''Mortville Manor'' (') is a

point-and-click adventure game An adventure game is a video game genre in which the player assumes the role of a protagonist in an interactive story driven by exploration and/or puzzle-solving. The genre's focus on story allows it to draw heavily from other narrative-based me ...

developed and published by

Lankhor Lankhor was a French video game company, notable for producing ''Mortville Manor'', the first video game to feature speech synthesis during gameplay. Lankhor was created as a result of the fusion of Kyil khor Creation and Béatrice & Jean-Luc Lan ...

in 1987 for

Atari ST The Atari ST is a line of personal computers from Atari Corporation and the successor to the Atari 8-bit family. The initial model, the Atari 520ST, had limited release in April–June 1985 and was widely available in July. It was the first pers ...

. It was ported to the

Amstrad CPC The Amstrad CPC (short for ''Colour Personal Computer'') is a series of 8-bit home computers produced by Amstrad between 1984 and 1990. It was designed to compete in the mid-1980s home computer market dominated by the Commodore 64 and the Sin ...

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

, and

Sinclair QL The Sinclair QL (for ''Quantum Leap'') is a personal computer launched by Sinclair Research in 1984, as an upper-end counterpart to the ZX Spectrum. The QL was aimed at the serious home user and professional and executive users markets from small ...

. An

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

version was released in 1988, adapted by Clement Roques. The game was released in

French French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to France ** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents ** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...

English English usually refers to: * English language * English people English may also refer to: Peoples, culture, and language * ''English'', an adjective for something of, from, or related to England ** English national ide ...

(Translated by Mick Andon) and

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany (of or related to) **Germania (historical use) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law **Ger ...

. The game incorporates

speech synthesis Speech synthesis is the artificial production of human speech. A computer system used for this purpose is called a speech synthesizer, and can be implemented in software or hardware products. A text-to-speech (TTS) system converts normal languag ...

. The game sold 10,000 copies around Europe. ''Mortville Manor'' was followed by its sequel '' Maupiti Island'', taking place on a tropical island.

Plot

Jérôme Lange, a famous private investigator, receives a letter from his childhood friend Julia Defranck, requesting him to investigate some strange events in Mortville Manor. Upon arrival Jérôme is informed of Julia's death. With a storm approaching, the investigator begins his search around the manor.

Gameplay

The game can be solved extremely quickly if you are given the solution. After a French computer magazine published a walkthrough, allowing its readers to solve the game without even having understood the plot, an altered version was published and replaced the original. This new version was completely identical except that at a specific point in the adventure, the player had to correctly answer a series of questions about the game's plot to be allowed to continue further.

Reception

References

External links

Lankhor.net
(archived) * {{MobyGames, id=/mortville-manor, name=Mortville Manor 1987 video games Amiga games Amstrad CPC games Atari ST games Detective video games DOS games Lankhor games Point-and-click adventure games ScummVM-supported games Sinclair QL games Single-player video games Video games developed in France Works set in country houses