Melkhior's Mansion (PC)

Fancy dress line dancing was big business in the days of no TV

MELKHIOR'S MANSION (PC)

BitGlint Games, 2022

"Eh, wot's all dis den? 'Ee ain't done nuffink for months on end now, and when he does get 'is finger out, 'ee only goes and yatters on about some game wot isn't even on the right compooty fing. Burn 'im at the stake, oi say! Death to the traitorous oik!" Woah there, yon Pythonesque snaggle-toothed crone, you raise some valid points, but kindly (*clears throat*) allow me to retort...

Yes, it's true. Melkhior's Mansion is not a Spectrum game as such, and so it is indeed evident that I am indulging in a spot of "off-roading" here, much like those chappies off of The Fast Show, and probably with about as much success. But clearly m'lud, this title has more than a whiff of Spectrum about it, so to speak, so I feel around 70% justified in treating this game as "one of our own".

The eponymous hero in his salad days, making a proper mess

MM is BitGlint Games' baby, and they are clearly avid ZX fans at heart, as a while back they also produced a PC conversion of Klass Of '99, a modern day Skool Daze spin-off, which attracted considerable interest on this site way back when. So they fancied making a homage (French pronunciation please) to both Atic Atac and Knight Lore in one fell swoop, in a great big Ultimate megamix. I spotted somewhere that one person thought it was a tribute to Head Over Heels. Seriously, some people.

I've made a few references in my time to the ongoing delay involved in making the actual Speccy version of Melkhior's Mansion. We've seen a few screenshots and they look the biz, albeit in monochrome of course, but it seems likely now that the 'proper' Spectrum version may not happen, despite best intentions, and instead it will appear on the Spectrum Next. I'm not sure how I feel about that but in truth an isometric game with such detailed graphics, not to mention a soundtrack so I won't, could probably never work to a satisfactory level on old tech. Stranger things have happened though, maybe one day... and if anyone can make it happen, it's Bob's Stuff, 'cos Bob is properly good at Spectrum stuff as he has proved many times - Splattr, Stranded, X=Y=Z to name but a few of his.

Lorks, that's a front door and a half. No visible keyhole though...

Back to the plot, and ol' Melkhior featured in Knight Lore, so he did. Not as the hero of the piece, it wasn't Sabreman's real name or anything, but rather he was the ancient ("Oi, who you calling ancient?") wizard who was the hero's only hope of removing his unfortunate lycanthropic tendencies. I'd forgotten this myself, and have just now been reminded that he's even there in glorious Specnicolour on the loading screen. Wonder if he was in Alien 8 too, hang on, I'll have a look. Rustle, rustle. No.

"Central Cavern" eh? 3D Manic Miner must be next up

So despite being described as "dying" in the inlay to Knight Lore, the venerable Melkhior is somehow still kicking it some 38 years later. But he's not really having the best of times as his mansion has gotten overrun by crazy creatures who have taken over with a vengeance. Guess he must have left that pesky Trap Door open. Happily though, news of his troubles has fortuitously reached as far as the hallowed land of Ashby de la Zouch, and so a hero or heroine can set forth to relieve the old fool. So to speak.

The in-progress Speccy version, in glorious black and white

In fact you can choose exactly what sort of rescue mission awaits you, very cunningly. Entry level hero is Sir Stamperlot, whose familiar quest is to locate 3 key parts of a... key to the front door, then open it to get a slightly disappointing end of game message. Not that I'm bitter. Or you can play as Zouch the witch, who must destroy the portal to the Underwurlde within the manse by collecting 5 runestones. Or maybe be Lester, who has to destroy the big baddies in the house, such as Quasi, Frankie and even Death himself. The hardest mission (deemed "flippin' hard") belongs to Princess Ashby - to collect 4 dinoki statues and free Melkhior of his spell. Don't think I spotted any myself...

Okay, this fella looks like one to avoid, especially when you're half skeletal

So the map is part Knight Lore and part Atic Atac (my ma's fave Speccy game, quite the accolade), which is rather nice, being a mix of two of the Spectrum's very finest moments. Works better than a Horace / Skool Daze mash-up would at least I'd imagine. Thankfully things go more at AA speed, and unlike one of the more crowded screens in KL. Ground-breaking title that one may have been, but boy was it slow at times. None of us cared in those days though did we? I'm not sure there's been a more jaw-dropping moment in home computing history than seeing Ultimate's 3D wonder for the first time. For most it even outshone Sam and Maria's pixels.

Things have gone red, as Death pursues you from screen to screen, the tinker

In bold defiance of the norm for isometric 3D games, Melkhior's Mansion just explodes with colour and noise in a most alarming fashion. The title screen has various characters jigging around to some Ren. Fair music, setting the tone nicely. In fact, great music plays throughout the game, with no slowdown on the PC of course (grrr, but yay). Most rooms of the mansion have their own names, so Jet Set Willy fans will be pleased, and the graphics for each area of the vast house have their own style. Complete with so many features straight outta Compton, I mean Atic Atac. Like coloured doors which need coloured keys, occasional guest appearances from Hammer Horror baddies and snacks just littered all over the place in a most unhygienic way.

Oh boy, oh boy! 3 snacks in a row. Remember this room from Atic Atac?

There are other features aplenty here though, 'tis not merely a borrowing of aspects of the 'Tac and the Lor'. There are pedestals dotted around which give you a saucy glimpse of map, not that I used them much as surely half the fun is slamming from room to room at breakneck speed, messily getting nowhere fast. And there's a skeleton key somewhere which lets you through any colour door, but only for ten goes, so choose wisely, team.

As in the Ultimate classics there are other mysterious items around to clog up your inventory, which is limited to 3 things in a proper retro and realistic way. It gets silly these days in yer Souls games and wotnot, holding hundreds of items, not least ten enormous weapons. If I knew I was going to be suddenly flung into a game myself, I'd pack a load of carrier bags so I could lug a halfway decent stash of clutter around with me. I'm pretty sure my stamina level and combat ability would suffer accordingly, mind. Let's hope it never happens.

Time to test your tentacles and summon Cthulhu, probably

Anyway I digress. MM is nice and playable from the off. Well, once you've got your head around which diagonal direction corresponds to which redefinable key, which ain't the easiest. Use QWERTY if you really are an old school masochist. They've kept the clunky inventory system from the old games for a bit of a laff, I'm sure. Remember what fun it was, getting those 3 bits of key in the right order while constantly getting attacked by the 'orrible 'ordes? Movement is smooth and swift, the only hold-up being when you're waiting for one of those naffin' doors to open for you. And, like Atic Atac at least, you feel that one fine day you might even manage to complete this game, not that I have yet.

Oh look, it's Quasi. More "Hunchy" digitised speech flashbacks, aaaarggghh...

It's rather lovely when someone manages to make something new out of old things and Melkhior's Mansion is a joyous game to play. It really does recapture the fun and excellence of Ultimate in their heyday, surely the best time of the Spectrum's illustrious lifespan. It's a cut above all of those PC versions of old Speccy games, and it really does bring something new to the gaming table, making for a stunning homage (again please) to those fabled programmers of yore (Sinclair).

As awesome as Sir Clive's baby was and still is, these isometric games always felt almost like a step too far in terms of making the game play as good as it looked. So maybe it's best that we have MM running on the PC instead, where we can enjoy all the bells and whistles the title deserves. So no, no authentic Spectrum convo for us as yet, but have a go at this version instead. It's alright, you're allowed - it's all part of the wonderful wide world of retro gaming.