L’Abbe de Mort, 5.7 out of 10 based on 3 ratings

L’Abbe de Mort was the first Unreal map of renowned mapper  Tim ”Kew” Jervis, the author who is most widely known from his Illhaven saga and the distinct medieval atmosphere of his maps that managed to pull in many players into Kew’s own world.

As a first map, the player should not expect too much from it. There are some clearly recognisable Kew signatures to it and the architecture is definitely more complex and professional than the average custom Unreal maps back in 1998, with a certain degree of non-linearity to it, but other than these every sign points to the fact that it is no more than an experimental project. There doesn’t seem to be a story of any kind, either in the text rile or as translator messages (even though the translator itself is available for pickup near the first room of the map). This is very unlike Kew’s works as most people got to know them. The weapon, ammunition and health placement is pretty much random and excessive, with super health packs and shieldbelts scattered all over the place. Pawn placement is much the same, without a hint of scripted sequences, ambushes or even just thoughtful monster placements. You just randomly run into various monsters, mostly Skaarj in nearly each room. And lastly, there does not seem to be an end to the map, at least non that we could find. No teleport event to take you to flyby.unr or any of that kind. You just finish killing all the monsters and remain in the map on your own.

That said, the map was admittedly never intended to be great. The text file mentions that it was merely a first try in UnrealEd. And, we have to admit, as a first try it is far from the worst. Of course, this is the least we can expect from a mapper seasoned on Quake 2 and Heretic II mapping projects.

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