''The Count '' is a

text adventure '' Interactive fiction, often abbreviated IF, is software simulating environments in which players use text commands to control characters and influence the environment. Works in this form can be understood as literary narratives, either in the ...

written by

Scott Adams Scott Raymond Adams (born June 8, 1957) is an American author and cartoonist. He is the creator of the syndicated '' Dilbert'' comic strip, and the author of several nonfiction works of satire, commentary, and business. ''Dilbert'' gained natio ...

and published by

Adventure International Adventure International was an American video game publishing company that existed from 1979 until 1986. It was started by Scott and Alexis Adams. Their games were notable for being the first implementation of the adventure genre to run on a m ...

in 1979. The player character has been sent to defeat the

vampire A vampire is a mythical creature that subsists by feeding on the vital essence (generally in the form of blood) of the living. In European folklore, vampires are undead creatures that often visited loved ones and caused mischief or deat ...

Count Dracula Count Dracula () is the title character of Bram Stoker's 1897 gothic horror novel ''Dracula''. He is considered to be both the prototypical and the archetypal vampire in subsequent works of fiction. Aspects of the character are believed by some ...

by the local Transylvanian villagers, and must obtain and use items from around the vampire's castle in order to defeat him.

Gameplay

The player moves from location to location, picking up any objects found and using them somewhere else to solve puzzles. The interface is text based; commands took the form of

verb A verb () is a word ( part of speech) that in syntax generally conveys an action (''bring'', ''read'', ''walk'', ''run'', ''learn''), an occurrence (''happen'', ''become''), or a state of being (''be'', ''exist'', ''stand''). In the usual descr ...

and

noun A noun () is a word that generally functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as living creatures, places, actions, qualities, states of existence, or ideas.Example nouns for: * Living creatures (including people, alive, ...

, e.g. "Climb Tree". Movement from location to location is limited to North, South, East, West, Up, and Down. The game differs from earlier Scott Adams adventures due to the use of time. Set over three days, certain problems need to be solved on particular days, and events happen at particular times on certain days. The protagonist also has to avoid being attacked on the first two nights to finish the game. An earlier Adams game, '' Voodoo Castle'', also featured a Dracula-like character, Count Cristo.

Reception

Bruce Campbell reviewed ''The Count'' in ''

The Space Gamer ''The Space Gamer'' was a magazine dedicated to the subject of science fiction and fantasy board games and tabletop role-playing games. It quickly grew in importance and was an important and influential magazine in its subject matter from the ...

'' No. 45. Campbell commented that "Unless you are easily frustrated, I highly recommend this program."

Reviews

*'' Computer and Video Games'' - Jan, 1984
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References

External links

on The Adventure International Memorial page * {{DEFAULTSORT:Count, The 1970s interactive fiction 1970s horror video games Interactive fiction based on works 1979 video games Adventure games Adventure International games Apple II games Atari 8-bit family games BBC Micro and Acorn Electron games Commodore 64 games Commodore PET games VIC-20 games Dragon 32 games TI-99/4A games TRS-80 games Video games based on Dracula Video games developed in the United States Video games set in castles ZX Spectrum games Single-player video games