Celebrating All Things Spooky: The Count Lucanor

I remember seeing The Count Lucanor years ago and thinking I’d like to play it someday.

Then the dev announced Yuppie Psycho, and I remember thinking it looked cool and that I should also play The Count Lucanor. Now they’ve got an upcoming game called Catechesis, and it occurred to me that I still had yet to play The Count Lucanor or Yuppie Psycho.

So when I saw it go on sale on the Switch (and I believe elsewhere, too), I picked it up.

From the beginning, The Count Lucanor has a strange, fairytale-like atmosphere. You play as Hans, a young boy who runs away from home in search of treasure and finds himself in the castle of Count Lucanor, where he’s told he’ll win riches if he can correctly guess the name of the kobold who guided him there.

You have to search the castle for clues by finding key items and solving puzzles. Some puzzles have multiple solutions, especially related to how you interact with the other characters you meet along the way.

It isn’t all puzzle-solving, though. Monsters roam the halls, and you have no way of fighting back, so your only hope is to avoid them. My one criticism is that sometimes the monsters didn’t patrol so much as stand right in front of the door I needed to reach, which added undo frustration. Fortunately, you also find food you can use as healing items.

Oh, and saves are limited, since you save by throwing gold coins into a fountain. Exploring helped me find coins readily enough that I didn’t have to worry, but it did cause some additional tension early on.

Because of these elements, it would be fair to call The Count Lucanor a horror game, although I’d say it feels more like an adventure game overall. The story and atmosphere, too, feel more like a dark fairytale (with plenty of blood) than outright horror.

There are multiple endings, all of which are possible to get at the end of the game rather than being based on decisions throughout. Overall, I enjoyed the few hours it took to beat The Count Lucanor, and I’m glad I finally checked it out!