MSXdev’20: #15 – l’Abbaye des Morts

A fresh platformer with an unusually morbid plot and setting for the genre has been stirring up the retrogame development scene for quite a while now.

The name of the culprit is “l’Abbaye des Morts”, which translates to “The Abbey of The Dead”.

This quite special kind of platforming adventure, which greatly deals with the subject of death, at first saw life on the IBM PC platform.
It’s inspired by both the tragic history of the Cathars as well as classic platform games for ZX Spectrum computers such as “Manic Miner”, “Jet Set Willy” and “Dynamite Dan”.

Since then, it has been ported to platforms such as the Commodore 64, the Sega Mega Drive and the actual ZX Spectrum, as well as OUYA, Mac and HTML5.

Today, the MSX community gets to enjoy this piece of work on the platform that’s secretly (or not so secretly) still their most favourite one of all.
You guessed it. Thanks to the efforts of RetroDeluxe, “l’Abbaye des Morts” on MSX is finally here!

Name of the game: l’Abbaye des Morts
Game size: 256KB
RAM size requirements: 16KB
Genre: Platform
Names of the individuals involved: RetroDeluxe (Enric Geijo), based on the original by Locomalito and music by Gryzor87 (Credits within the game)

Related link: Download at the MSXdev homepage

Media browser (3)

Comments (25)

By tfh

Prophet (3428)

28-07-2020, 08:45

Play online: https://www.file-hunter.com/MSXdev/index.php?id=labbayedesmorts

By Sebbeug

Champion (405)

28-07-2020, 09:00

Very very nice game !
Gameplay is perfect, musics are great ! I love it !

By ARTRAG

Enlighted (6977)

28-07-2020, 14:06

I know the PC game, very nice platform, with strong story and a surprising and dark ending

By AnsiStar

Master (144)

28-07-2020, 15:56

I`m glad that i`m not in the jury for this contest...

By wyrdwad

Paladin (934)

28-07-2020, 19:25

Hmm... I wrote the game to my Megaflashrom and tried playing it on my FS-A1ST turboR system, and it actually won't play! It boots to the title screen, and it shows the intro when I press Enter. But when I press Space on the intro, it just goes to a black screen... and stays there. The game itself never loads. The intro is as far as I can get.

Additionally, there is no controller support on the title screen. You HAVE to press Enter to begin playing -- no controller buttons will work. That's a minor annoyance, but an annoyance nonetheless!

If you can fix these two issues, though, it'll be a really awesome addition to my MSX library! Been wanting to play this game for years, but never got around to it.

-Tom

By geijoenr

Champion (391)

28-07-2020, 19:39

@wyrdwad I just tested it in real FS-A1GT with MFR and also in openmsx FS-A1ST with no additional cartridges connected and I cannot reproduce the black screen problem. Is there anything specific in your setup that I should check?

By Victor

Champion (509)

28-07-2020, 19:45

geijoenr wrote:

@wyrdwad I just tested it in real FS-A1GT with MFR and also in openmsx FS-A1ST with no additional cartridges connected and I cannot reproduce the black screen problem.

I've tested in openMSX with a TURBO R, and the same issue....

By geijoenr

Champion (391)

28-07-2020, 19:49

Can you guys send me the command line you are using, openmsx version, platform etc?

By Victor

Champion (509)

28-07-2020, 19:53

geijoenr wrote:

Can you guys send me the command line you are using, openmsx version, platform etc?

OpenMSX with a original Turbo ST -> works fine (256 kbytes internal)

OpenMSX with a original Turbo GT -> doesn't work.. but reading wyrdwad, I think that he has the ST with 512 kbytes internally.. so the problem is the main RAM in the Turbo R... why??? I don't know..

By shalafi

Master (170)

28-07-2020, 21:22

Feels like something in the middle of "Temptations", "Phantomas 2" and "Livingstone Supongo". All of them probably not much known outside Spain, but quite classic titles for Spaniards.
And as a reference to those games, this one is great, but again, platformer is one of my favorite genres for the MSX.
Nice work!

By wyrdwad

Paladin (934)

29-07-2020, 01:39

Actually, no, I have an ST with the base 256 kB RAM, so it's not that!

I'm using an older MFR SCC+ with 8 MB internal memory and no SD card slot, so I had to write the rom to the cartridge from a floppy disk using OPFX.COM, not OPFXSD or any other newer version of the software. And I actually wrote it to a multirom with other MSXdev entries, via OPFX /o. That's never caused problems with any games in the past, however, so I don't see why or how it would've caused problems here -- and I can confirm all the other titles on the multirom play just fine, such as Invaders From Triton.

I can also confirm I'm using the latest rom image from the MSXdev site (1.01, I think it is?), and that it runs fine when I load it via BlueMSX on my PC, so the rom itself isn't corrupted in any way.

-Tom

By ray2day

Paladin (752)

29-07-2020, 09:44

Here the same issue/problem with a Philips NMS 8245 MSX2. I use it with OPFXSD.COM (MegaFlash ROM SCC+ 2slotsSD).

And I can't find the 'ENTER' key...

By geijoenr

Champion (391)

29-07-2020, 10:23

yep, I can reproduce the issue in a 8245 in openmsx, let me see if I can find a fix.

I will add the joystick B button to start the game as well.

By Emphy

Resident (59)

29-07-2020, 13:53

Same issue of the black screen here with the MFR SCC+ SD + 512K RAM on a Toshiba hx-10D.

By J.M.F

Resident (62)

30-07-2020, 08:41

Congratulations to its author and I hope there is a physical edition.

By QBee Sam

Champion (297)

30-07-2020, 12:14

BSOD with GT and FlashJacks, so no MFR related...

By geijoenr

Champion (391)

30-07-2020, 12:38

Working on the fix. It appears to be a memory initialization issue (a variable is not initialized properly so it takes a random value of whatever was in memory) that's why it is so random and depends on the machine and/or setup.

By geijoenr

Champion (391)

30-07-2020, 13:20

Can you please try the following:
Abbaye_v1.2

I confirm it fixes the issue on 8245. I cannot reproduce on the other reported machines but I hope it works as well.
Also added Joystick support so that is not needed to use the keyboard on the startup screen.

By Emphy

Resident (59)

30-07-2020, 13:46

Seems to be fixed with MFR SCC+ SD + 512K RAM on a Toshiba hx-10D. Joystick in the startup screen is also working fine now!

Will do some more ... testing, yes, definitely will do some more testing ^_^

EDIT: has a bit of a weird problem if one is impatient and starts the game by pressing enter quickly (in the "running monks" screen): scrambled music and the background filled with spikes. Wait for a few seconds before starting and the game runs as it's supposed to.

By hap

Paragon (2043)

30-07-2020, 14:39

Right at the start, I stand on the ledge(the one in the middle of the screen) and from there, do a precise jump over the enemies. The enemies don't know how to run to the left. Then I escape to the left. And I get burned at the stake