Review: Dracula vs Van Helsing

Introduction & Overview

Once again, Dracula has arrived in Whitby, England, and has begun attacking the town’s innocent inhabitants. Their only hope lies with Van Helsing, the famous vampire hunter, who has been tracking his archenemy for a long time. The final battle takes place tonight. Will Van Helsing defeat Dracula before the Lord of the Vampires turns the entire population of Whitby into creatures of the night?

This is the premise of Dracula vs Van Helsing, designed by Maxime Rambourg (The LOOP, The Big Book of Madness, Mind Up!) and Théo Rivière (Sea Salt & Paper, Draftosaurus). It was first published in 2023 by Mandoo Games in an English and Korean edition. The artwork is by Weberson Santiago (Coup, The Bloody Inn, Sail).

It is published in Spanish by Maldito Games (the game is completely language-independent). It supports games for 2 players, with a recommended minimum age of 10, and an approximate running time of 20 to 45 minutes. The MSRP is €20. For this review, we used a review copy of the Spanish edition kindly provided by the publisher.

Important: if you already know the game and/or are only interested in my opinion about it, you can go directly to the Opinion section. The Content and Mechanics sections are especially intended for those who do not know the game and prefer to get a general idea of how it works.

Components

Inside a two-piece cardboard box (lid and bottom), measuring 21.5 × 13.5 × 3.5 cm (a small rectangular box similar to Blueprints), we find the following items:

Town Board (cardboard)
Ranking Board (cardboard)
Ship Marker (wooden)
20 Double-sided Human/Vampire Tokens (cardboard)
4 Color Tiles (cardboard)
12 Health Point Tokens (cardboard)
32 Cardboard Cards
2 Card Racks (wooden)
Rulebook

How to Play

Dracula vs Van Helsing is a two-player game where each opponent takes control of one of the two iconic characters from Bram Stoker’s novel. The game is played over a maximum of five rounds, during which players alternate turns drawing a card from the deck and deciding what to do with it (discarding it directly or swapping it with one of the cards in their hand/rack, discarding the swapped card instead). The discarded card triggers an action affecting the players’ cards. Hands cannot be rearranged in any other way, as each card slot aligns with one of the town’s five districts, each containing four humans. A round’s end can be triggered once at least six cards have been discarded between both players. A player can spend their turn to call the end of the round, granting their opponent one final turn, or the round can end immediately through a card effect. At the end of the round, players compare the cards aligned with each district one by one. There is a trump suit that beats any non-trump card. If neither card belongs to the trump suit, the higher rank wins; ties are resolved using the ranking order displayed on a small board. If Dracula wins a district, he converts one of its humans into a vampire; if Van Helsing wins, he deals a blow, reducing Dracula’s health by one point. Van Helsing wins the game if he reduces Dracula’s health to zero, while Dracula wins if he converts all the humans in a single district into vampires or survives through all five rounds.

Key Concepts

Let’s begin with the Town Board. It features five districts, each identified by a number of dots in the center (from 1 to 5), indicating the order in which districts are resolved at the end of each round. In the lower right corner, there is a five-space progress track along which the ship marker advances.

Four Human Tokens are placed on each of these districts. These tokens are double-sided. One side, with a dark green background, shows a human resident. The reverse side, with a red background, shows a converted vampire. Dracula’s goal is to convert all four humans in any single district into vampires.

On the other hand, Van Helsing’s goal is to finish Dracula off. Dracula’s life is represented by twelve Health Points, which the vampire loses whenever Van Helsing wins a district. Otherwise, Dracula converts a human into a vampire in that district.

To determine who dominates each district, the Cards (thick cardboard tiles) are used. These form a deck featuring four suits (each with a specific color and symbol) and values ranging from 1 to 8. Each value has an associated ability that triggers whenever that card is discarded. Each player places their cards in a rack, aligning each card with one of the districts so that at the end of the round, players compare the two cards (one from each player) assigned to each district.

To determine which card wins when compared in a district, players refer to the Ranking Board and Color Tiles. This small board is placed next to the town board, holding the four color tiles arranged in a row of three with a fourth tile positioned above it. That isolated top tile represents the trump suit, meaning any card of that color beats any card of the other three suits. If neither card belongs to the trump suit, the card with the higher number wins, using the left-to-right order on the row to break ties. Players will have opportunities to alter the tile arrangement using card abilities.

That is enough to get started.

Preparación de la Partida

Place the town board in the center of the table.
Place four human tokens on each district, showing their human side.
Place the ranking board to one side and randomly place the color tiles on its spaces.
Place the round marker on the first space of the progress track.
Shuffle the cards and form a draw pile.
Each player takes a card rack and draws five cards, placing them one by one from left to right onto their rack.
Players choose their roles. The player choosing Dracula takes the 12 health point tokens and places them on their side.

We are ready to begin!

Game Flow

A game of Dracula vs Van Helsing is played over a maximum of five rounds. In each round, players take alternating turns, starting with the player controlling Dracula.

On their turn, the active player draws the top card from the deck and must decide whether to discard it directly or place it in their rack in place of an existing card, discarding the card that was in that slot. When a card is placed in the discard pile, its ability is resolved.

After this, the turn passes to the opponent.

Alternatively, provided there are at least six cards in the discard pile, a player may choose to call the end of the round. The opponent gets one final turn. Once that turn is completed, combat is resolved. Players reveal their racks and determine who wins in each district (in ascending numerical order). The following situations can occur:

If both players have a card of the trump suit, the player with the higher value wins.
If only one player has a card of the trump suit, that player wins, regardless of card values.
If neither player has a card of the trump suit, the player with the higher value wins.
If neither player has a card of the trump suit and both values are tied, the player whose card belongs to the higher-ranking suit on the ranking board wins.

If the game does not end during resolution, proceed to the next district.

If all five districts have been resolved and neither player has won the game, reset for the next round as follows:

Advance the round marker one space.
Collect all cards, shuffle them, and form a new draw deck.
Each player draws 5 cards, placing them one by one into their rack from left to right.
The color tiles on the ranking board and the status of the human/vampire tokens remain as they were.

A new round then begins.

The card abilities are:

1 The active player must reveal one card from their hand.
2 The active player reveals the top card of the draw deck.
3 The active player chooses a specific district and forces the opponent to reveal the card in that slot.
4 The active player swaps the positions of two cards in their hand.
5 The active player takes another turn immediately.
6 The active player swaps one card from their hand with the card in the matching district of their opponent’s rack.
7 The active player swaps the positions of two tiles on the ranking board.
8 If there are at least six cards in the discard pile, this card can be discarded to end the round immediately and proceed straight to combat resolution.

If a card is revealed, it remains visible until discarded (it cannot be turned face-down again in the rack).

Game End

The game ends immediately after resolving a district if either of the following conditions is met:

Van Helsing wins if Dracula has lost all of his health points.
Dracula wins if he has converted all four humans in a single district into vampires.

If neither condition is met by the end of the fifth round, Dracula wins by surviving the onslaught.

Personal Opinion

In 2022, a filler game hit the scene and made a huge splash across the hobby. It was one of those titles that hooks you almost from the very first play, scales well, plays quickly, and boasts a unique, charming aesthetic that was widely praised. Yes, I am talking about my beloved Sea Salt & Paper (here is its tocho-review).

While the headline designer behind that origami sea creature game is Bruno Cathala, it also put Théo Rivière firmly on my radar—a designer I had previously known as one of the co-designers of Draftosaurus (here is its tocho-review). He does have other notable designs, such as The LOOP (even if it is not quite my go-to genre).

Now we have a very intriguing offering in Dracula vs Van Helsing, which many of you will likely associate with another two-player trick-taking filler centered on classic Victorian literature: Jekyll vs. Hyde (here is its tocho-review). And while there are subtle similarities, the games are actually quite different. Let’s see what this fresh take on the epic struggle between vampire and hunter brings to the table—not without first thanking Maldito Games for the review copy that made this write-up possible.

In Dracula vs Van Helsing, as you might expect, each player steps into the shoes of one of the iconic protagonists from Bram Stoker’s novel with classic motivations: Dracula seeks to feed and turn the local populace into vampires, while the professor strives to destroy the bloodsucker once and for all.

The core mechanism is hand management (using thick cardboard tiles, though I will simply refer to them as cards throughout the rest of this review) mapped directly to a town board divided into five districts (one card per district). Players alternate turns modifying their five-card row until the round’s end is triggered, at which point both players compare their assigned cards district by district.

The player with the superior card in each district applies their character’s effect: Van Helsing strips away one of Dracula’s life points, while Dracula turns one of the four humans in that district into a vampire. This process is repeated across all five districts.

Turn resolution couldn’t be simpler. The active player draws the top card from the deck and decides whether to discard it outright or place it into one of their five hand slots, discarding the card previously occupying that space. The ability of the discarded card is then resolved.

Then there is the suit mechanism. I mentioned this isn’t a traditional trick-taking game because it doesn’t follow standard trick flow, but we do have a deck with four suits, one of which acts as trump, beating any card from the other three suits. If neither player has a trump card in the district being resolved, the higher value wins, with suit hierarchy breaking ties on matching ranks. All of this is tracked on a small ranking board that displays the active trump suit and the tie-breaking priority for the remaining three suits.

One element reminiscent of Sea Salt & Paper is the round-end trigger. Once a certain threshold of turns has been played, the active player can choose to pass their turn and call the end of the round, giving their opponent one final turn before combat resolution. There are two other ways a round can end: exhausting the draw deck (uncommon) or discarding an 8, which ends the round immediately without giving the opponent a final turn.

Naturally, the core fun lies in managing card abilities, whose potency scales alongside their numerical rank. A value 1 card has the weakest effect (forcing you to reveal one of your own cards), whereas a 7 or an 8 triggers the most impactful actions—shifting suit priorities or ending the round without giving your opponent a chance to respond.

As you can see, the emerging dynamic feels a lot like Sea Salt & Paper thanks to the uncertainty of what lies hidden in your rival’s hand and whether your current setup is winning or losing. Yet there is enough open information on the board to make deliberate tactical plays. You might feel confident with a winning hand and risk calling the round end, only for your opponent to drop a 7, flipping suit priorities and completely turning the board state on its head.

In my view, the biggest drawback is the impact of luck, which can leave a player with very few options in certain rounds. If you are dealt a rough starting hand—low ranks in non-trump suits—you will face an uphill battle unless you draw cards that let you engineer a turnaround. And you might not draw them. That said, because games last up to five rounds, it is statistically improbable for bad luck to plague you systematically across the entire match.

On the other hand, I really appreciate the subtle asymmetry between both roles. Out of the gate, both players want to win as many districts as possible. Dracula has twelve health points, and if Van Helsing fails to deplete them all, Dracula wins. Therefore, Van Helsing must average more than two hits per round against Dracula to secure a win. If Dracula manages to win three districts in every round, he won’t even need to finish converting a full district, as the math simply won’t work out in Van Helsing’s favor.

Just like the luck factor, it is rare for one player to consistently win three or more districts round after round. That is where the asymmetry truly shines: after the first round, any district where Dracula has already scored creates immediate tension. Dracula wins the game instantly if he converts all four humans in a single district. In other words, the game can end in round four even with Dracula on the brink of death, because districts resolve in order from left to right. This resolution order naturally encourages Dracula to eye the earliest districts right from round one.

The moment Dracula converts two humans in the first three rounds, Van Helsing is forced to defend those districts at all costs, pushing him into defensive maneuvers that may diverge from his primary goal of depleting Dracula’s health.

And that is what I find most engaging about this design, which has grown on me with every play. The first game felt slightly underwhelming because we hadn’t quite grasped the tactical flow. Once it clicks, however, it becomes a remarkably tense and entertaining two-player filler. Yes, there is a meaningful dose of luck, but no more than what you’d expect from any card game.

Moving on to production, it is a bit of a mixed bag. On one hand, the packaging is fantastic, featuring a compact box tailored to its contents, accompanied by generous wooden card racks. On the other hand, the cardboard tokens feel somewhat thin (though cleanly punched), and more importantly, the cards are thick cardboard tiles rather than standard playing cards. In a game where hidden information is paramount, relying on rigid cardboard tiles makes shuffling awkward and leaves them prone to scuffing. I ended up sleeving the tiles, which makes shuffling somewhat easier, but standard playing cards would have been far more practical. The rulebook is well-organized and crystal clear.

On art duties, we have the talented Weberson Santiago with his signature stylized, layered character portraits and eerie expressions. His style was already a great fit for The Bloody Inn and Coup, but in Dracula vs Van Helsing, it reaches new heights. The sense of dread and unease conveyed by these character illustrations is sublime.

And let’s wrap this up. Dracula vs Van Helsing is one of those games that builds up gradually; initial plays might leave you somewhat cold if the underlying rhythm isn’t fully understood. But as you get familiar with card abilities and board manipulation, the tension ramps up significantly, and meaningful tactical decisions easily balance out the inherent luck factor typical of card games. I really enjoy the card-driven action system and the clever asymmetric win conditions that distort the importance of individual districts. Weberson Santiago’s artwork is top-notch. It is a slight shame they opted for thick cardboard tiles instead of standard cards, as it feels less practical during play. Overall, though, it is a very compelling game. For all these reasons, I give it a…