Mortville Manor
Mortville Manor (Le Manoir de Mortvielle) is a point-and-click detective mystery game. It was originally developed by Kyilkhor Creation and published by Pyramide for the Sinclair QL in 1986. Siblings Béatrice and Jean-Luc Langlois, who worked at Pyramide at the time, left to form a new company with Kyilkhor, named Lankhor. In 1987, Lankhor ported the game to Atari ST with updated graphics and text-to-speech, making it the first game to use speech synthesis. MS-DOS and Amiga versions followed in 1988.
In Mortville Manor you play as detective Jérôme Lange. He receives an urgent telegram from an old friend, Julia Defranck. She’s dying, concerned for her family, and pleads for Lange’s help. Her message concludes with the cryptic sentence, “whatever happens, above the wall of silence, I’ll give you a sign.” When Lange arrives at the manor, Julia is already dead.
Detective Jérôme Lange’s adventures continue in the game’s sequel, Maupiti Island. Lange’s journey was meant to take him to Japan next, in a third game titled Sukiya. It was in development but had to be cancelled due to financial difficulties at Lankhor.
This playthrough focuses on the MS-DOS release played in ScummVM, which includes an English translation for the game. I also check out the original Sinclair QL version, which is quite different both visually and mechanically, as well as the Atari ST and Amiga ports.
- Le Manoir de Mortevielle on Lankhor.net
Available for MS-DOS, Atari ST, Amiga, Amstrad CPC, and Apple IIGS. - Mortville Manor on RWAP Adventures
The original Sinclair QL version, compatible with Q-emuLator. - Mortville Manor on MobyGames
Includes screenshots and cover art for various versions of the game. - Mortville Manor is a detective mystery game that includes pixelated images of dead bodies.
Part 1
Tonight I’m starting Mortville Manor, the first game in the Jérôme Lange series and the precursor to Maupiti Island! I have all of my note taking supplies ready and I know I’ll be needing them.