Mortville Manor
| Industry | Video game development and publishing |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1987 |
| Founder | Bruno Gourier, Bernard Grelaud, Béatrice Langlois, Jean-Luc Langlois |
| Headquarters | France |
| Products | Mortville Manor |
Mortville Manor (original French title: Le Manoir de Mortevielle) is a point-and-click adventure game created and distributed by Lankhor, initially launched in 1987 on the Atari ST. Subsequently, it was adapted for platforms including Amstrad CPC, Amiga, and Sinclair QL. An MS-DOS edition, converted by Clement Roques, appeared in 1988. Notably, it was the pioneering title to incorporate speech synthesis, achieving sales of approximately 10,000 units throughout Europe. Its follow-up installment is titled Maupiti Island.
Plot
The narrative unfolds in 1950s France, centering on Jérôme Lange, a private investigator. He receives a letter from his childhood acquaintance Julia Defranck, who requests his assistance to probe unusual occurrences at Mortville Manor. Upon reaching the estate, Jérôme discovers Julia has died as a severe storm approaches and proceeds to investigate the mysteries surrounding the manor.
Gameplay
Mortville Manor employs a first-person viewpoint combined with a point-and-click control scheme. Players assume the role of Jérôme Lange, navigating through Mortville Manor by utilizing toolbar options and drop-down menus. The game allows interaction with manor inhabitants, who move autonomously within the setting, facilitating interrogation sequences.
Development
The initial development took place on the Sinclair QL, led by Bruno Gourier and Bernard Grelaud from Kyilkhor studio in collaboration with Pyramide publishing. Later, Gourier and Grelaud joined forces with Béatrice and Jean-Luc Langlois to establish Lankhor. Recognizing the expanding market for the Atari ST in France, they prioritized releasing Mortville Manor on this platform in 1987. The Langlois siblings engineered a speech synthesizer to enable character dialogue vocalization. Meanwhile, Dominique Sablons was responsible for reworking the graphics for both the Amiga and MS-DOS versions.
Reception and legacy
In France, Mortville Manor garnered notable acclaim for its artistic merits. The publication Tilt honored it with two Tilt d'Or awards: one for best adventure game of the year and another for sound design excellence. Reviewer Mathieu Brisou commended it as a "meticulously crafted" experience featuring a "classic yet engaging" storyline. Génération 4 acclaimed it as "among the finest French-language adventure games available on the Atari ST." It also earned recognition as one of the premier titles on the Amiga. Eric See-To of New Straits Times described it as an "engrossing adventure," highlighting its distinctiveness despite some critiques regarding its graphics and clarity of digitized speech.
In 2015, the amateur theater group Théâtre de l'Embellie based in Montauban paid tribute to the game with their production Les Secrets du manoir de Mortevielle, followed by another theatrical adaptation staged in 2021.
External links
- Lankhor.net (archived)