“A RELENTLESS DESCENT INTO ABSURDITY LIKELY TO MAKE EVEN TIM SCHAFER BLUSH.”

The Procession To Calvary

They say a picture tells a thousand words. But what would happen if you took some of those pictures and used them to create a Pythonesque point-and-click adventure game? Odds are you’d never be able to shut it up. It’s lucky for The Procession To Calvary, then, that the satirical jokes and pompous humour come thick and fast, forming the basis for a relentless descent into absurdity likely to make even Tim Schafer blush. If you have an appreciation for fine art and dry wit – an odd combination, for sure – this story of English tyrants, cagey prophets, and satanic birds will tickle your fancy.

Presented entirely in the visual style of renaissance-era paintings, you progress through each beautiful landscape pilfering the ludicrous objects you need to solve even dafter puzzles. It’s all in the effort to kill a maniacal king named

Heavenly Peter, AKA the only person you’ve been authorised to “do a murder” on following the end of the holy war. Whether or not he’s the only target your sword gets stuck in, though, is up to you.1

The narrative and aesthetic may boast a late medieval vibe, yet it combines with the tone and language’s modernity to create a silly juxtaposition that shouldn’t work but does. The only real area where The Procession To Calvary falls down is in some obtuse puzzle solutions that aren’t always immediately obvious. Couple this with an emphasis on backtracking,2 and there’s a slight sense of padding in an adventure that can be finished in one sitting. That said, what’s here is an adventure game quite unlike any other, one where sense and logic are out the arched window.