July 1984 issue of White Dwarf magazine, the module was given 8 out of 10 overall, with the reviewer mentioning its presentation as a positive, and its complexity as a negative. It was likened to a Hammer horror production and praised as enjoyable, although the reviewer said the game's puns were tedious and detracted from the spooky atmosphere. White Dwarf reviewer Dave Morris said it "should be a lot of fun – 'light, relief' of a nerve-wracking and deadly sort" and concluded that Ravenloft is "full of clever touches", and "features some first-class illustration and graphics". In a review for the January 1984 issue of Dragon magazine (published by a subsidiary of TSR), game designer Ken Rolston argued that, despite its design innovations, Ravenloft was still in essence a dungeon-style adventure. Rolston praised the randomization, the maps, and the player text (which is read aloud to the players by the DM). He said the player text "consistently develops an atmosphere of darkness and decay." Despite this, Rolston felt that the adventure has trouble in developing a frightening tone. He singles out its use of common monsters in D&D, an abundance of traps, and frequent combat interludes as elements that detract from the adventure's spookiness by interrupting the module's flow. Ultimately, he felt that in "AD&D terms it is a masterpiece", but not a work of "Gothic horror". In a Polygon article from 2021, Charlie Hall wrote that the original Ravenloft'' "has been criticized as derivative–and for reinforcing harmful stereotypes," but that it had an interesting conflicted villain. Tracy Hickman stated in 1998, "I still believe the original Ravenloft modules were perhaps the best that ever had my name on them." References External links The Acaeum.com entry on the "I" series of modules Dungeons & Dragons modules Ravenloft Role-playing game supplements introduced in 1983