Drăculești
Drăculești is an upcoming LGBTQI+ horror-romance visual novel from the talented team at Fine Feathered Fiends. Set in the 1930s, you play as lawyer R. M. Renfield, who will soon discover that this is one job he should have passed on. The atmosphere in Drăculești is hauntingly beautiful in many ways, from the immersive music that draws you into the world Fine Feathered Fiends has created to the exquisite artwork displayed in each scene and portrait of Drăculești’s characters. Fine Feathered Fiends truly knocks it out of the park, setting you up to be fully immersed in this world.
As a romance visual novel, Drăculești offers you four distinct romantic paths. First, there’s “The Ghost – The Beautiful Tragedy,” a mysterious spirit haunting the castle’s halls who, like the protagonist, cannot leave. Next is Cezara “Cez” Dracula – The Would-be Divorcee. Cez, the second of Dracula's three brides, is fed up with Dracula’s treatment and wants to leave but cannot. Then there’s Jonathan “Jonny” Harker – The Second Chance, a partner at Renfield’s law firm and an old flame. Lastly, there’s Vlad Dracula himself, The Prince of Darkness. The lord of the castle who invited you and is also keeping you captive. Is there any love left in him. With these four routes, you can choose which path to follow. Keep in mind that the interests and enemies of one route may differ significantly from another. Who can you really trust?
The story and writing of Drăculești are compelling, keeping you eager to read the next line. Even in the demo, I found myself wanting more—to delve deeper into these characters, understand their motivations, and uncover the mysteries of the dungeon. Remember, this is a HORROR romance visual novel, so expect decisions that will either strengthen your character or push him to the brink. As it says on their Steam page, “Sacrifice—others, or your own humanity—to survive, or risk it all…“Fine Feathered Fiends has crafted a game that will captivate your imagination with Drăculești. If this sounds like your kind of experience, feel free to add it to your wishlist on Steam.
Sam: Welcome, everyone, to PAX 2024. My name is Sam. I am here with a very lovely individual. Would you please introduce yourself?
Mads: My name is Mads Mackenzie, and I am the director at Fine Feathered Fiends. We're making a game called Drăculești.
Sam: All right. So for this game, in particular, what got you into making this game?
Mads: So I've been making visual novels for about a decade now.
Sam: Oh wow, okay.
Mads: And I finished my last project. And one of the tricky things with visual novels is, it’s because it's all narrative, it's a lot easier to get people to get interested in it and, you know, kind of keen to play it if it's an easy-to-summarize story. And so one of the things that I kind of thought of was like, ‘Oh, I really like Dracula. And maybe if I do like an adaptation of Dracula’, then, you know, the moment you say, like, ‘Oh, it's a romance visual novel based on Dracula,’ people kind of get what you're doing with it. And it's sort of very easy to talk about with people and sort of get them to get interested in it.
Sam: Okay. What are you most excited about for this game here?
Mads: So Drăculești has this really elaborate sort of branching narrative. It's across four main storylines that connect to each love interest. But then within all of that, there's, like, a lot of variability, and one of the things that I really love is writing bad endings. And so I think, like, the most fun that I have working on this is coming up with, like, all of the bad consequences for your choices and, like, how things can go wrong for the player in fun ways.
Sam: Okay! As you're working on the game, of course, there are things you don't know. Right? If you could go back to day one and tell your day-one self something. What would that thing be?
Mads: (Phew) That's a long time ago. We've been working on this since 2019, so I think probably the like, main thing that I've realized along the way is, when you're dealing with that much branching, making sure players know what they're doing at all times, and that they have, like, a clear path forwards no matter what, you know, way there.
Sam: Deciding to go.
Mads: If you go through the forest, you know, you go through like hiking trails, and they'll have three, three, like marked trails, but you still know you're going to the lake. And I think that process with game development of like, hey, every time you give people a choice, still make sure you know how they're getting to the next thing, and that players also know where they're going. Has been, has been the big thing. I would have saved so much time if I had been, like, planning the narrative from the start with that. Like, Hey, make sure everyone knows what their goals are at all times.
Sam: I do enjoy the like, ‘What am I supposed to be doing right now?’ And it's like, I don't know.
Mads: I load up save files for games with branching narratives, and a lot of the time I, you know, load it up, and you cast your mind back, like, ‘I haven't played this in six months. What's going on?’ And you open up a quest log, and you're like, ‘I still don't know what’s going on!’
Sam: Oh, my God, let's see again, this is Drăculești. I got to play in the demo. I got to play what you had here as well. Dracula was kind of a jerk.
Mads: He is, he is, yes.
Sam: So I know you said that you would you choosing Dracula is to kind of get the people like, ‘Oh, I want to know about this story’. Was there any other, I guess, thoughts behind anyone else? Or was it always kind of like, I want to get a prime figure someone knew about?
Mads: So one of the reasons why I was, like, interested in doing a game about Dracula in the first place is [that] I have a degree in Media Studies. I spent a very long time watching all of the Dracula films and, like, just like getting really familiar with the Gothic genre, and I like, just really enjoy working in this kind of mode. And I like the fact that you know, when you have a game, and it's like a romance game, but it's also a horror game, people kind of come into it with that sense of, like, ‘Oh, bad things will happen.’ And it makes it like, a little easier to do darker narratives and sort of, like, explore more complicated themes that would be a harder sell in other, like romance genres.
Sam: I gotcha.
Mads: Because everyone's kind of already in the mode of like, ‘Oh, bad. You know, bad things will happen in this game.’ And so they're primed for, like, if we start exploring, like, historical prejudices, or if we're exploring, like, stuff around, like you mentioned, Dracula's a jerk. Well, he's, you know, kind of controlling and abusive in these different ways. And, normally, that would be a very bad thing for a love interest to be in most games. But because people already think like, it's a horror game, right? That feels like it comes with the territory.
Sam: He's a vampire.
Mads: He’s a vampire!
Sam: You gotta understand what's coming with this territory. Okay, okay, um, for the listeners here, what would you want to tell them about your game? Like your pitch to them.
Mads: I think, like, the main thing with Drăculești is we've tried really hard to make it [where] the romance and the horror balance each other out, and there's kind of like that interplay between the two. So if you want a game that, like, both has really weird and messed up stuff happening, but then kind of takes you by the hand afterward and tries to, like, comfort you and give you something to sort of… like some light in the darkness. I think we've got a really good balance of the two, and that's one of the more interesting things we have to offer in the world of romance games.
Sam: So yeah, last question, where can they find the game? Wishlist, things like that.
Mads: A demo for the game is available on Steam right now. The full release is going to be in 2025 sometime, probably mid late 2025.
Sam: Okay.
Mads: So if you hop on Steam and search Drăculești, the current Steam build is for Windows, but we're gonna have Linux and Mac available at some point as well. Still, TBD, whether or not we figure out Steam Deck, but hopefully as well.
Sam: As someone who worked the… I have an Ally, so it's not exactly like a Steam Deck, but it did work pretty well, though it did.
Mads: Yeah, one of our team members, tests the game a lot on like the Asus, you know, Steam Deck.
Sam: Yeah.
Mads: Yeah. So we have been testing it on these things. It's just the certification process is a whole…
Sam: Different thing?
Mads: Yeah.
Sam: Well, thank you so much for taking this time out with me again. This was Sam here at PAX 2024. Thank you again.
Mads: Thank you.
