Guess Who's Back, Back Again?
That’s right, ladies, gentlemen and everything inbetween, after a 2 month hiatus, I’ve returned to continue my passion for TASing!
About the Game
L'Abbaye des Morts (ENG: The Abbey of the Dead) is an exploration platformer game originally developed by Locomalito and Gryzor87, and released for PC in 2010 with a graphical style emulating a ZX Spectrum game. The Commodore 64 version, released 9 years later, features upgraded graphics thanks to significantly better hardware.
The game's official plot synopsis follows: "In the 13th century, the Cathars, clerics who preached about the poverty of Christ and defended life without material aspirations, were treated as heretics by the Catholic Church and expelled out of the Languedoc region in France. One of them, called Jean Raymond, found an old church in which to hide from crusaders, not knowing that beneath its ruins lay buried an ancient evil." Players take control of Jean Raymond, who can do no more than walk, crawl, and jump, as he explores the old church, discovering its terrible secrets the deeper he goes.
About the TAS
This is practically the NES version of the C64 TAS of this game made by Noxxa. I relied on their TAS to make this.
And now it's time for the TAS walkthrough!
Loading and Title Screen
In this version, can choose from the following 5 languages: English, French, Spanish, Portuguese and Chinese. The language choice doesn't matter as there's only two mandatory text boxes in the whole game and you can skip both on the same frames every time.
After a fair bit of waiting, we can load the text box on frame 813 and start the game on frame 965!
Escape!!!
One jump and that's pretty much it. Very anticlimactic.
Death is Close
Four jumps. A little bit harder, but the title is a lie as the knights get nowhere near our protagonist.
Abandoned Church
All you do is walk. Easiest section yet.
The Altar
This section has the first climb in the game. A near miss from one of the red winged skull things and we're back at the Abandoned Church.
Abandoned Church (2)
Two jumps and a short climb. Nothing else that eventful here.
Tower of the Bell
Ring the bell, dodge the rat and start approaching the 12 crosses!
Wine Supplies
Jump over barrels, dodge 4 spiders, collect cross #1 and use an intentional death to respawn at The Altar.
The Altar (2)
This time around we're going down instead of left. Speedread the scroll and then fall down that hole.
Catacombs
Tumble down the ledges and go right.
Hidden Garden
A couple precise jumps here, namely over a piranha plant and a scroll. Take another short climb, dodge the piranha's projectile, collect cross #2 and head for the hole again.
Underground River
Dodge a spider and some water (how can that possibly kill you?, collect cross #3, dodge the spider and respawn at the Hidden Garden.
Hidden Garden (2)
We're backtracking left this time. Same 2 precise jumps as last time. We have to dodge a different piranha projectile due to different cycles, but eventually we can get back to the Catacombs.
Catacombs (2)
This time we're gonna collect cross #4 and head left.
Plagued Ruina
Heading left again after a crafty jump between two insects.
Cave of Illusion
Heading left AGAIN and crawling through a sneaky shortcut in the wall.
Pestilent Beast
Sneak up on a distracted beast, collect cross #5 and sneak back out like nothing happened. Unfortuantely we can't go past the dragon unlike the C64 version.
Cave of Illusion (2)
A simple turnaround back into the lair of the Pestilent Beast.
Pestilent Beast (2)
Here we have to wait a lot, and I mean a LOT, for fire cycles. Hit the switch and cautiously escape the flames to get back to the Cave of Illusion.
Cave of Illusion (3)
Another simple turnaround, this time taking another sneaky shortcut into the Lake of Despair.
Lake of Despair
Collect cross #6 and then it's yet ANOTHER simple turnaround.
Gloomy Tunnels
Collect cross #7 and then it's - you guessed it - another simple turnaround.
Lake of Despair (2)
Some perilous fish jumps will lead us to a small gap we can crawl through Alex Kidd style.
The Wheel of Faith
First, dodge a skeleton archer and collect cross #8. Then, climb up, spin the wheel of faith (unfortunately it's not fortune) and head halfway down to collect cross #9. Finally, get hit by an arrow and respawn at the Hidden Garden.
Hidden Garden (3)
Same jumping routine we've already done twice, this time without any waiting involved!
Catacombs (3)
A quick climb up to The Altar.
The Altar (2)
A very short walk to the secret door that leads to a mysterious tree...
Hangman Tree
Dodge the hanging skeletons, flip the switch, climb up to collect cross #10 and get back out of this creepy area.
The Altar (3)
A very short backtrack to The Catacombs.
Catacombs (4)
Yet more backtracking, this time to the Hidden Garden.
Hidden Garden (4)
Only the piranha jump this time, as we're heading back down to the Underground River.
Underground River (2)
Walking and falling down to another secret door. Get ready for a deilicious Banquet of Death!
Banquet of Death
Longest section yet. A long path of skulls and two long waits leads us to the 11th and penultimate cross. Then die to the Grim Reaper's airbourne nephew and respawn at the Underground River.
Underground River (3)
Wait for a fish to fall out of the way and press up to enter the portal.
Pestilent Beast (3)
Teleport and fall down. Piece of cake.
Gloomy Tunnels (2)
Finish the fall, jump over a knight and start another, much longer fall.
Unexpected Gate
Take a sneaky invisible ledge, flip the switch and go through the secret door.
Evil Church
Wait for two of Shrek's red cousins to move so we can jump over them, then jump over a skeleton archer.
Tortured Souls
Some crafty fire dodging leads us to the 12th and final cross. From here it's a long wait for a fire cycle and dodging three more of Shrek's red cousins.
Ashes to Ashes
Another short wait for a fire cycle and then it's time for the final boss...
Satan!!!
The 12 crosses have been collected. Let's do this.
A quick climb to the top with a couple fire dodges. Input ends on the final text box on frame 13162!
Thanks for reading. If you find any improvements, I'll be happy to add you as a co-author.
EDIT:
The file in this submission does not collect the scroll at the end. Here's a a userfile that does that, as well as saving over 20 seconds in gameplay with a faster route!
nymx: Claiming for judging.
nymx: Setting to "Delayed"...pending further improvements.
nymx: Replacing movie file with version that has better routing.
This version is much better and was a pleasure to watch. The soundtrack is AMAZING!
Accepting to "Standard" for publication.
despoa: Processing...