Dracula: Resurrection

Dracula: Resurrection is a graphic adventure game that takes place from a character's eye-view in a pre-rendered graphical environment. The player uses a point-and-click interface, with a cursor locked in the screen's center, to navigate the game world, gather items, interact with non-player characters and solve puzzles. In a manner that has been compared to Myst, Dracula restricts player movement to jumps between static screens in the game world. Each screen is panoramic and allows the player to look around in 360 degrees. Progression in Dracula is linear: the player cannot backtrack to the game's primary areas once they have been completed.

Dracula's puzzles often involve locating and using items to progress, and many revolve around an object called the Dragon Ring that is reused throughout the game. Collected items may be examined and selected on the inventory screen, which the player toggles with a button press. As the player mouses over the game environments, the cursor changes shape in a context-sensitive manner to illustrate the possible actions. For example, the hand cursor indicates that an item can be picked up, while the cog cursor indicates that the player can use an item on a location.

Dracula: Resurrection begins by recounting the final scene of Bram Stoker's original novel. In the year 1897, protagonists Jonathan Harker and Quincey Morris ambush the caravan of Count Dracula and his minions in Borgo Pass. Although Morris dies in the struggle, the pair succeeds in killing Dracula and releasing Jonathan's wife Mina from her psychic enslavement to the vampire. Afterward, an ellipsis takes the story forward seven years.

The Harkers' new life in England is disrupted by Mina's sudden disappearance, and Jonathan finds a letter from his wife that suggests Dracula's involvement. He subsequently tracks her to Transylvania. Stopping for directions at the Borgo Pass Inn, he has a brief encounter with two suspicious characters, followers of Dracula. Jonathan questions the innkeeper Barina about Dracula's castle, but she warns him against traveling there in the dark, especially as it is Saint George's Eve, a night on which evil spirits move freely.

Dracula: Resurrection was a co-production between Index+ and the companies France Telecom Multimedia and Canal+ Multimedia. The project was headed by Index's long-time designer, art director and writer Jacques Simian, who had previously art directed the developer's Opération Teddy Bear. Dracula represented a departure in style for Index. The company had achieved success by developing software with an educational and cultural tourism emphasis; conversely, Dracula was designed as its first traditional computer game. Génération 4's Luc-Santiago Rodriguez called this "the logical continuation" of Index+'s process, but noted that the team sought continuity with its previous work, which had centered on immediate hooks, unique concepts and a blend of "play and culture" that favored ease-of-use.

Although they built from Bram Stoker's novel Dracula, the game's creators billed their project as "an interactive sequel" to the book, rather than a literal adaptation. Nevertheless, they sought to imbue it with an atmosphere of dread like that of its source material. Génération 4 reported that Simian was "[p]assionate about Stoker's novel and the story of Vlad Tepes"; the designer claimed to have read the original Dracula several dozen times. To create the game's plot, the team wrote that it worked from "popular legend, superstition and myth".

Dracula: Resurrection was commercially successful. According to Index+, combined global sales of its computer and PlayStation releases had reached 200,000 units by mid-September 2000. In North America, the game was one of DreamCatcher Interactive's top titles for 2000 and made up 9% of the publisher's sales that year. PC Data reported 27,798 retail sales of Dracula's computer version in the region by the end of 2000, of which 6,012 were sold in December.

S. (doing about 100,000 copies) and doing better in Europe." PC Data recorded another 21,050 retail sales for the game's computer version during 2001, and 3,709 in the first six months of 2002. According to DreamCatcher, Dracula totaled 170,000 copies sold in North America alone by early 2003.

Dracula: Resurrection was the first entry in what Adventure Gamers' Pascal Tekaia later called a "long-running point-and-click horror series". It was followed in September 2000 by a direct sequel, Dracula 2: The Last Sanctuary, released by Canal+ Multimedia and Wanadoo Edition. The latter company had been formed earlier in September by the merger of Index+ and France Telecom Multimedia. Dracula 2 continues the story of the first game, depicting Jonathan Harker's efforts to hunt Count Dracula in both London and Transylvania.

When asked in late 2000 about the likelihood of a third Dracula game, the team's François Villard noted that writers face "the temptation of the trilogy", but that Dracula 3 nevertheless was not planned. However, he left open the possibility of another entry if player interest was high enough. Villard ultimately exited the game industry after Dracula 2.