Dracula: The Path of the Dragon is a new game release by Chillingo.  It is described as “a series of complex and engaging puzzles based on medicine, history, and the occult.”  That last part concerned me, as I’m not to fond of dabling in something like “the occult”.  Yet the intro video starts in a Catholic setting quoting the Bible, so I don’t think the game is going to be offensive to anyone.  As the intro film points out, your job as Father Arno Moriani is to investigate a recent death in Translyvania of a possible future saint in the church.  As your game play continues, you end up investigating the secrets of  The Path of the Dragon and ultimately end up meeting Dracula himself.
Game play reminds me of other adventure titles.  As you touch areas of the screen, your character responds with a message, complete with voice-over, telling you that the action isn’t needed or what the result of the action is.  Manouvering around in the area is simple.  You can pan both up and down as well as left to right with very intuitive gestures/swipes on the screen.  Arrows show up where you can go different directions.
The bottom corner of the screen has an inventory option.  You start out with a Bible and a cross/crucifix.  Spots are also available for other items that you come across.  There is also an option in that window for documents.  Not sure what this will be used for or how to select and use the inventory items, but I assume they will be explained as the game continues.
While game play is fairly free-form, it does follow a plot line.  You are welcome to walk the town, for example, but it continues to warn you if you try to leave that your first goal is to find your hotel room.  Once you find it, the dialogue tells you what to do next. This makes it pretty important to actually listen to the dialogue as tapping the person again may produce a different conversation.  You are also offered different responses or questions you can ask.  Tapping on them will move the conversation in that direction.
My suggestions would include volume settings (as opposed to on and off) for background music, and the addition of settings for the volume of voice-overs.  Where this may cause a problem is that the message popups that are accompanied by the voice-overs automatically go away when the “reading” is complete.  If one adds a silent mode, it would probably also have to be accompanied by an option to manually close the dialogue boxes once the user is finished reading them.  A map option that will help those of us that are directionally challenged would also be a plus.  Another suggestion would be to brighten the menu options for “documents” and “main menu” in the popup window that shows inventory items, as well as the dialogue boxes themselves.  They are so dark that it makes them pretty much impossible for old eyes to read unless you actually select them, and in the case of the conversation choices, they are not accompanied by voice-overs so you can’t hear what you are saying either.  Finally, I’d suggest ability to add the capability of multiple users to play the game.
I did have two issues with the game that I need to mention.  First, the download on my iPhone took a long time.  I gave up on it and downloaded it on the PC to sync.  It still took a long time to download and a really long time to sync, but it did make it to the iPhone.  It also locked up on me once.  Probably because I didn’t reset my iPhone, but I thought I’d mention it.  After a reset, I was unable to produce the lockup.
Overall, this game intrigues me more than I expected.  I look forward to playing more of it.  At $0.99 in the App Store, it is worth the risk for those that like detective/adventure style games.  And, as this is subtitled “Part 1″, it is a fair bet that promised two sequels are in the works.  If the next two parts in the story follow the same amount of content, the entire story line should take 9 hours or so to go though. Without a map and with my poor memory, I can get twice that out of it! :)