Transylvania for the Apple II

You are facing an ancient stump covered with faint writing. A path leads N.

That’s how the game starts! Before you lies a high-res landscape of…mucky green and baby poop brown. You move north! N!

You are near a cave entrance shut by a rock slide. Paths lead W and S…and so on, and so on.

High-resolution was the big seller for this text/graphic adventure game by Antonio Antiochia released by Penguin Software in 1982. The game uses a VERB/NOUN interface. You know: GET CANDLE, GO WEST, KILL VAMPIRE.

Listen, its midnight! The good people of Transylvania are trying to sleep; they’ve got work in the morning! That means it’s just you so you better be careful out there! There are hazards and traps at every turn!

Those graphics are enough to scare you so you better be on your toes! The wrinkled note says SABRINA DIES AT DAWN! You better get started…

Your goal in TRANSYLVANIA? You must save Princess Sabrina before dawn, or she’s gonna get it! Sounds easy enough until you come across that darned werewolf; which happens early in the game!

Other mean folks that roam Transylvania; Dracula (of course), some ravenous mice, and a frog! Okay, the mice and frog are pretty harmless, but they do play a role in the game.

I remember playing this for hours when I was younger. With every move toward a new screen the eerie scratching of the Apple disc drive would scuff along making a sound that added to the suspense!

It had to as the game had no sound effects and no music. This somehow made it even spookier. Every screen rendering (slowly) before your eyes as if some creepy phantasm was programming it just for you.

My brother and I were so enamored by the game when we saw trees that slightly resembled those in the game, we’d comment about it. “Hey, what do those trees look like?” “Transylvania!”

We were odd children.