Adventuring In the Abbey
Players take the role of Leonardo, a respected and knowledgeable monk who arrives at a nearby abbey one morning with his young apprentice Bruno at the request of the abbey’s Abbott. Very recently, an accident in the abbey caused the sudden and brutal death of Anselmo, a brother at the abbey. His death is shadowed in suspicion, with various monks at the abbey holding different views of not only the event, but its cause, and of Anselmo himself. Having had some experience in the past solving mysteries with reason and logic, Leonardo answers the call to help the abbey solve the mystery once and for all.
Spread out across four chapters, Murder In the Abbey is a traditional point and click adventure game in which players must talk to NPCs, gather items, and interact with the environment to solve puzzles and advance the plot. There are around two dozen different areas in the game, all inside this one abbey, and almost as many NPCs to interact with at various points in the story. As with any point-and-click adventure, exhausting all conversation options with NPCs and keeping a keen eye open for interactive objects in the world is required.
As far as controls, Murder In the Abbey is entirely mouse driven, so picking up on the controls is snap. You simply left click on an item or location to interact or walk, and right click to examine and/or interact with. Inventory management is handled simply by scrolling the mouse cursor to the top of the screen; doing so brings up a full screen image showing your inventory.
Talking to NPCs is very straight-forward; players are given the option to choose usually four questions or statements, although sometimes this number is significantly more or less. NPCs will respond, usually opening up further selectable dialogue paths. One thing I did notice during play was that it really didn’t matter what players decided to say unless it was a rare moment of literally having to say the exact right thing (like when talking to Brother Martin about spices, for example). Otherwise, just choosing to say whatever was sufficient as NPCs would never shut you out or think twice about what you said. This isn’t an uncommon aspect of adventure games, but forcing players to think more about what they say rather than, for the vast majority of the game, just being able to click without putting much thought into it, would have been better.
Speaking of dialogue, I was impressed from the opening conversation with the Abbott at the quality of the script and also the quality of the voice acting. The dialogue is well worded, although sometimes a little long winded (especially during the final minutes of the adventure). The variety of voice actors added an extra layer of variety and depth to the characters, although some voices were dull and or grating, like the voice of Godfried and the annoying stuttering of Bruno, although that impediment fit his character.
When it comes to the other primary focus of the game, solving puzzles and figuring out what and where to go next, Murder In the Abbey was a little on the easy side. I consider myself a seasoned adventure gamer, having grown up on the Lucasarts classics and having played probably a dozen or more adventure games since, and I found Abbey’s small scale and limited depth a little too shallow and easy. However, that’s not to say I didn’t get lost or was without challenge at several points, but don’t expect a massive world to explore with dozens of characters and puzzles and quests, and so forth. Rather, Murder In the Abbey is basically a straight-forward adventure with relatively few options. You may be faced with four or five or even more quests or puzzles at once, but when you keep in mind the scale of this adventure – that is, how there aren’t that many NPCs to talk to, environments to be explored, or objects to be gather and examined – then you find yourself in a very manageable sandbox.
Part of what I liked about the smaller environment is that it was quick to navigate; you could get through the major areas, each having its own screen, in well under a minute, thanks in some part to the fact that the game does not read data off of an installation CD, but the hard drive instead. Keeping a smaller environment also makes trying out different ideas quick.
Additional Thoughts
There’s nothing like a good mystery to keep a player going, and that’s another thing that Murder In the Abbey did a nice job with. At first, as in within the first thirty minutes of play, it’s easy to pick out one or two of the monks as the killer, and it turns out in the end that I was at least half right, but not without witnessing several plot twists that I didn’t see coming. To that end, Murder In the Abbey intrigued me because I really didn’t know who was behind the murders until the end, when it all came together in a series of long cutscenes and sequences of interactive dialogue with NPCs.
One the primary NPCs you will interact with, and at some point I assumed you might control but never do, is the apprentice Bruno. Personally, I really didn’t like this character as his dialogue was so grating with his exaggerated young male voice and stuttering issues. His character was also intentionally made to look foolish, and when it came to solving the mystery, he was just about useless. Bruno’s role throughout most of the game was to simply follow Leonardo, but there are a handful of times where Bruno’s assistance was need. I think the experience would have been improved had Bruno’s character been more useful and interesting. As is, he is a dumb boy that comes from a very wealthy family.
Switching gears now to bugs or stability issues, I had essentially none. There were exactly two times throughout the course of the adventure where my character had a speech animation, but the dialogue (while on screen via subtitles), was not audible. Small graphical glitches occurred at times when Bruno and Leonardo, on their way to the same destination, clipped through each other. These small matters had no effect on gameplay and are easily overlooked.
What’s not as easy to overlook are the nice cartoon graphics. I thought the cartoonish look of Murder In the Abbey was a nice contrast to the mostly serious and dark nature of the storyline. The soft and smooth look to the environment and especially the characters work out pretty well. As I mentioned earlier, the dialogue is well done, and the voice acting almost as nicely done, with the exception of a few character’s voices being irritating.
All in all, Murder In the Abbey is a competent and nicely put together adventure. While seasoned adventure gamers could rumble through this title in under twelve hours, it’s still worth a look due to its good story, nice dialogue, well-done mystery element, and straight-forward gameplay.
