Drăculești
A downloadable game for Windows, macOS, and Linux
A job gone wrong traps lawyer R. M. Renfield at Castle Dracula. Sacrifice—others, or your own humanity—to survive, or risk it all for love in this romantic horror visual novel. But Renfield isn’t the only one looking for a way out. Who, if anyone, can you trust?
Drăculești is a villain-focused reimagining of the classic novel Dracula that shines a light on the shadowy figures of Renfield, Dracula's Brides, and Dracula himself. Be enthralled by the residents of Castle Dracula, and thrill at a dark narrative with strong LGBTQI+ themes.
Features
A spine-tingling atmosphere
Through intricate artwork, suspenseful sound design, emotive music, and stirring prose, lose yourself in a decadent world of vampires, tragic heroes, and demonic contract law.
A defined protagonist
Take control of Roger M Renfield; a lawyer on the brink. Will your Renfield collapse into a nervous wreck, or hold strong in the face of danger? Will he risk it all for love or save only his own skin?
A Daemonic presence
The Drăculești Twitch Daemon lets streamers place Renfield's fate in their chat's hands. Chat members can vote on choices when the Daemon is connected in the options menu, shaping both his personality and the direction of the story.
Four routes & love interests
Stake your claim on the hearts of four diverse love interests.
Each one enjoys their own dedicated, multi-hour storyline, exploring their unique approaches to rescuing Renfield from his predicament. The same relationship can unfold in different ways based on your choices.
The grim lord of the castle, a centuries-old vampire. With a silver tongue and an iron grip, he dominates everything around him. Is there anything gentle left within this terrible monster?
If you want to find out, get in Dracula's good graces before his move to England.
A mysterious spirit haunting the castle's halls. For reasons unknown, Dracula dismembered him and hid his body parts, keeping him from his eternal rest. What inspired the special spite these men have for each other?
Release the Ghost from his torment by finding the body parts Dracula took from him.
The second of Dracula's three Brides. Sick of how their husband treats them, they've wanted to see an attorney for a long, long time. Will they finally get their day in the sun?
Provide legal services to Cez as they divorce Dracula in the demonic court of law.
A partner at Hawkins & Harker law firm, former classmate and current boss of Renfield. After years of avoiding each other—and their mutual attraction—the pair are reunited. Can they address their feelings before they meet their doom?
Rekindle an old flame with Jonny, and burn Dracula's nocturnal empire to ashes.
A tangled web of relationships
The castle’s inhabitants won’t stand idly by as Renfield meddles in their affairs. Negotiate Renfield’s dynamic with unchosen love interests, Dracula’s Brides, and even the family’s butcher. Friends in one playthrough may be foes in another.
Download
Comments
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You should sincerely drop everything and play this demo to get blown away. The scream I scrumpt when I found out through the developer's Twitter that Cez's story is somewhat inspired by Kaiman from Dorohedoro because what an amazing way to draw inspiration from contemporary stories to provide twists to gothic classics. I'm eagerly awaiting this release!
(writer here) thank you! Dorohedoro is just a big influence on me in general; I really love the way it explores how 'Kaiman' was created, and how the back half of the story tries to untangle whether or not he got what his younger self wished for, and if the price he and the people around him paid was worth it.
There's a sequence I'm working on now for later in Drac, unrelated to Cez, that also takes a lot of inspo from Drhdr... so, definitely keep an eye out when the full game is available, because the influence should be visible in all sorts of places!
That's amazing to hear! Will definitely keep an eye out
Wow, very cool job, i adore the first chapter!
This is fantastic!!!!!!
This game is absolutely amazing!! I'm stunned by how well the UI integrates with the backgrounds. The writing feels so real and the art complements it so well. I can't wait for the full release!!
Would love to try this out but downloading it tripped my antivirus software with detections for the Phonzy.B!ml Trojan which is a real nasty piece of malware that can record keystrokes, steal banking information, allow remote access, steal computer configuration information etc. all without user interaction. Not sure what part of this download is tripping that detection, but I am not comfortable trusting this download because of this.
This is a false positive as there aren't any viruses in the download, which is a known issue with Ren'py games. Here's one example from the official forums, and someone else on itch.io with the same problem on a different game. Unfortunately, it's been inconsistent in when it gets flagged, so it's been hard to troubleshoot, but we're looking into what we can do about it. The uploads on itch are the same as the ones on Steam, which passed Steam's internal checks for viruses as well.
What version of the game was it, and what antivirus software do you use?
We got some advice about changing the icon used by the .exe, so there's a new version that's the same as the previous one except now it uses the default Ren'py icon.
Hopefully that helps and thanks for letting us know this happened.
Sorry for the late reply, and thanks for the info! I will try again later and see if it helps. I was using the Windows version and it was caught by Windows Defender
I had wanted to post an update but also wanted to speak about the game (besides the issues) so I deleted the older comment for this, given there’s only one other comment speaking about it.
To those who are having issues (on downloading, mac), use the web version than the itch app.
That aside, it was marvellous. I loved how it switched between a portrait and landscape, making it feel so much more dynamic as I don’t like to stick to just one. The storytelling was fantastic as well. I signed up for the newsletter and honestly didn’t notice so many things…which further makes me appreciate the game more.
Spoilers from here:
My goodness, the characters actually focusing on history, their relationships with others prior to it...I quite love it when MC is their own person but also can be changed somewhat slightly that unlocks different things. All of them seems like it'd lead to one area, which even in story it is--kind of--but the things you unlock, the CGs you get and the way you're looking at some characters and relationships will still GREATLY differ.MC being trans was also used in such a good way. Normally I don’t see it from others but it did stand out for me for this. It wasn’t bashing anyone per se (even Reinfield, for me, because it didn’t feel like it was the point) but focusing on themselves. Cez particularly does make me love it though, because you can seriously and rationally mistake them as a woman until you actually play their route.
I was just wondering if the things the characters (Cez, Ilena, Teodora) consume from the girl betrays their own personality (or are what they’re craving for, from others).
Teodora consumes tendons, which are tough, connect muscles to bones, allowing movement of joints. She seems to be a very tough individual, perhaps the reason why the other two brides are staying and allows the house to be a, well, house. Otherwise I can imagine it being a place where disharmony thrives with everyone being at odds with eachother until a day comes where Dracula takes their life away from them. Or perhaps, that’s what Teodora wants to look like (very tough) whereas she’s very emotional but doesn’t want to be in that state. It shows–when we catch her, her attention never deviates, almost like she wants something all for herself.
Ilena takes the heart’s artery. It carries O2 rich blood, very helpful in sustaining life aswell. Perhaps it’s meant to depict that she is someone who doesn’t back down so easily (despite being a defeated revolutionary…), at least in small measures before Dracula gets to her. Or that she envies that from her victims, how they have a life.
Cez gets the girl’s knees. Like making sure that she breaks completely…or mourns how her own boundaries had been torn apart, how she bended to the society till she nearly broke, join the ’cula and is still miserable.
Replaying through to get other dialogs, Ilena says how he’d break everyone’s minds into obeying. No wonder the ending we got had us nearly murdering our superior and having all of Dracula’s wives (well, 2 wives and a spouse) being disgruntled but still by his side.
I know why we have only Dracula as the main person but idk, feels weird when I’m out here trying to romance anyone but him (eyes deadset on Ghost, whose eyes are transformed into Billiards so I don’t expect it to be reciprocated).
This game is absolutely AMAZING! From the art to the writing to the design and the atmosphere... I'm absolutely gobsmacked. It feels like reading a real, substantial Gothic novel, but enhanced greatly by the amazing visuals, music, and interactivity. I will be following this project !!
assuming you’re trying to play it through the itch.io desktop app, you’ll have to download the game from your usual browser instead for now!
Thanks! I didn’t know it’d be different.
We've just uploaded a smaller version directly to itch.io, so thanks for letting us know about this. Hopefully that helps.
Got it, I’ll check it out and get on browser as well to see it. Thanks!