Transylvania

The Good
"Transylvania" (1982) was one of the first computer games I played on the Apple II/GS. I had never played a graphic adventure game before and instantly fell in love with the graphics, strange locations and characters as well as the text based commands. The storyline smoothly mixes fantasy, horror and even science fiction elements together and it requires a healthy bit of creative thinking, and a sense of humor, to solve all the puzzles in time to save the princess.

The Bad
Initially, one of the challenges with the game was figuring out the precise word commands. In the days before the user friendly, point n' click interface of adventure gaming, you needed to type in your commands. The game had a time limit, which bothered me, and a steep limit on the number of items that you could carry at once, which could get really annoying.

The Bottom Line
"Transylvania" (1982) is the first in an exciting trilogy of graphic adventure games from the folks at Penguin Software. It’s got humor, mystery as well as some familiar creatures from fantasy, horror and science fiction genres. All of the games in the trilogy are certainly worth playing.