Free and Worth Every Penny - Issue 59: L'Abbaye des Morts

[Ravenlock]

"An obsolete videogame for a dark passage of history." That's how the creator of this week's Free and Worth Every Penny feature pitches his own game. Kind of a strange angle to take, isn't it? Sure, retro-style titles have been in fashion in the freeware community for awhile now, but to label your own work "obsolete" seems a bit harsh. Then again, you could argue he's just setting the tone - I'm not going to lie to you, this game's kind of a downer. But I think it's also something really special. Welcome to...

If you've read previous installments of FWEP, you may remember Locomalito as the author of the superlative side-scroller Hydorah. While Hydorah was a throwback to the days of the 16-bit space shooter, L'Abbaye des Morts takes its visual and aural cues from the early 80's and the ZX Spectrum. In terms of plot, though, it goes much further back than that, which I freely admit is the real reason I wanted to write about it. Perhaps we didn't know that we wanted historical myth in our quirky freeware games - I don't think I knew - but I'm here to tell you that maybe we do. Please, come find out why.