BLOODFALL

You don't cross Dracula's castle. You fall through it, room by room, one ball at a time.

Every blow you land is a ball dropped into a board bristling with targets. You pick the angle, you let go, and after that it's out of your hands: the bounces decide, chains light up, the Frenzy climbs. When the ball comes to rest, the thing across the room takes its turn.

The vampires telegraph their move before they strike, so the choice is yours: eat the hit, or try to finish them first. Between rooms there's a relic to take and a merchant to listen to, and never quite enough gold for both.

You're going to die. That's the plan. What the night takes from you, it gives back as Blood, and Blood gets engraved into the Crypt: health, nails, balls you didn't have before. None of it ever wears off.

• 5 wings, 14 fights, and Dracula at the bottom

• 23 relics that change the rules rather than the numbers

• 4 hunters who play nothing alike — Van Helsing is only the first

• 5 Pacts that harden the castle, each opened by putting Dracula down again

• guardians who turn the board against you: fog over your aim, a gust that shoves the ball sideways, portals that seal behind you

What you won't find here: adverts, an energy bar, notifications built to drag you back. Blood is not for sale at any price — you earn it on the way down. Nothing needs a connection, and an interrupted descent picks up exactly where you left it.

The whole castle is free, all the way to Dracula. A single one-time purchase unseals the Crypt and its hunters, if you want to go further.

The cast is borrowed from Bram Stoker's novel of 1897.