Dylan Dog: Murderers

Playing Dylan Dog: Murderers means stepping into a side-scrolling nightmare where missing a single bullet leaves you permanently trapped inside a cursed London mansion.

The nightmare begins in Simulmondo's adaptation of Dylan Dog: Murderers

Italian developer Simulmondo s.r-l made a bold choice in 1992 when they adapted Tiziano Sclavi's horror comic. Instead of building a traditional text parser or a breezy graphic adventure, they threw the nightmare detective into a punishing side-view action game filled with possessive aristocrats and environmental traps.

You control Dylan in his red shirt and black jacket as he attends a dinner party that quickly turns violent. The wine is poisoned, the guests lose their minds, and you are left to explore a dusty castle floor by floor. Your objective is simple: solve item puzzles, figure out who owns the mansion, and escape before the overall timer runs out.

Awkward controls and inventory hurdles

The immediate wall every player hits is the control scheme. Moving around uses standard directional keys, but opening your inventory requires hitting Space, selecting an item, and applying it. Attacking requires holding Shift while tapping arrows, which makes close-quarters combat feel sluggish.

Defending against killer guests with your bare hands, a knife, a screwdriver, or a heavy maul is a fast way to drain your health meter. Melee attacks can be blocked, but the hitboxes are stubborn. You often take damage simply trying to line up a punch.

How softlocks and strict timers kill your run

Combat shifts drastically when you meet the mansion's major killers. Tougher enemies and level bosses are entirely immune to melee weapons. You must shoot them with your revolver to trigger cutscenes and secure the keys needed to unlock new rooms.

This design creates the game's most infamous trap. Ammo is strictly limited across the house. If you waste bullets on regular enemies or miss shots, you will reach a boss room without ammunition, leaving you completely softlocked with no way to proceed.

To make matters worse, there is no save feature anywhere in the DOS version. You have roughly one hour and forty-five minutes to clear the entire mansion in a single sitting. If you die or run out of time, Dylan wakes up in bed, and the entire nightmare resets to the beginning.

• Melee weapons: bare hands, knife, screwdriver, sword, and maul
• Key progression: defeat specific murderers to earn keys from surviving guests
• Copy protection: a manual code prompt near the final stretch of the game

A strange chapter in Italian comic adaptations

Period magazines were not kind to the game's severe design. Amiga Format handed it a 42% score, while Amiga Power dropped down to 29%, both citing the frustrating controls and slow movement. Home of the Underdogs later highlighted the great comic presentation while panning the actual gameplay flow.

Yet despite the harsh reviews, the standalone release moved 50,000 copies. That success convinced the publisher to launch a 17-episode monthly serial adventure series sold directly at Italian newsstands over the next two years. If you want to experience early European comic adaptations, this initial attempt is a fascinating look at early survival horror concepts.

Play Dylan Dog: Murderers free in your browser

You can play Dylan Dog: Murderers right now without setting up old hardware or configuring system settings. The game runs directly in your web browser, giving you instant access to this tough piece of Italian gaming history.

If you set foot in the mansion today, keep a close eye on your revolver count and count every shot. Knowing which fights to pick is the only real way you will ever see the mansion owner's true identity before the morning comes.