The DorkWeb had a chance to sit down to play Fury of Dracula, a game of vamperic hide and seek.
Ever want to hunt Dracula for a couple hours, only to realize he’s been tip-toeing two spaces behind you? We got you.
How It Plays:
Fury of Dracula is a cooperative and competitive boardgame that can be played with as little as 2 players, but you’d really be missing out without at least 3. We didn’t get the chance to play this with a full table of 5 players, but we can imagine things would become harder for the player controlling Dracula if that were the case. Like many of the other popular hidden movement games, Fury of Dracula sets one player up as the blood sucking master of the night, while all other players control characters hunting Dracula. The catch? Dracula’s miniature does not move on the game board, instead the player controlling Dracula is the only one who knows their true location.
Naturally, this leads to hilarious moments where discussions between hunting players coordinate a long search of the Baltic Peninsula only to have Dracula pop up and attack a player trailing behind.
On an average hunter turn you’d be able to try and obtain new items and event cards, use an ability specific to that hunter, or move. Hunters are able to ask Dracula each time they move to a new space if he’s been to that location before. If he has, he must say so and also has the chance to spring any traps he’d left behind. Dracula’s has fewer turns due to a day/night cycle that moves one phase to the next, but he is able to play cards in locations he’s currently sneaking around in to either trap and harm hunters or to create more vampires.
What We Thought:
The game ends when either the hunters have defeated Dracula, or Dracula has amassed enough influence to push his track to its end.
On how the fighting works for just a moment. This was perhaps one of my favorite parts. Combat takes place through a series of one on one card flips between Dracula/vampire spawn and the hunters. It is very much like Rock, Paper, Scissors with a couple of neat twists in how some card effects resolve.
Fury of Dracula is a fun 1vAll game but it has one major flaw. Time investment. We’ve played this game on a few different occasions and our shortest game was just about 3 hours. Thats not to say that we weren’t having fun during those three hours, but things can really start to drag when the hunters think they’ve caught up and cornered Dracula only to have him escape. It brings the thrill and excitement to a screeching halt. From there it can feel monotonous to once again begin spreading all the hunters out trying to pick up the trail again.
That being said, there are definitely some impressive details that this game will bring to the table. Namely, it respects the lore it’s presenting the players with and from the miniatures, to the cards, to the board, everything looks and feels fantastic. It just may be hard to convince players to join you for this long haul. Purchase here
