Denial

Finally finished it

It took me much longer than it should, as I didn't realize that I was missing one crucial object at the end. Believing I had all the items needed, I consulted a thesaurus and tried all the verbs I could find to kill Dracula to no avail. Then I tried other, weirder approaches: making him my prisoner, giving him to the townsfolk, pushing him from my bedroom window ... Nothing worked of course, but I found it very strange that Adams chose to represent Dracula as an object among others.

Well, eventually it dawned on me that there was a crucial item lying around. Properly equipped, I then promptly killed Dracula - no fancy verb needed.

Very, very clever game, but please no more sheet climbing in future games - I've had all I can take of that convoluted procedure!

P.S. I accidentally cheated once when clicking on the link above to gamingafter40. A clue to a crucial puzzle about lighting is given right at the beginning! I stopped reading immediately after seeing it but I must admit that it helped me greatly.

I'm not sure why, but The Count is the first Scott Adam's adventure I've spent a lot of time with. I played plenty of text adventures back in the day on various platforms but never a SA title.

Some of the silliness with sheets, cigarettes, and the oven detracted a bit for me by breaking my immersion in the game. It's a little bit like when movies break the "suspension of disbelief." I would have enjoyed the whole vampire theme, threat, and mission more if less time was spent climbing sheets and using the dumbwaiter.

But these are relatively minor issues. Overall I really enjoyed playing The Count