Missed Classic: Mewilo - Won! (with Final Rating)

By Ilmari

Happened so far: Martinique isn’t a paradise, which is mostly due to the European settlers, who brought forcefully slaves from Africa to work in their plantations. The master and the slave populations had mixed, but this had not raised the status of Africans. Instead, the people who had even a tinge of African ancestry were considered part of the slave population, and like in a cruel joke, masters who had fathered these sorry persons named them with anagrams of their own names. Slave rebellion of 1831 had not changed the situation, and even the eventual abolition of slavery did not make the economical situation of Martinique any better - descendants of the European settlers still formed the upper class.

Social injustice has caused personal tragedies. During the slave rebellion, slave called Albrand had burned down the house of de Ronan family. Arnaud de Ronan, scarred by burn marks, died soon after the event, but not of any physical reason. He had done something horrible he had to atone for, and even his death by grief wasn’t enough - Arnaud’s ghost was left to haunt a bedroom in de Ronan mansion. The only document about the events leading to Arnaud’s demise was a letter he wrote and gave to a local priest for safekeeping. After the death of the priest, the letter had through various events finally found its way to the possession of one Minerve Doussaint.

Obtaining this letter would be important, since it might be the only clue of a recent appearance of a zombie, awakened by Arnaud’s descendants taking again residence in de Ronan mansion. Is there some dirty secret hidden in the fact that Nanor, grandmother of Anselme Saint-Just, a local politician with African ancestry, has a name that is clearly an anagram of Ronan? What could a local sorcerer, Gwanzong, reveal about the zombie? And how to reach him, when he lives in a land infested with deadly snakes? And who is Man Cécé mentioned in the manual, but never heard afterwards? It’s time to put on my colibri shape one last time and find out…

Yes, I am trying to find a letter, could you please give it to me?

Missed Classic: Mewilo - End to slavery

By Ilmari

Happened thus far: Supernatural things have occurred in the Parnasse farm in Martinique. Since the slave revolt of 1831, in which the master of the house, de Ronan, was burned and died afterwards of grief, some strange phantom has cursed a bedroom of the farm. The daughter, Octavie de Ronan did not get hurt, because she and her mother were safe at the neighbouring plantation of du Banville family. Octavie later married Raoul du Banville. Four months ago, a descendant of Octavie, Geneviève Hubert-Destouches and her husband moved into Parnasse. Geneviève aggravated some zombie when she was tilling the ground. A local seer, Papa Echevain, thinks the zombie is trying to revenge something that happened in de Ronan family. Hubert-Destouches family have called me, a famed parapsychologist to investigate the matter. I arrive in the form of a colibri, a day before the nearby volcano is about to erupt...

Calm before the volcano eruption

Missed Classic 26: Mewilo (1987) - Introduction

By Ilmari

The name “Muriel Tramis” might not ring any bells with you, but when you hear that she is the creator of the dreaded Emmanuelle, you might get a certain impression of the quality of her games. Thus, it might come as a surprise that one of her earlier games, Mewilo, won some sort of award (la médaille d’Argent de la ville de Paris or the Silver medallion of the city of Paris. Since I will play Fascination, another game by Muriel Tramis, in the future, I wanted to have a more balanced view of her earlier games, beginning with Mewilo, which was also her first game according to Mobygames.