L’ABBAYE DES MORTS
» platform: Commodore 64 » Developer: Antonio Savona » Download: Kikstart.me.uk/labbaye-c64 » price: from $7.99 for download
The 13th century wasn’t a great one for the Cathars, a subset of the Catholic Church which was essentially expelled and then hunted down throughout the Languedoc region of France where its members had been based. Jean Raymond is one of the few surviving members of this rapidly dwindling religion and, as the story opens, he’s being pursued through a forest. He’s been running blindly and in fear of his life, but unexpected salvation of a sort is at hand, the relative safety of what appears to be a derelict abbey just up ahead beckons if he can reach it and bar the door before his pursuers catch up.
But Jean Raymond’s asylum isn’t all it appears to be so, although his pursuers are now stuck on the far side of the main door – an imposing slab of oak which resists their efforts to batter it down - he soon discovers that others have been here looking for sanctuary but didn’t find it. Unbarring the main door would be certain death, so our hero must make the best of his current situation by gathering a quota of crosses left by previous
visitors and hand-written notes either hinting at what must be done to survive or talking about the fate of those who came before.
Foul creatures that must be avoided are constantly patrolling the abbey and its catacombs and, if Jean Raymond collides with them or lands in a spike pit, he’ll be transported back to the last checkpoint cross and lose one of his lives which can be topped up again by collecting glowing hearts. Sturdy doors are there to keep intruders away from the building’s deeper recesses but can be opened by levers.
L’abbaye Des Morts started out as a Windows-based game from developer Locomalito which simulated the ZX Spectrum graphically, although it wasn’t totally accurate so the subsequent conversion suffered from some colour clash. That wasn’t a game-breaking issue at all but this Commodore 64 conversion doesn’t share the issue so the Miner Willy-inspired action is a little easier to follow. >> Score 85%