Barely three weeks ago, and after being distributed in the main European markets, came to our country The Abbey, the latest and most recent production of Emilio de Paz and the national factory Alcachofa Soft by hand of the company Friendware, for joy and delight of all the stalwarts of the graphic adventures genre, that throughout the year have been waiting for this moment after several statements about the delay of the release. The waiting, however, was worth after checking the finished game, at the height of the largest and most valuable adventure games of the last year and, above all, being a special edition more complete and colorful than previously distributed in Germany, France and the USA. The extras the user will find are many and varied, and unreleased stuff that can only be enjoyed by those who acquire the title in Spain.

Thus, Emilio de Paz and his partners Daniel Iborra and Santiago Lancha, fulfilled a dream that was pay a small tribute to what is surely the most outstanding classical Spanish playful software: The Abbey of Crime, based in the play The Name of the Rose and its corresponding film. The influences are clear and are reflected repeatedly throughout the game as nostalgic winks to such famous title, that once surprised the lovers of this fascinating genre. However, Alcachofa Soft does not forget its roots in this production, showing off the characteristic humor that this enterprise from Toledo prints to all his works when the occasion merits.

The game places the user as Leonardo of Toledo, a royal counselor whose aim is to clarify the origin of a series of crimes that have occurred in a remote abbey, for what will be his faithfull Bruno. Pure suspense spiced with a few drops of humor in an adventure that has managed to combine perfectly the settings made in two dimensions with 3D character models. In turn, the title has a superb soundtrack composed by Emilio de Paz and John Given, while for the dubbing has been made great efforts to have te voices of top-level performers as Ramón Langa and Miguel Ángel Jenner, among others.

We are, therefore, faced with one of the best works in the history of the spanish playful software, so poor and needy for releases like the one at hand to revive a genre that over the past two decades has asserted its identity and with titles like The Abbey won’t be easy to dead.