Helsing's Fire

The game was released in 2010 for iOS. It was reviewed positively by critics, who praised the game's torch/tonic puzzle mechanic, visuals, and dialogue between Van Helsing and Raffton; reception towards the game's difficulty was mixed. The game won the "Best Mobile Game" award at the 2011 Independent Games Festival.

• Title — Helsing's Fire • Developer — Ratloop • Publisher — Clickgamer.com • Platforms — iOS • Release — iPhone July 10, 2010 iPad December 15, 2010 • Genre — Puzzle • Modes — Single-player

Helsing's Fire is a puzzle video game with a top-down perspective, set in London. The protagonist, monster hunter Van Helsing, and his assistant Raffton battle Dracula and his minions using torches and magical tonics. In each level, the player must reveal monsters using their torch while avoiding blocks and walls that obstruct the torch's rays of light. Once revealed, monsters can be defeated by using tonics corresponding to their color (red, blue, or green). Monsters are initially immobile, but gain the ability to move and shoot back at the player in later stages. Different monsters impact gameplay: for example, a werewolf hit by a tonic turns into a maiden, who the player should avoid harming. The game contains three campaigns with 180 stages in total as well as boss battles; later stages increase in difficulty. The puzzles in the levels are randomly generated. Players are scored by how fast they complete the level. Helsing's Fire has two additional modes besides the campaigns: a "Bounties" mode, and an endless mode where the player completes as many timed puzzles as possible before either running out of time or failing to complete a puzzle. Even when you could play Helsing’s Fire on your iPad, Until 10 July 2010, Helsing’s Fire had had an HD version of the game (called Helsing’s Fire HD). The gameplay is the same with the exception of the display being optimised for iPads, unlike the original version.

Helsing's Fire was developed by Ratloop co-founder Lucas Pope and programmer Keiko Ishizaka, his wife. The game was developed by them over the course of 6 months part-time, with additional work for updates and an HD version. The game was originally a roguelike action game; Pope said that he "had a much easier time designing the puzzle elements" and that Helsing's Fire eventually turned into a puzzler. The developers then focused on the vampire theme, then on Helsing and Raffton, the game's characters. Pope had been creating app prototypes to familiarize himself with the iPhone SDK; the light/shadow concept arose from his prototyping work. He initially wanted to simplify the art creation by using vector-like graphics, but added textures and hand-drawn sprites after feedback from friends. The game was released on July 10, 2010 for iPhone and was published by Clickgamer.com, a subsidiary of Chillingo. A post-launch update added a new campaign (in addition to the original 90 stages), a new partner for Helsing, and new items.