Forward:

In the dead of winter 2006, I began work on my giant sequel to my Equin series. After a ton of work and realizing that it will also be one of those games that takes years to finish properly, my mind began to wander a bit. About all of those cool ideas in my head about new and interesting games. Well, this is one of them. I thought to myself, "You know, every 100 years Dracula wakes up and a Belmont comes right in, almost on cue.. What would happen if some new, less-heroric guy showed up instead and had a different reason to take Drac out?" And what we have now is the hero Rovert (Which is an homage to Castlevania: SOTN's protagonist Alucard, which is Dracula spelled backwards. Rovert is "Trevor" Belmont spelled backwards.) And of course I couldn't really call my guy Rovert Belmont, so it's Rovert Bellhump from here on out. Count Dracula is public domain from what I understand, so it's a green light to use his name, thank goodness for that!

On a side note, I've been literally barraged by the question of whether or not David Hasselhoff is / was to be the star of Hasslevania. Although that's a GREAT idea, The Hoff won't be in the game. His godliness could never be fully captured in a mere game anyhow!

EDIT: "Hoff Heads" do appear in the game and act much the same way that those annoying medusa heads did in the Castlevania games. That's all the Hasselhoff that'll be in it, though.

About:

Hasslevania features my first-ever custom platform engine, totally original graphics and MIDI music done by me. It's an homage / spoof, but will stand alone for anyone who's been living in a cave and has no idea what games like Castlevania, Castlequest, and Wizards and Warriors are. The game will play out a lot like a "Del Duio" version of Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, if all goes well. Look for cameos of my other creations in the game in the form of Hasslevania's statues and other characters.

Hasslevania promotes exploration above all else- there are numerous ways Rovert can achieve his ultimate goal. I tried my best to make multiple paths to obtain the same items, and it's pretty non-linear. There are 6 big bosses and that doesn't include the final showdown with Count Dracula himself. This game is a lot like the old NES Metroid as far as the "Where the heck do I go now?" feelings players might experience from time to time.

I also have similar bad B-movie voice acting that the recent Castlevanias seem to have in common. You go about the castle finding weapons and other items to help you progress. The pyro "mace" iac can burn thorny passageways. The mighty Blade of Del Duio doubles your run speed but lowers your defenses. There's even a Belmont-type whip that can kill most undead enemies in a single hit! The iron armor protects you from spikes. The shield can deflect arrows, nails, and other projectiles.

There's a little Devil you can find that will follow you and basically destroy anything in its path, but it has a hunger for Rovert's skill hearts and takes them at an alarming rate! It might be worth it to keep him around though, as a big chunk of the comedy is devoted solely to the Devil.

History:

Hasslevania had a cool sort of devlog up on GameFAQs for a long time too. All kinds of great ideas were put forth, as well as posts of what would eventually make it into the game, and what was attempted by didn't work. It's a pretty interesting read for those who like that sort of thing like I do. And now thanks to kevinski, you can see it for yourself HERE.by clicking on "History".

In Closing:

Most importantly this is no fan game, rip-off, or clone.  This is an entirely new and original game, although my influences will be obvious. All content has been created by me within, and is property of Dave Fillion and DXF Games.

If you hotlink the download from here or one of my mirror sites, I will change the link and screw around with you. I didn't spend 2000 hours on this for you to claim it as your own, so show some respect please and direct your visitors to its rightful home here :)

If you'd like to mirror the game (host it) at your site, e-mail me at dxfgames@gmail.com and I'll set it up.