The Daily Click

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Hasslevania: The Quest for Shuteye

Author:

Del Duio

Submitted:

20th November, 2007

Favourites:

Genre:

Adventure

Downloads:

1293

Rated:

89th Place

(4.31 / 5)

Game of the Week Winner

The Daily Click HIGHLY Recommended

Edited By Joshtek on 31/10/2019

Edited By Del Duio on 11/21/2012

Edited By Del Duio on 3/15/2008

Edited By Del Duio on 11/28/2007

Here it is, a little bit earlier than the 21st but I might not have time to release it tomorrow morning.

The link below will take you to my Hasslevania Homepage, and then you should follow it to the downloads page. There are several mirrors to download the game on that page. The game is very big at 137 MB so each download may take upwards of 20 minutes possibly.

* * *

Poor Rovert Bellhump!

He has just bought a house on the cheap and the big reason why is because his new neighbors are none other than Count Dracula (tm) and the whole of Castle Hasslevania!!

You see, all our hero really wants is peace and quiet. Unfortunately, tonight is the 100th year a certain you-know-who wakes up and starts making big plans for world domination. Since world domination is always very loud and irritating, Rovert decides to go and tell Drac and the gang to knock it off- or else he's calling the cops!

* * *

I'm not going to blab all about it this time, only to say that yes it's a hard-ish game and there's anywhere from 3-10 hours of gameplay time depending on what you do and what you're able to find.

Have fun!!

EDIT: Hasslevania Version 3 is now also available!

Review This Download

http://www.dxfgames.com/Hasslevania/Hasslevania.htm (137 mkb )

This download contains more than 50 comments, so only the latest 50 have been shown, click here to view all comments (124)

Posted by Spiriax

25th November, 2007

Rated :

Oh, I so want to play further in this game. But it is so frustrating that I end up turning it off. I looked forward to this game very much, but, argh...

I agree with Pixelthief, this is the wrong kind of challenge. I've just gotten as far as past the Skelecopter scene, after having playing several hours in total to get there and shut the game off probably 10 times. Now after the Skelecopter scene, I have 4 hearts since you must you use 4/8 to get there.
Why was it really necessary to make the jumps cost hearts? Since they were supposed to be for special weapons, and if you ran out of hearts you could always still kill the enemies with your main weapon; but in Hasslevania you can't even get further without the hearts. Everything I've done from the beginning is to collect hearts and money, and I don't think everyone has the motivation to do that after having playing the game like 5 minutes. If you would have played the game much longer you could handle some puzzles and collecting because you know that you had fun getting there and you want the fun to continue.

I hate the spike pits. It's so hard to predict if you passed them without taking damage, you really have to jump perfectly. And why is there no invulnerability after taking damage? :/
Also when you die, you can't press forward in the Game Over frame and have to wait for the reeeeaaaally slow transitions between frames (I was tapping the keyboard like an idiot during the transitions...), and then when you revive, you have like zero health?! You die after touching anything and to get health you must get to the shop and use the money that you needed to go further!
The stopping inertia is a little odd too, couldn't you just have split the upper and lower body into two objects?

I'm gonna play more later because even after all the flaws (some are personal preferences also of course), it's still fun. You said it gets better later on and I want to believe that.

The game size was never a problem for me and I wonder why it is for others. I could've downloaded this even if it was 1 gigabyte, because I mean don't we all have the computer running all day? Still you should've made the voice acting (which I liked by the way) in mp3-format and thus saving alot of space.

I look forward to Hasslevania 2 too. As long as you take the balancing curve and the flaws into account (which I believe you will), it will be the super-kickass game.

A huge thanks to making this game for all of us and good luck to future projects!
All hail game makers!!

Posted by Del Duio

25th November, 2007

Nice, thanks Spiriax! I do think that if you can get just even a little further you'll have a lot more fun with the game. I definitely made the whole beginning too hard, which when you think about it should always be the easiest part of any game really.

I have some suggestions to help you for where you are now to get you further along:

1.) The skelecopter scene happens and then you end up in the Bog. You'll have 4/8 hearts if you didn't find the hidden heart maximizer that's near the beginning yet. You can still do this with 8 max though.

2.) You should have at least 1 extra key by now. Open the door at the upper right-hand corner of the room and head for the upper bog vertical hallway with the Hoff Heads. In this room are 4 candles right at the entrance. Smash them and drop down the hole. Continue to do this until you have your 8 maximum hearts.

3.) Okay, now when you're ready to continue drop down the hole again and stand in what used to be the doorway. Jump up and kill the closest bat. That's one less to worry about. Drop down to the ledge with the treasure chest in the center. This will trigger the remaining bats. Attack them like crazy with your short sword, taking care to DUCK when that left arrow slit shoots arrows at you. Once they're all dead time it right and wait until those metal floors on the right are closed and do a high jump on them to get to the very top of the room. You should now have 6 max hearts left. Make your way to the top left opening taking care not to fall down when the left-hand metal floors are open.

4.) BOSS FIGHT: Thorny Bastard. He CAN be hard, but he's not too bad if you're prepared. There are two small floating bricks in the middle of the room that you can stand on if you need to avoid his thorny branches. He attacks by throwing exploding apples and thorny branches that move both from left to right and right to left along the ground. If you stand on the ground for too long he'll also shoot a huge thorn wall up to hurt you. The basic tactic here is really easy- Just rush him and pound the crap out of him with your short sword. If you get into trouble you should do a high jump 3 times straight up from the topmost floating brick, hitting your head on the ceiling to reveal a hidden chicken. This should be a great tip for getting some easy extra life when you really need it. After you beat him you'll come to a familiar place and quickly see what you need to do next

The whole game is kind of like this, as Shroomlock said in his review. Obstacles, or some sort of puzzle that isn't easily seen right away. I made it so that you can not only get to Thorny Bastard with 8 skill hearts, but grab some extra life there too. The problem is finding it all out. The good news is that as you get more powerful midway through the game you can survive more of these obstacles longer and thus progress further.

I'll help you if you need more, just ask away.

Posted by Fifth

25th November, 2007

Rated :

Heh... pretty cool.
I don't think I've got a lot to say that hasn't been said already. It was very tough to get going in this game, particularly as every bat in the room attacked me as I was stopped by the "Alert!" message upon first entering the castle (and I thought it was supposed to happen... until I saw that the nearby chicken didn't even cover the damage (the health items seriously need to be more potent; I mean, I know you're going old-school with the difficulty and lack of health in save points, but the old games DID give you your health back if, say, you died or beat a level... but anyway))...

So, starting over, I resorted to taking it more slowly and miserly (to the point of reloading if I got hit to/from the shop to heal) and made some headway into the game. I'm at about 60% completion, and am enjoying it quite a bit, aside from the occasional gripe-worthy part (I'm really liking some of the secrets here, even if a few of them are a bit abstract). I've been stuck a bit of late; I'm still looking for the blade of Del Duio, though I only just learned about the chimney thing, so I hope that'll lead somewhere.
...And I'll save rating the game until I've finished it.

Oh, and the sleeping drat is so cute...!

Posted by Pixelthief

25th November, 2007

Rated :

I noticed that the bats would attack during that cutscene; thats obviously a bug; normally if you just walk into the front hall, they won't be triggered until after it.

Honestly, after the beginning parts, the game is very good, and not altogether too difficult. Its just that the first area, before the bog and everything is a major turnoff. If you stick with it long enough to get the water ring, you should have no problems beating the whole game.

I just found that the whole "permanent HP/mana" system of the game, where saving would preserve it, artificially made the game harder. It took at least twice as long to beat as it should have, and I feel it would have been an absolutely great game otherwise. Its just sort of awful that it feels as if you take even a SINGLE hit from an enemy, you're pretty much going to have to restart from the last save point.

Posted by Fifth

26th November, 2007

Rated :

Mm, there are certainly a few bugs that could use some working out.
I was talking to the lawyer up near the top, and got killed during the conversation as one o' those red skeletons got up and walked into me. I guess I was supposed to have the whip by then?

So I was looking for the whip and found Simon, and all through the conversation with him I had the sub-devil summoned (is there any way to un-summon that guy?), who was draining my hearts, one by one. Worried that the only way out would be to hi-jump back up (and that I would soon end up with no time left to check otherwise), I kept hoping the conversation would end... quickly!
By the time it did, I think I had 7 or 8 hearts left, and had to rush outta there.

Don't get me wrong, I am enjoying the game, but some of these bugs or oversights are just unfair.

Posted by Del Duio

26th November, 2007

Please please please Fifth, belive me when I tell you that I have personally went through the game for hundreds upon hundreds of hours looking for (and fixing huge amounts of) bugs and glitches. I had a couple of beta testers find some more that I missed and I fixed those too. It's not like I didn't take any time to playtest the thing as I seriously playtested this thing to death. I guess with something this big it'd be impossible for me to catch every single little thing

Rest assured that it is really so much more stable than it was before. There's no real way for you to know for sure but believe me it's true. After all the bugs and things that are wrong with Necropolis Rising I didn't want the same thing to happen with Hasslevania and went to great lengths to try and fix everything I could find.

Okay, I think I can't really add too much more to that so now I'll answer you guys' other comments!

Sleeping drats- Thanks! Originally there was only supposed to be one of them and that was because he was part of a puzzle. But then after the core game was completed I was looking for ways to liven up the place (smoke, plants, butterflies, toads, fish, etc.) and I put 2 more sleeping drats in there. Only those extra 2 are just for show- nothing more. You didn't hear this from me, but I don't think that subdevils and drats mix too well. Heh, heh, heh..

Yeah, some people have gotten mauled by those first couple of bats when you enter the caste. I really never thought that people would have jumped to trigger the event, and I missed it. Sounds crazy but every time I started a new game I just always walked to the left and neither me or my testers found that bug before.

Fifth, I'm not sure what happened with the Brittles during the 2nd conversation with Me Sued Ya to be honest. When you are talking to him all the enemies are supposed to be invisible and not move. Maybe because he was in a heap it somehow missed the check. I think every time I go up there I always had the whip so I may have missed something. Again, I appologize but it wasn't from a lack of trying to catch errors

Oh, and yes you can unsummon the devil at any time simply by pressing the delete key. That's why that second box appears that alternates between the devil's face with the red 'X' through it and the 'DEL' box. As long as he's eating hearts you can always un-summon him by pressing delete. If you're in the middle of a cutscene and he's not eating hearts you won't be able to un-summon him until the cutscene is over. That's because everything that has to do with the devil is in the same event that gets deactivated / activated.

I am compiling a list of things that need a' changin' over on Hasslevania 2's project page here, as well as things that should stay that were in this game. Although obviously I'll have the final say, any opinions you guys have you can post and I'll certainly listen to them.

Posted by Del Duio

27th November, 2007

BLAH MOTHER F*CKER JES*S H. CHRIST HOLY SH*T!!!!!!!!

Okay, now that THAT'S overwith..

I replayed the game yesterday, Decaffienated Run, trying to win it with minimal gear. I won the game without a shield, the iron armor, the whip, or the devil and didn't get a lot of items on purpose. I won with 45% and got the crap ending, which is to be expected.

HOWEVER

Fifth, I tried to reinact the Me Sued Ya / Brittles / LCD Tower text pop up problem you had and got THE SAME EXACT RESULT. Because I didn't get the whip, I only knocked that top Brittles down and not out. While the cutscene was playing he got up and eventually walked over and damaged me. Eventually he would have killed me if I didn't quickly press <ESC> to skip the cutscene and move over some to avoid him.

I don't mind some people's issues that are supposed to be part of the gameplay (like that their HPs don't refill when saving or some other issues that were meant to be in the game) but to me I consider this a game-breaking bug, and something I absolutely have to fix. If players never got the whip to totally take that Brittles out, they would either die while trying to watch the cutscene or otherwise get damaged. I can't belive I friggin' missed that and now I'll have to do a whole lot of extra work just to do one very easy and tiny fix on the whole huge stupid game AHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Anyhow, I'll fix this Brittles problem, The entry hall bat attack jumping bug, and make that false ceiling more easily noticable tonight and try to upload the whole thing again tomorrow and distribute it to the mirror sites and oh what a big pain in the ass this is.

Posted by Spiriax

27th November, 2007

Rated :

Sounds troubling, Del Duio...

Thanks for the help. I'm not sure I needed that walkthrough since I never got that far but I'll take a look if I get stuck again.
Although I will have a lot of trouble getting anywhere since I realized I saved with ~1 health point. I die if I touch anything, lawl.

Posted by The Chris Street

27th November, 2007

I'll review it when I can get far enough into the game

Posted by Del Duio

27th November, 2007

You mean you didn't call out sick from work this week specifically to play it? Blasphemy!

Oh and thank you!

Posted by Pixelthief

27th November, 2007

Rated :

Good plan mate

Posted by Del Duio

28th November, 2007

Awesome, okay I should have the new updated Hasslevania version 2 ready to go sometime today for you all. (Wednesday).

A lot of fixes, especially the one fifth found, and a new game mode that heals you up to 50% of health whenever you save your game. The catch is that you can't get the good ending on this easy mode.

Other changes include a lot more obvious secret ceiling passageway so not everyone will get stuck at the start, the removal of some spikes near Oldie's, some hint changes (JUMP QUICKLY is now AXE VS ARMOR). Other stuff. I'll post here when it's ready and I hope you guys will have a lot easier of a time winning with the new easy mode.

Thanks, and I think I finally got everything this time around for Hasslevania: Version 2!

Posted by The Chris Street

28th November, 2007

Excellent!

Posted by Del Duio

28th November, 2007

Okay guys, version 2 is up from the kevinski links! I sent one to Dr. James but he hasn't recieved it yet. I'll try to switch all the links out over the next couple of days or so. Let me know if you like the changes!

Posted by CsaR

28th November, 2007

Rated :

Shouldn't that be version 1.1

. Well whatever, I've uploaded it now.

Posted by Del Duio

28th November, 2007

Yeah, you're probably right but I suppose the new game mode to try is sort of a big change. I just think version 2 is easier to understand, at least for me!

Posted by battlegorge

30th November, 2007

Rated :

This is a great game!
I am in the dark area with 60% but havent found the sword yet.
Is the game in the casino pure random or has it something to do with the blinking question marks?

Posted by

30th November, 2007

Rated :

Didn't like it, sorry.

Posted by Del Duio

30th November, 2007

Battlegorge, sounds to me like you're in Drac's Quarters which is the hardest area in the whole game. Did you activate the LCD Tower password yet? And did you talk to Me Sued Ya a second time? Is the place you're at purple and black or black and red with skulls in the walls? It's awesome you were able to get so far with only 60%- that means there's a lot more out there for you to discover! What power ups and weapons have you found so far?

Also, which sword do you mean the Blade of Del Duio? That's a good weapon, but optional. It's in a hidden tower and you'll need to find and activate the bubble device to get it. A good hint to start is to go back and hit archery targets with the holy crap weapon. In the place you're at now the Family Whip will REALLY be a big help if you haven't gotten it yet, much more than the BODD will be. You need to find Simon Bellhump in the Museum and get it from him.

The casino is random yes, which means it really does all boil down to loads of luck. The blinking question marks are just place holders until you roll the dice, and then the dice show up where those boxes were. It's just graphical, nothing more.

PhixxyPEWPEW- It's cool, it's not for everybody but I'm glad you downloaded it and tried it out.

Are you guys playing the version 2 Hasslevania?

Posted by Del Duio

1st December, 2007

I was able to win a really hard challenge on this last night. I tried to get the lowest possible % and managed only 9%!!

Ironically the hardest challenge is done on the easiest mode, "Wussy Schoolgirl". I had only the maximum 8 skill hearts that you start out with, so getting the holy crap (one of 2 weapons used to defeat Black n' Dookie, who is manditory) was out of the picture.

Total items I got were: Short Sword, Lost Axe, Pyro Mace Iac, High Heels, Water Ring, Iron Armor, the Treasure Hoarde, 1 apple, and the 3 codebooks. The coffin healing me made a giant difference, even if it was only to 50% of maximum. That let me save money from having to buy food since I couldn't pick any up. Before fighting one of the harder bosses I'd save to 50% of HP and then go buy something small like an apple or grapes since they don't count towards your percentage total.

The thing is I could have probably reduced it a percentage point or two but didn't want to smash candles for all of the $3000 to buy the axe. Also, if I would have gotten the codebooks in a slightly different order I could have avoided getting that one apple that you have to.

All in all, it was very fun and offered a different experience, which was pretty cool.

Posted by s-m-r

2nd December, 2007

Congrats on the GOTW award!

The learning curve was a bit steep, but with persistence, you can make it.Made it over that first-part hump, and just started rolling with the water ring. Looking forward to lots of fun with this one.

Posted by robin90

2nd December, 2007

Rated :

Congrats on GOTw

I enjoyed the game fully

Posted by Tomssuli

2nd December, 2007

Hmmm... The game doesn't play properly on my computer. It slows down time to time and that affects so that it becomes unplayable. You lose health twice on the spikes before you can jump and arrows and other firing things fire more rapidly because they are time based. Also when it slows down, you can't jump that far, because Rovert starts falling back down time based. And so even jump over a short gap can fail.

Posted by Del Duio

3rd December, 2007

That sucks Tomssuli, what are your computer's specs?

Most of this wouldn't run correctly on my old 500MHz 256RAM job. Is it something along those lines?

Oh, and the jump isn't time based, but the damage on the spikes is. If everything slows down in rooms with really big overlays (like the big water parts) it might be your processor. That's the only thing I can think of?

Posted by Fifth

13th December, 2007

Rated :

Alright, I still haven't finished the game, but I'll rate it anyway.
Despite the overwhelming difficulty at the beginning and a few annoying bugs from time to time, it really is an excellent game, and it's commendable that you were able to do such a great job on a huge project like this.

Posted by Del Duio

14th December, 2007

(I really should rate this game if only to cancel out the 2 stars that guy rated it just to get banned or whatever later)

Posted by alastair john jack

20th December, 2007

Rated :

I'll rate it for you?

Posted by Tomssuli

21st December, 2007

I have 1,8gHz and 1gigabyte of ram... Especially the rooms with water or mist slow down, but in the other rooms it sometimes just slows down too without an apparent reason :S ...sorry for the slow answer, I forgot.

Posted by Del Duio

22nd December, 2007

Yeah, all the big overlays always gave my slower computer problems too with that mad slowdown. It was developed on Win XP, and although almost everyone else has that maybe it's Vista related? I have no idea otherwise, sorry it doesn't work for you.

This computer runs it fine at 2.8 GHz and 512 RAM, but that's most likely serious overkill.

Posted by Jason Orme

12th January, 2008

First impression is that the controls are horrible, is it possible to change them?

As i'd much rather use CTRL to attack rather than Space.

Posted by Del Duio

13th January, 2008

Sorry that's your first impression but no the controls aren't changeable for the game. If you look at the "How to Play" screen it'll give you the setup for everything that will make it a bit easier to play. (Ex. using the left shift button for jump, etc.)

There were a lot of things that needed controlin', so it was the best scheme I could come up with.

Posted by Jason Orme

15th January, 2008

I will definatly give it another shot, but I did find the key-setup rather hard to use.

Posted by Del Duio

15th January, 2008

It's cool man, check out that picture of the keyboard I made in the game under "how to play" and that should help lots.

Hasslevania's in Games for Windows magazine #15 so I'm planning on trying to find / buy one later today.

Posted by Airflow

1st February, 2008

How can I put it in a window?

Posted by Del Duio

1st February, 2008

I don't think you can Skinny, at least I wouldn't know how. I tried running the game before when it didn't change the resolution size and it doesn't work right (some of the bigger rooms that you aren't supposed to see all of at once you can.)

Is there a way to run it for Win XP compatibilty? (If you're using Vista or something, damned if I know but it's worth a shot). Hopefully there's something you can maybe do with your monitor that will help because I haven't heard / seen this problem happening for anybody else yet.

Posted by Fifth

5th February, 2008

Rated :

It is possible to get it windowed, but only using the roundabout Click-game "no fullscreen" option.

You first have to make a shortcut to the game in the folder it's in (you can do this by holding Alt and dragging the file to another spot). You then open up the shortcut's properties, and add /nofs to its target.
The shortcut should then open a windowed version (of its original resolution).

Posted by Del Duio

7th February, 2008

Thanks Fifth, I didn't know that at all. MMF and all its mad designs!

Posted by TheoX

13th September, 2008

Rated :

Downloaded this a long time ago, but never got around to playing it. I have 20% completion now, currently being frustrated by the arrows that shoot out of the walls before you fight the Sucky Sisters (lowers my health hellishly). Luckily there is a chicken in that room, but there is also one of those freakin' horns... anyway, despite the annoying difficulty of some parts, I'm really liking it so far. I know a lot of work went into this, and it shows. I like all the items you can find, powerups etc., and the monster book (have yet to get any other items like that). I'm going to go back to playing now.

Posted by Del Duio

15th September, 2008

Thanks TheoX, if you need any help with anything let me know. Having the shield before the Sucky Sisters helps a lot with the arrows, but it's also possible to jump to avoid them too.

HINT: There's a secret room somewhere around there that should help you out if your life gets too low too.

Posted by Eternal Man [EE]

24th March, 2011

Rated :

I beat it! It only took ~4 years!

Posted by Del Duio

25th March, 2011

That's still faster than some people and at least you WANTED to win it, good job EE!

Posted by predcon

1st April, 2011

Rated :

I found the "WTF Zone". By any chance, was it inspired by a certain secret area in a Spider-Man game for the Amiga? You know, the secret area that warps you from the first room to the very last?

Posted by Del Duio

5th April, 2011

Never played that Spider Man game, predcon. I think the only Amiga game I ever played before was D&D Secret of the Silver Blades (I think that was the title). Originally, the WTF Zone was supposed to be a whole area and not what it is. The WTF Zone is also going to be in H2, and it will be a lot bigger and different. That's the plan at least

Posted by predcon

7th April, 2011

Rated :

So what happened to the site at "http://del_duio.sitesled.com/index.html"? Every time I check it I get a DNS Lookup Error.

Posted by Del Duio

7th April, 2011

I think sitesled changed the homepage url a while back automatically and without warning. Now all you have to do is type in http://del_duio.sitesled.com

I don't know why they did that, but it IS shorter.

Posted by predcon

7th April, 2011

Rated :

It's still a DNS error
Comment edited by predcon on 4/7/2011

Posted by Del Duio

7th April, 2011

Don't know man, it works for me I just tried it. *shrug*

Posted by predcon

9th April, 2011

Rated :

I've tried it on multiple browsers, after clearing caches and cookies and everything. I've even tried getting it on my PS3, and it won't work. But it WILL work on my BlackBerry, which indicates something very wrong with either Sitesled or my ISP. I'd ask a Sitesled admin about any known issues with HughesNet.

(PS)
Lol, I just tried submitting a support ticket to Sitesled detailing the above, and I get a Search Assist Landing page saying "support.honestnetworks.com does not exist".
Comment edited by predcon on 4/9/2011

Posted by Del Duio

12th April, 2011

Yeah their support system is not very good. I remember I had a lot of unscheduled downtime a few years ago and they gave us no warning it was going to happen, or when it was going to come back up. A couple times this happened during the GOTW voting and I had a game in it, which SUCKED.

Posted by predcon

16th April, 2011

Rated :

The only way I can get the site to appear with my ISP (HughesNet Satellite Internet) is with Google's "cached page" function. Without a reliable way to get a support request through to Sitesled, I wouldn't know how to resolve the issue. I'm going to post a new thread in the TDC General Chat boards asking if anyone else using Hughesnet, or any other ISP for that matter, is having a similar issue.