A throwback to Classicvanias, Lady Dracula looks to reignite the gameplay torches of the genre
I recently had the pleasure to talk to Goth Donut Games about their upcoming release, Lady Dracula. inspired by Castlevania 3, the first game they ever played and as the dev themself put it, “That’s why I’m like this,” Lady Dracula takes place after the events of Bram Stoker’s eponymous novel.
“I’ve been working on Lady Dracula since October 2023, and planning to launch later this year. Lady Dracula’s primary influence is Castlevania 3 for NES. That was the first game I ever played in my life and had a huge influence on me as a person – I like to joke that, “That’s why I’m like this.””
The player takes control of Dracula’s daughter as she returns to Transylvania to stop her mother who, in her grief-stricken rage at the murder of her husband, attempts to destroy humanity from the face of the earth. While it aims to have a story that could be seen in a Castlevania game of old, it also draws aesthetically from the occult and gothic eras respectively – stained glass windows that look like tarot cards, banners with astrological and alchemical symbols, and more.
“Other aesthetic and thematic influences on Lady Dracula include a lot of occult spirituality – I have a lot of stained glass windows that look like tarot cards, for example, banners of all the phases of the moon, references to alchemy, astrology, ancient Egyptian mythology, all that. There’s some Japanese yokai in there.“
“And yeah, of course the gothic classics, I’ve seen Nosferatu, the original Dracula, all that stuff, to pull architecture and stuff like that. I’ve been into vampire stuff since I was little, so it comes natural to me, and my musician Mikhail’s stuff is very inspiring for the mood also.“
But the neatest thing in Lady Dracula has to be how it draws from games like Donkey Kong Country and Banjo-Kazooie, using temporary power ups the player comes across in a level. The wingsmash in Symphony of the Night, where Alucard shoots in a straight direction as a bat, is done here like the barrels that shoot Donkey Kong in a predetermined direction. It’s a smart way to replicate the abilities of the later games in a way that would’ve felt at home on the NES.
Lady Dracula looks to set her fangs in us later this year on PC / Steam.
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