among the most anticipated adventure games. Autumn Moon finally entered into a cooperation with adventure developer Bad Brain Entertainment during the course of the year. The two companies dissolved this partnership in 2005. In July 2006, Autumn Moon was finally able to sign a publishing contract with the German publisher Crimson Cow . The game uses the free 3D engine Panda3D . The soundtrack was composed by Pedro Macedo Camacho, with the assistance of soprano Carla Isabel Moniz and violinist Carlos Freitas. He was significantly influenced by John Williams ' soundtrack for the Harry Potter film series and Michael Land's work for Monkey Island .
The publisher released a collector's edition of the game, which includes two rubber figures of Mona and Froderik, a 77-piece puzzle, the soundtrack on compact disc and a postcard. In Germany, the Collector's Edition also included a voucher for the Hamburg Dungeon .
A Vampyre Story 2 - A Bats Tale
A successor to A Vampyre Story was planned by the production team.
A Vampyre Story already contains several references to the sequel game. The last cutscene shows that the successor title would have played in the sawmill of Vlad's Landing, among other places. In the book Vampires for Fools , which Mona gets in the second chapter of the game and in which her vampire skills are explained, only half of the book is unlocked at the end of the first part, the rest should have been unlocked in the second part. A successor was also announced in the credits of the game. At the beginning of 2009 a first commercial was released, which stated that you would play most of the game as Froderik. In early 2010, the studio announced that the game was 40% complete. Lead developer Bill Tiller said at the same time that it would be 30%. In 2011 the development was stopped due to money problems.
A Vampyre Story: Year One
A Vampyre Story: Year One was supposed to be a prequel for the first part, with a third of the scope and an advised price of 8 USD. The development should be financed by the crowdfunding platform Kickstarter . The goal was € 200,000, but by the end of the financing campaign on July 1, 2013, only just over € 69,000 had been committed. Development started anyway. The last sign of life from the production of the game is a message from Bill Tiller on September 9, 2014, in which he shows a screenshot of the game.
reception
| publication | Rating | |
|---|---|---|
| 4players | 83% | |
| Adventure Corner | 89% | |
| Adventure meeting | 89% | |
| EuroGamer.de | 9 of 10 | |
| GameStar | 68% | |
| Gamona | 80% | |
| PC Games | 79% | |
| Adventure Gamers | 3.5 out of 5 | |
| Adventure Classic Gaming | 4 of 5 | |
| GameSpot | 7.5 out of 10 | |
| IGN | 7.6 of 10 | |
| PC Gamer (UK) | 47% | |
| PC zone | 73% | |
| Meta-ratings | ||
| GameRankings | 74.96% | |
| Metacritic | 75 out of 100 | |
A Vampyre Story received mostly positive reviews ( GameRankings : 74.96% / Metacritic : 75 out of 100).
“A Vampyre Story is a really tough nut to crack when it comes to puzzle design, and technically it is sometimes old-fashioned. Nonetheless, fans of earlier Lucas Arts titles should be enthusiastic: An interesting story, atmospheric locations, countless bizarre ideas and sympathetic characters guarantee long-lasting and highly amusing puzzles, riddles and bloodsucking fun. "
Adventure-Corner.de gave the game the award for the best graphics in 2008, and the title came third in the categories Game of the Year and Best Sound. As part of the MTV Game Awards 2009, Froderick was nominated in the Best Supporting Actor category.
marketing
The marketing team organized some major campaigns for the game. Among other things, there was a collaboration with EMP, with whom a photo competition for vouchers was organized. There was also a collaboration with Call a Pizza , where you could order an "A Vampyre Story" pizza.
There was a special edition with Mona and Froderik as single figures made of hard rubber, a Gruzzle puzzle puzzle and the soundtrack on CD.
In November 2008 a website was opened that appears to contain a puzzle. It included the game "Hangman", which was partially completed, and some notes and drawings. The site was taken offline again in 2011 and is no longer visible via the Wayback machine.
Web links
- A Vampyre Story at MobyGames (English)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Dimitris Manos: Top 10 Upcoming Adventures Archived from the original on October 23, 2006. (PDF) In: The Inventory . No. 16, June 2004, pp. 28-31. Retrieved October 28, 2006.
- ↑ Dimitris Manos: Gossip Archived from the original on October 23, 2006. (PDF) In: The Inventory . No. 20, June 2004, pp. 5-10. Retrieved October 28, 2006.
- ↑ http://mixnmojo.com/news/Bad-Brain-and-Autum-Moon-part-ways
- ↑ Bodo Naser: Midnight Event with Mona . In: 4Players . freenet AG . July 2, 2006. Retrieved January 26, 2013.
- ↑ http://www.pcgames.de/A-Vampyre-Story-PC-123440/News/A-Vampyre-Story-Unsere-Vorschau-zum-untoten-Adventure-643856/
- ↑ John Broomhall: Heard About A Vampyre Story . In: Develop , November 2008, p. 57.
- ↑ Jan Jacob Mekes: Q&A: Pedro Macedo Camacho . Archived from the original on December 17, 2008. Retrieved December 28, 2008.
- ↑ A Vampyre Story 2: A Bat's Tale - Froderick Promo. Accessed January 2, 2020 (German).
- ↑ a b A Vampyre Story 2: Project suspended for the time being - two unknown companies are to blame. December 31, 2011, accessed January 1, 2020 .
- ↑ A Vampyre Story 2: Development stopped due to money problems - update. December 30, 2011, accessed January 1, 2020 .
- ↑ A Vampyre Story: Year One - Adventure continues poorly on Kickstarter - Update: F # @ k DRM! June 19, 2013, accessed January 1, 2020 .
- ↑ a b A Vampyre Story: Year One. Accessed January 1, 2020 .
- ↑ Bodo Naser: Test: A Vampyre Story . In: 4Players . freenet AG . November 14, 2008. Retrieved January 26, 2013.
- ↑ Tobias Maack: A Vampyre Story . In: Adventure Corner . November 14, 2008. Retrieved January 27, 2013.
- ^ Benjamin Braun: Test: A Vampyre Story . In: Adventure-Treff . November 13, 2008. Retrieved January 26, 2013.
- ↑ Steffen Salomon: A Vampyre Story - Test . In: EuroGamer.de . Eurogamer Network . November 14, 2008. Retrieved January 27, 2013.
- ↑ Christian Fritz Schneider: A Vampyre Story in the Test: Jokes great, puzzles flop . In: GameStar . IDG . December 12, 2008. Retrieved January 27, 2013.
- ↑ Matthias Grimm: Be careful! The vampire adventure of the Monkey Island makers . In: Gamona . Webguidez Entertainment. November 14, 2008. Retrieved January 27, 2013.
- ↑ Christian Burtchen: A Vampyre Story: PC Games tests the long-awaited adventure . In: PC Games . Computec Media Group . November 14, 2008. Retrieved January 27, 2013.
- ↑ Evan Dickens: A Vampyre Story review ( English ) In: Adventure Gamers . December 20, 2008. Retrieved January 26, 2013.
- ↑ Igor Hardy: A Vampyre Story ( English ) In: Adventure Classic Gaming . December 1, 2008. Retrieved January 27, 2013.
- ↑ Brett Todd: A Vampyre Story Review ( English ) In: GameSpot . CNET . December 12, 2008. Retrieved January 27, 2013.
- ↑ Emily Balistrieri: A Vampyre Story Review ( English ) In: IGN . News Corp . December 12, 2008. Retrieved January 27, 2013.
- ↑ a b GameRankings : Average rating of the game , based on 25 ratings. Retrieved January 26, 2013.
- ↑ a b Metacritic : Average rating of the game , based on 33 articles. Retrieved January 26, 2013.
- ↑ http://www.golem.de/0812/63966.html
- ↑ http://www.adventurecorner.de/pages/311/lösungen-der-wahl-zum-spiel-des-jahres-2008
- ↑ a b Uwe Dombeck: News A Vampyre Story - www.Adventures-Kompakt.de. Retrieved July 19, 2020 .
- ↑ A Vampyre Story - Snappy pizza for the adventure. October 24, 2008, accessed July 19, 2020 .