In late December, 2018, I was watching one of Amiga Bill's live streams on Twitch - something I do fairly often during the weekdays when he’s streaming as it usually cuts directly across my lunch breaks at work.
He had a friend of his on the stream - Jérémie of Double Sided Games - show off his new C64 game: L’Abbaye des Morts, which translated from French to English is literally Dead Abbey (I think). For the non-catholics out there like me, I looked it up: an Abbey is a church or similar place where monks do what monks do.
Anyway, Amiga Bill played the game and Jérémie walked us through his small and talented team’s efforts to port this very cool game to the C64. Jérémie is a French ex-pat who moved to Canada many years ago.
After seeing the gameplay and visuals, I knew I had to buy it. I pre-ordered it while the stream was still in-progress!
I received my boxed copy a couple of weeks ago.
Had this game been released in the 1980s, there is no doubt in my mind that it would be considered one of the finest games on the C64.
The physics are *so smooth* and precise it’s incredible. In terms of the game play it reminds me of Montezuma’s Revenge to some degree. It’s a very difficult platformer/puzzle game where only the best reflexes will get you very far. On top of that, you slowly begin to memorize the game’s rather large map.
You have to go from screen to screen to collect crosses - 13 if I remember correctly. The most we’ve gotten so far are 5. Part of the reason behind this is many of the crosses are only half-built, and you have to “throw a switch” somewhere to make it a full cross before you can collect it.
Thankfully, there are extra lives spattered here and there on the various levels, which you’ll desperately seek out.
The graphics and colors and sound effects - all top notch. I can’t recommend the game more highly.
Just in case you need more proof, though, my 9-year old son Graham is also a huge fan. Any time I tell him I’m going to give “Labby Day More” another try, he runs down the stairs and plays with me. He’s actually quite good. We’ll pass the joystick back and forth after one of us dies. And if Graham likes it, consider that a massive thumbs up rec, folks. He’s quite the game connoisseur.
As for the physical game, I purchased the cartridge version as I wanted to give the most financial support and incentive to Jérémie and his team. The “feelies” that come with the game far surpass most from yesteryear. I mean, it’s flat out amazing.
You get the cartridge of course, which is see-through. It’s presented this way because when you plug it in, it sets off a red LED light, which is very cool.
Beyond the excellent little box you also get an astonishing ring. Yes, real jewelry! My knuckles are so large I can barely get the ring on and off my finger without bright panic, but it’s one of the coolest feelies I’ve ever seen packed with a game.
You also get an 11″x13″ Poster as well as a digital version of the game - even a CRT file you can load off an Ultimate cart if you have one, which is awesome.
It turns out the digital version was key for me. Double Sided Games is not a large operation, and my cartridge arrived defective. It turns out it was missing 1 solder point, as these are assembled in Illinois by hand. My repaired cart will arrive any day now but in the meantime I’ve been playing the CRT version off my Ultimate II. No big deal.
All in all a very cool game, and Jérémie is planning on several more games to be published going forward - including for the Amiga!