Not to be confused with Dracula (Stern Electronics, 1979).
At the beginning of the game, be sure to collect the first Bats award by making 3 left ramps, then hitting any 15 switches during the time limit. After that, always be in multiball. There are 3 multiballs in the game, with their startups and jackpot shots listed below; if 2 or 3 multiballs are running at the same time, all jackpots in all multiballs will be doubled or tripled respectively, which is where the biggest points lie.
The skill shot is purely a timing shot on the autoplunger. You want to hit the button such that the pinball hits a target in the back left of the game when Dracula's (center) face is lit. Miss, and you score either 100,000 or 500,000 points. Succeed, and you score 1,000,000 the first time increasing by 1,000,000 each subsequent time up to a maximum of 5,000,000 points. The more the skill shot is worth, the faster the lit will move across the faces on the DMD, and the harder the skill shot is.
Making a skill shot also spots a letter in Video toward lighting video mode on the right orbit and advances the right ramp toward Coffin multiball.
It takes 5 shots to the right ramp to qualify Coffin locks. These five shots score 500,000, then 1,000,000, etc., with the fifth being worth 2,500,000. However, the value of a Coffin shot can be doubled by rolling through the left in lane, and the Coffin ramp itself puts the ball into the left in lane, so you can get more points by comboing the right ramp repeatedly.
After completing the Coffin with 5 shots, you can lock balls at the Coffin, which are spit out into the pop bumpers. Locking 3 balls starts Coffin Multiball.
During Coffin Multiball, the goal is to shoot the right ramp/Coffin more and repeatedly. Each shot adds a letter to the word Dracula on the playfield. Immediately after collecting a letter, or immediately after rolling through the left in lane, 2X will be lit; this time, the 2X means you get credit for 2 Dracula letters at once. Spell Dracula to score a jackpot.
The default jackpot value is 20,000,000. Collecting a Coffin Jackpot increases the next jackpot by 10,000,000, up to a maximum of 50,000,000. If three (or more) balls are still in play, though, spelling Dracula will award a double jackpot instead.
Make 3 Castle locks at the left ramp to start Castle multiball. There are three ways to light a Castle lock:
The left ramp awards are slightly unintuitive. The first, third, fifth, seventh, etc., left ramp bonuses (6, 18, 30, 42... ramps) will always light a Castle lock. The other left ramp bonuses (12, 24, 36, 48... ramps) will try to spot one of the 5 shots to complete the Coffin instead, but if the Coffin is complete and Coffin locks are qualified, these bonuses can still light a Castle lock. Therefore, if you notice that your next left ramp will be a multiple of 12, see if it's reasonable to finish the Coffin first to ensure that the next left ramp gives you the more valuable Castle lock.
Castle locks lit from left ramp awards or from standup targets are timed: you only have 13 seconds to make the left ramp for a lock. If the Mystery gives Light Castle Lock, though, that lock will stay lit until collected, unless the ball drains.
Castle Multiball works like many other late 80s/early 90s multiballs, most notably Fish Tales. Relock a ball at the left ramp to light the Jackpot for 20 seconds. Jackpot can be collected at the Tunnel saucer, just to the right of the left ramp. (The Tunnel can be hit from either flipper.) If three or more balls are in play, you can relock 2 balls at the left ramp; relocking the second ball resets the 20-second timer and increases the jackpot available at the saucer to a Double Jackpot. One would think that if 4 balls were in play, you could relock 3 of them for a triple jackpot chance, but this is not the case.
The default jackpot value is 20,000,000 points. The first jackpot value of the next Castle Multiball can be raised even when Castle Multiball is not running: after completing the top lanes, every pop bumper hit within the next few seconds or so adds 100,000 to the Castle jackpot. Hitting bumpers anytime while Castle Multiball is running also adds about 100,000 points to the jackpot each. After collecting a Castle jackpot, the next jackpot's base value will be 20,000,000 higher than the previous one's was, up to a maximum of 80,000,000 plus bumper hits.
Completing a set of standup targets during Castle Multiball scores the Carriage Bonus, which starts at 1,000,000 and increases by 500,000 each time it is collected up to a maximum of 5,000,000.
The 5th left ramp, and every 10th after that (5, 15, 25, 35...) lights Mist at the Tunnel saucer. Shoot the saucer, and a pinball will begin dancing across the playfield, guided by a magnet. Hit the ball to knock it off the magnet and Mist Multiball will begin. This is a 2-ball multiball where pretty much every shot in the game scores 10,000,000 points, including both ramps, the Tunnel, the right orbit, the Altar in the lower right, and the Asylum hole in the middle left. All other targets score 250,000 points per hit. Not much else to say here, just keep the two balls in play and make shots- ideally, focus on shots that start other multiballs.
Progress can be made toward any other multiball while one or more multiballs is running. If 2 multiballs are running at once, All Jackpots 2X is lit, and if all 3 multiballs are running at once, All Jackpots 3X is lit. These stay lit until single ball play resumes: the jackpot multiplier is not dependent on the number of balls in play. During this "Multi-Multiball" state, you'll be playing a 4-ball multiball, unless Mist is not running, in which case it will be a 3-ball multiball. Activating a multiball will cause the game to auto-plunge balls until the appropriate starting number of balls are in play. You can't restart a multiball that's already running, though, so once all 3 are going at once and the ball saver has expired, there is no way to add more balls to the playfield. Here are some tips about stacking multiballs:
The jackpot multiplier during Multi-Multiball applies to the Castle Jackpot (for a possible double 3x jackpot of 480,000,000), the Coffin jackpot (for a possible double 3x jackpot of 300,000,000), the Mist shot award (all shots worth 20,000,000 or 30,000,000), the Carriage Bonus, and the Bats and Rats modes explained below.
The 3rd left ramp, and every 10th after that (3, 13, 23, 33...), will put the ball into the shooter lane and start Bats. Bats is a quick hurry-up that lasts about 15 seconds. The hurry-up starts at 50,000,000 and counts down to 2,000,000. The hurry-up is collected by hitting any 15 switches in the game, thus scaring off 15 bats (out lanes count as 3 bats). When you complete a Bats round, the score is not given to you immediately; instead, it is added to your Bats Bonus, which is collected at the end of every ball. If you play and complete Bats more than once, all of the completion values are added together to make the Bats Bonus, with no limit that I've ever seen. This can lead to hundreds of millions of free points just for draining on the final ball(s) of the game.
The easiest way to complete Bats in single ball play is just to try to use nudging to keep the ball in the bumpers off the initial plunge and get your 15 switches that way. Rarely, and for unknown reasons, a perfect Bats will give some odd change points on top of the 50 million, such as 50,003,340. Completing Bats in multiball is rather trivial. If two or three multiballs are running at once, Bats will start with a max hurry-up value of 100,000,000 or 150,000,000 respectively. Absolutely take advantage of this, especially early in the game.
For clarity, here are all the things available on the left ramp, and the ramp counts at which they appear on default settings.
Making consecutive left ramps scores 5,000,000 points per ramp.
Making the right orbit spots a letter in Video in reverse order, and gives points: 100,000 for the O, 500,000 for the E, 1,000,000 for the D, 3,000,000 for the I, and 5,000,000 plus Start video mode for the V.
During video mode, the goal is to shoot werewolves. The left flipper shoots a werewolf on the left side, the right flipper shoots the right side; you do not need to aim more precisely than that. If multiple werewolves approach you on the same side at the same time, you need to hit that side's button multiple times to take care of them all. The points you get for shooting a werewolf range from 50 to 1,000,000; the closer the werewolf is to you, the more it is worth. Shooting a werewolf when you can see its teeth normally guarantees the 1,000,000, but don't rely on the timing too much unless you're intricately familiar with the video mode, since some werewolves charge you faster than others. There are 5 levels to the video mode: completing level 1 scores 5,000,000, and the award increases 5,000,000 at a time until all completions of level 5 give 25,000,000 points. When you complete a video mode at any level, you also get points equal to the number of bullets you had left: 10,000,000 for all five (a perfect video mode), 5,000,000 for four, 1,000,000 for three, 500,000 for two, 100,000 for one, and no bonus for having 0 bullets left. Completing the level 2 video mode awards an instant extra ball. After playing video mode, the ball is spit out of the Asylum, a left-to-right kickout across the playfield just above the left standup targets.
The Altar is a scoop in the lower right of the game, similar in location to the Swamp Kickout on Addams Family. At 3 Altars, and every 5th Altar after that (3, 8, 13, 18...), Rats begins. At 15 Altars, the out lanes are lit for Special on the left and Extra Ball on the right.
Rats is a frenzy mode somewhat similar to Bats. You must hit 15 switches in 15 seconds. This time, the first switch is worth 500,000 points and each subsequent switch is worth 50,000 more than the last. Hit 15 switches and the Rats bonus of 13,250,000 will be added to all balls for the rest of the game. If you do not hit the 15 switch quota, you get nothing.
2X and 3X Jackpots from Multi-Multiball are supposed to affect Rats scoring. However, I think the game (accidentally?) applies the jackpot multiplier twice, meaning you get 4X Rat scoring if 2 multiballs are running and 9X scoring if 3 multiballs are running. This is the only way I can think of to explain the fact that multi-multiball Rats modes can be worth 100,000,000 points or more. If you know what's going on here, reach out! For now, all I can say is definitely don't ignore Rats if it happens to start during a multiball.
The Tunnel is lit for Mystery at the start of the game as well as for a few seconds after rolling through the right in lane. Mystery awards include:
Bram Stoker's Dracula has a conventional in/out lane setup. The out lanes are lit for Extra Ball on the left and Special on the right afte rmaking the 15th Altar in the game. The left in lane lights the Coffin ramp for 2X (either 2X Score while the Coffin is being completed, or 2 Dracula letters during Coffin multiball). The right in lane lights the Mystery for a few seconds.
This game is a Lightning Flipper game. This means that, by default, the flippers are 2.875 inches long instead of the conventional 3 inches. That extra little bit matters a lot, and changes the timing pretty drastically on certain catches and transfers. Get practice where possible to gain experience with how they work and what sorts of things are or aren't possible.
Base bonus is just a count of switch hits, and it's worth diddly squat. I have never seen the base bonus before multiplier be more than 1,000,000 points, even when watching other people's multi-billion-point games. Bonus multiplier is advanced by completing the top lanes or the corresponding Mystery award. On most copies of the game, bonus multiplier increases one at a time up to a maximum of 10X and is carried over from ball to ball, but on older/prototype versions of the game code, the multiplier increases in the sequence of 2x-4x-6x-8x-10x and is not held over.
After the base bonus, you then get paid off for your Bats and Rats bonuses, which are the sum of all completed Bats and Rats round values in the game so far. This is where the big money is; all it takes is a couple good Bats rounds to make it not worth tilting.
There is a bug in this game (that supposedly also exists in Doctor Who). Sometimes, if you nudge hard enough to receive a tilt warning just as the ball registers in the out hole, the game will skip giving you your bonus, even though you did not tilt. It's unknown why this happens, it's almost certainly a bug, and it sucks. Don't make a risky move unless you're confident you'll get the ball back without tilting, especially late in a game when Bats and Rats bonuses can be worth hundreds of millions of points.
The manual indicates that specials score 1,000,000 points in competition/novelty play, which I expect to be incorrect, just like many other mid-90s Williams manuals. No point value for extra balls is listed.
The left ramps required for the first or subsequent extra balls can be set from 1 to 99. By default, it's 8 for the first, and every 24.
The video mode that gives an extra ball can be set from 1 to 99; default 2.
At the start of the game, or after successfully completing a video mode, the game can spot Video letters toward the next video mode. These are both off by default.
Bonus multiplier can be set not to be held over from ball to ball.
The following timers can be adjusted: Castle Lock (1-99, default 15), Castle Jackpot (1-120, default 20), bumper timer for increasing Castle Jackpot after clearing the top lanes (0-120, default 10), the timer for 2X Coffin (0-120, default 15), the timer for consecutive left ramp scoring (0-120, default 10), the amount of time Mystery is lit (0-120, default 5), and the length of Bats and Rats (both default to 15 seconds; Bats can be 0-45, Rats can be 0-120).
Up to 4 shots to the Coffin toward the first Coffin Multiball can be spotted at game start. By default, none are.
The Bats mode can require hitting between 5 and 30 bats, while the Rats mode can require between 5 and 99 rats. Both are 15 by default.
Bats starts at 3 ramps, then every 10th. Mist is lit at 5 ramps, and every 10th. Castle or Coffin bonuses are available at 6 ramps, and every 6th. Rats is available at 3 altars, then every 5th. Every single one of these numbers can be adjusted to any value up to 99.
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