The Count of Monte Cristo is the third most famous fictional count, after Sesame Street’s numerically obsessed vampire ‘The Count’ and the most infamous vampire of them all, Count Chocula. Alexandre Dumas’ classic novel of romance and revenge has nothing to do with vampires (which some may consider an oversight), but it’s still recognised as one of literature’s greatest works, having been adapted into countless films and TV shows.
As yet, though, a proper video game adaptation has eluded us. A quick Steam search shows that the closest thing currently available is ‘The Count of Monster Disco’, a Transylvania-themed spinoff of Train Simulator, which beyond the punny title, has nothing to do with Dumas’ novel whatsoever.
Thanks goodness, then, for the Count of Monte Clicker, a bona-fide attempt to retell the classic tale in the interactive mode Dumas himself would no doubt have chosen—an incremental clicker game.
As in the novel, players assume the role of Edmond Dantès, a French first-mate who is wrongfully accused of treason by Fernand Mondego, and imprisoned in the island fortress Chateau d’Iff. There, he meets fellow inmate Abbé Faria, with whom he concocts a plan to escape the island, recover a treasure buried on the island of Monte Cristo, and exact vengeance upon Mondego and those who conspired with him.
From the available footage, the game itself seems to centre around the escape from Chateau d’Iff, an ideal scenario for an incremental experience. Dantès’ days are spent chipping away at the stone walls of his prison cell, while also pondering on the lessons of logic, rhetoric and philosophy taught to him by the Abbé.
These ponderings are far from idle, however. What Dantès thinks about in any given moment provides fleeting bonuses. Focussing on his self-belief, for example, briefly increases his chip speed. Similarly, the Abbe’s lessons provide more permanent upgrades to Dantès. Learning basic addition provides Dantès with extra pickaxes to hack away with, while mastering trigonometry helps him perfect his strike angle, increasing pickaxe damage.
Oh, and there’s also a Vampire Survivors-style autobattler element where Dantès has to shoot hordes of encroaching rocks. Is this true to Dumas’ original vision? Perhaps not. Would the novel be a superior work if it was? Indisputably.
While it’s all charmingly silly, but there’s a pretty serious development brain behind it. The game’s created by Adam Travers, who previously developed another idle Game Journey to Incrementalia, in which you play as a necromancer. It has a ‘Very Positive’ rating on Steam for how it cleverly adds a bit more substance to your typical clicker, as noted by one Steam reviewer “By almost entirely removing arbitrary time gates and making it universally free to respec, Incrementalia takes the formula created by idle games and refines it from pure skinner box addiction into a format that’s actually fun to seriously engage with.” Thanks for the insight, er, doot doot.
There’s no specified release date for the Count of Monte Clicker yet, though there’s a vague window of the third quarter of this year. When it does launch, its Steam page says it will feature “multiple game modes” across four acts, suggesting it will cover the broader story of the novel after all.