You can play this game right now! But you should probably find out where it came from first:
A few months ago, I came into the possession of a copy of a very old, very rare text adventure game. I happened to be poking around in—Well, maybe I should start from further back.
THE STORY SO FAR
A few years ago, I came into the possession of a copy of a very old, very rare text adventure game titled Crocodracula: What Happened to Calvin. Feeling an obligation toward the preservation of an oft-overlooked art form, I—
—Actually, I should go back even further.
In the early nineties, as you surely remember, there was a television show called Crocodracula, an adventure/lite-horror/soap opera-type program about teens solving spooky mysteries, aimed at pre-teens. Although I remember loving it, my memory of the show is mostly very fuzzy. The Wikipedia article is probably a more reliable source if you want details.
This was around the same time Taleframe was scraping the bottom of the commercial interactive fiction market by churning out a series of licensed (and unlicensed) tie-in games based on whatever franchises the kids were spending their parents’ money on that month. From what I’ve been able to figure out, there were a half dozen or more Crocodracula games published before Taleframe’s inevitable dissolution. (What exactly happened to the Taleframe staff in the end is a subject of some dispute; again, I’ll refer you to the Wikipedia article.)
In 2017, as I explained at the time, I came into the possession of a copy of Crocodracula: What Happened to Calvin, which seemed to fall somewhere in the middle of the Taleframe-Crocodracula timeline. I wanted to share my discovery with the internet, but I could not in good conscience upload the original game files. These games don’t play nicely with modern computers, thanks to Taleframe’s borderline-sociopathic anti-piracy measures.
Instead, I recreated the game word-for-word in the much friendlier Inform 7 text adventure development system, and published it for all to play. It didn’t get the huge response I expected, but of course I don’t do what I do out of a desire for fame or recognition. At any rate, my role in the history of Crocodracula seemed to have ended.
Except it hadn’t.
THE BEGINNING
As you know, part of my volunteer work involves searching old school buildings to make sure they’re empty before they’re demolished. My boss is very strict about the rule that says we can’t keep any of the stuff we find in the condemned schools. But my boss is still human, and like all humans, she has her weaknesses.
To make a long story short, I now own this antique video game:
Crocodracula: The Beginning! The first entry in Taleframe’s Crocodracula series! And I have graciously taken the time to port the whole thing to Inform 7, so that you can play it without first having to underclock your Commodore 64.
Unlike What Happened to Calvin, which adapted a single story arc from the show, The Beginning appears to be a medley of plotlines and characters from the first season or so, strung together with a less than meticulous attitude toward the source material. I won’t spoil anything, but I have a fairly strong recollection of how Becca Drapkin first discovered Crocodracula’s castle on the show, and the events in the game do not match up with my memory in the slightest.
Taken on its own merits, though, The Beginning is a passable piece of work. I thought some parts were pretty spooky. Zoe doesn’t get much to do in this one, despite being one of the two main characters. But I’ll let you judge it for yourself: You can play the game right here!
To properly enjoy Crocodracula: The Beginning, you’ll want to take a look at the feelies.
THE FEELIES
This particular copy of Crocodracula: The Beginning still had two feelies in the box, and they were of much higher quality than those that would be included with What Happened to Calvin a year or so later. (This kind of bait-and-switch was typical of Taleframe’s modus operandi.) I am deeply indebted to Harrison Gerard for his assistance in preparing quality scans of the game’s packaging and the following materials:
First of all, the game included a map of Opasassa, Florida, hometown of she show’s heroines Becca and Zoe. I don’t think the map is incredibly accurate to the show (although it includes some details the game lacks, like the spooky train tracks on the edge of town), but the verisimilitude is enhanced by Becca’s hand-written notes. In this case, the verisimilitude is also spoilt somewhat by additional hand-written notes from the game’s previous owner.
Here’s the back of the map:
There’s also a postcard—Not a postcard for the player to mail to a friend, but an in-universe postcard, already stamped and postmarked, from Becca to her pen pal in Africa. I don’t remember that part of the show at all, but this image of the Opasassa water tower is burnt into every Crocodracula fan’s brain.
The package I received contained a couple more artifacts that weren’t part of the game per se, but might qualify as “feelies” for us, thirty years later. The most fascinating is an order form, apparently cut out of the game’s instruction manual:
This is the first contemporary listing I’ve ever found of even a partial Taleframe catalogue! Apparently there are a bunch of other Crocodracula games out there! And I know the show Hey Dude, and Titus Groan, of course, but what on earth is “Human Services”?
The last item is a sheaf of papers, apparently well-used by the game’s previous owner, with instructions for reverse-engineering the game’s registration key to bypass its “quite nasty” anti-piracy measures. I relied heavily on this mysterious author’s work, and I’m sure you’ll find it interesting too.
Of course, I wanted to make Crocodracula: The Beginning accessible to everyone, so part of the process of porting the game was to identify these copy-protection safeguards and figure out ways to disable them. It was a lot of extra work, but I got them all. I mean, I’m pretty sure I did…