Cooperative games are always popular among my own local board gaming crowd. Arkham Horror was a popular choice back when the new version came out (and still makes it onto the table when we can find the time), and Battlestar Galactica was another instant hit when that came out a few years later, adding the wrinkle that it’s not entirely cooperative, though the players don’t know exactly how and when that’s going to change.
Not quite as popular, but still just as engaging, was Fury of Dracula, re-released by Fantasy Flight Games back in 2006. After almost ten years, this one still ranks pretty highly on our list, likely for the following few reasons: the game does a great job of capturing the feel of its theme, it doesn’t take nearly as long as games like Arkham or Battlestar, and it mixes up pure co-op with a pretty balanced 4-on-1 competitive angle.
Overview
Fury of Dracula pits a group of four hunters against history’s most well known vampire. In a mechanic similar to the old 1980s classic Scotland Yard, a team of players taking on the roles of the hunters scour the European continent for the elusive Dracula, played by an opposing player who moves in secret, leaving various minions and nefarious traps in his wake while attempting to foster a new horde of vampires that answers to him.
With the advantage of numbers on their side, the hunters must attempt to deduce Dracula’s location, and then find him and defeat him before he succeeds in fulfilling his own win condition. This is made trickier, however, thanks to Dracula’s supernatural powers that allow him to transform into different forms, and the various abilities at his disposal to hinder anyone who happens upon his trail.
Gameplay
The players are divided into two teams: one person takes on the role of Dracula, and the others (up to four) play as the hunters–Van Helsing, Dr. Seward, Lord Godalming, and Mina Harker. Regardless of the number of hunter players, all four hunter characters are always in play (for instance, in a three-player game, the two hunter players control two hunters apiece; in a four-player game, the three hunters each control one character, with a fourth typically played by group consensus). This ensures that the play balance doesn’t have any scaling issues depending on the number of players, and for the most part, the balance feels right after repeated plays.
The game board is a map of Europe, with the various locations marked by European cities, along with various sea zones as well. Larger cities allow the hunters more opportunity to restock and resupply, but are typically more rare than the average smaller city. Cities are connected by either roads or rail; roads are slower, but trains carry a risk due to their unpredictable schedule, represented by a die (which determines how far someone can travel, and which can potentially lock someone down due to being delayed over papers).
Dracula moves in secret, as represented by a deck of cards given to the Dracula player that includes all of the possible locations in the game. With each move, these cards are placed facedown along a movement track, along with a tile that represents whatever encounter Dracula leaves for the characters to find when they come across that location (these encounters are drawn from a pool each turn). Dracula must travel by road (he’s far too aristocratic to take a train, and insists on chartering a coach) or by sea; when Dracula has gone to sea, the color of his location cards change so that the hunters know he has gone to sea (due to rumors of the crew on ships going missing as the hiding vampire feeds).
If a hunter enters a location that is on Dracula’s movement trail (which can be up to six cards long), that card is immediately revealed, along with whatever encounter Dracula has left (some of these force the hunter into immediate combat with an agent of Dracula, whereas others harm or hinder them in some other way). By seeing how far along Dracula’s trail is, the players can try to narrow down where Dracula could possibly have gone–though he does, of course, have certain tricks up his sleeve to make that easier said than done.
Encounters that stay on Dracula’s trail long enough to “drop off” (due to the six-card limit) can be either be unleashed with more potent effects than normal, or a certain number can be hidden in Dracula’s catacombs, keeping them in place indefinitely until triggered.
The game also features a day/night cycle. With each turn, time advances along a circular track, with three spaces for daytime and three spaces for night (Dracula and many of his minions are, as you might expect, much more powerful at night). With each passing day, Dracula gains a victory point (representing the vampires he’s been fostering); Dracula wins if he ever achieves 6 victory points in total. The hunters, however, also receive a point of Resolve with each new day, which can be spent to activate extra-powerful abilities that may be crucial to finding and defeating Dracula.
In order for the hunters to win, they must destroy Dracula by confronting him and taking him out in combat. Various powers and items can aid the hunters in this, with the more powerful ones typically having limited uses or otherwise being riskier to use. If Dracula is ever taken out completely in a fight, the hunters immediately win the game; if Dracula prevails in combat, however, the hunter is only temporarily incapacitated (hunters are never permanently eliminated from the game), but he does earn 2 victory points–and since he only needs 6 to win, it behooves the hunters to not attempt to take him on unprepared, especially at night, when he’s at his most powerful (which is when Dracula might switch from hiding to going on the offensive if he thinks victory is in reach).
Thoughts
Fury of Dracula makes for a very fun cooperative experience while giving the players a thinking adversary that isn’t simply the board’s order of operations playing itself. Like tabletop roleplaying games, some people are naturally more fond of either the ‘player’ role or the ‘GM’ role, and while it’s not an exact comparison, the hunters vs. Dracula aspect is somewhat similar (I find myself playing Dracula more often than not, for instance).
Like most Fantasy Flight Games offerings, the production design and quality are top-notch. The artwork is very fitting, and the board being an old-fashioned map of Europe adds to the atmosphere. This is definitely a game that gets the feel of its theme across, and for something as iconic as Dracula, that’s a very good thing (and would be just plain disappointing if they’d gotten it wrong). The text on the various cards and other game elements contains plenty of detail for those who are more familiar with Stoker’s original novel, but since just about everyone is familiar enough with Dracula as the archetypical vampire lord, no one is going to feel ‘left out’ for not being up on the lore (which might be more intimidating in a game such as Arkham Horror, for instance).
The game also features alternate rules for tweaking and adjusting the difficulty; for instance, if a novice player takes on the role of Dracula, there are ways to handicap the hunters so that more experienced players don’t simply steamroll the game (or vice-versa). There are also alternate rules for keeping track of ‘Valor Points’ in order to determine which hunter(s) performed best, even as victory is still shared as a group.
Total playtime, in my experience, averages out somewhere between 90 minutes and two hours, though it can run as long as three hours (though likely not much longer), and I’ve had games end in as quickly as 30 minutes, typically due to an unlucky Dracula stumbling into the wrong place at the wrong time. Still, that 90-120 minute ‘sweet spot’ is very important for folks who like to game on weeknights and who might not have the time to play something much longer.
Conclusions
PROS:
– robust cooperative board game experience that still has a competitive element
– lots of variety in terms of the items and abilities Dracula and hunters can make use of
– difficulty scales very well with different number of players
– Dracula theme comes across strongly
– vampires don’t sparkle
CONS:
– complex rules can be confusing or intimidating for newcomers (especially for the Dracula player)
– randomness of card and event draws can sometimes have a major impact on luck
– some items and powers have effects that might require frequent ‘rulebook diving’ for clarification
Kevin Frane
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- Tabletop Thursday – Fury of Dracula (Third Edition) - October 27, 2016
