Dracula: The Official Stoker Family Edition Review

Halloween may be over, but we urge you to keep the spirit alive by taking a virtual journey to Transylvania.

If you've enjoyed the classic Dracula, you'll appreciate Padworx for their unique approach that just may revolutioniarize the way electronic books are enjoyed. Dracula: The Official Stoker Family Edition can be thought of as a haunted exploratorium of the senses. Embedded within about 300 pages of classical prose, this app contains spooky animations and indie music guaranteed to enhance your Dracula experience. The interactivity begins as you start your first chapter of the novel and continues throughout the book, keeping you engaged and captivated.

For first-time Dracula readers, this is a powerful immersion into the classical masterpiece - so good, that it is endorsed by the Stoker family and the only Dracula app to be regarded as the official. With the success of this app, PadWorx is planning to create a full series of texts built upon their game engine in an attempt to provide a highly interactive eBook experience that cannot be replaced by traditional e-reader apps.

Although we were skeptical of this app because of its abridged text and possible "cheese factor," we were thoroughly impressed with its quality and level of interactivity. While providing captivating storytelling despite its limited selection of prose, we appreciated the way it embarked us upon a whimsical adventure without having to venture outside. The animations and sound effects were mesmerizing and didn't detract from our enjoyment, something that can often occur with apps of this nature.

The developers clearly put tremendous thought and consideration into this app. They even included some never before-released artifacts, such as new photos, audio, and video! There are also unlockable features that can be accessed once enough hints have been gathered, but we won't spoil that for you.

Despite our pleasure in using this app, we could not give it a Must Have rating of 4 because of its file size and price. We feel that this app can be a bit of a memory hog - especially if you have the baseline model of the iPad. Since the complete Dracula text can be accessed for free as an eBook, we felt that the price was somewhat steep ($4.99). Regardless, we found the app stable, enjoyable and innovative and would recommend it to anyone looking for a spooky Halloween-style read!