Mot

Maker:
Opera Soft
Year:
1989
Systems:
PC (DOS) / PC (EGA)
Genres:
Action / Adventure
Tag:
Based on Other Media
Language:
English
Median Rating:
5/5

Thoughts by Wandrell (11 Jan 2014) – PC

You may not have heard of Azpiri, but he was one of the main Spanish comic artists back in the 80s. Mostly known for his female drawings, he also made illustrations, such as several videogames covers, and various comics books, which included Mot, a tale about a boy and his monster.

Actually I don’t remember what the comic was about, Azpiri never was one of my favourite authors he had some good stories, but in general I never liked his comics so much. This one was published on “El Pequeño País”, a kid’s supplement on the national newspaper “El País” which got really popular, probably because it had stories which were actually meant to be enjoyed by kids, and not made by people who thought being small meant being an idiot. So it’s not a surprise that this comic also got read and liked by lots of kids, making it so popular that ended having it’s own series, made by Canal+.

But all the background I just gave you means little to the game, as only the first part is actually built around any kind of plot, while the other two which compose this game are just action games.

It starts as a short of adventure with a simple and nice idea: there is a gate to another word on the attic’s wardrobe, which you want to cross, but the key to open it is kept in your father’s room, and you can’t allow him to see you stealing it. To this you have to add two other characters, which are your mother and your monster Mot.

Mot is just a lot of trouble. As long as he is close to you he behaves poorly, throwing you around and trying to break the home, but at least follows you and stays, badly, under control. But the moment you get too far away, for example after he decides it would be fun to push you away on a skateboard, he will run around the house, causing lots of noise and breaking down the place, but also trying to steal the key on his own as, apparently, the father can’t see him.

But it’s not the same with the mother, who is able to see Mot and doesn’t like it at all. She wanders around the house, minding her own business, doing the house chores, and sometimes trying to get a rest, but if she ever sees Mot she will faint and, after she recovers, run to tell your father what’s going on. This will send him in your search all around the house, so he can have a talk with you.

To add a time constraint there are three “health” bars: one for how hungry is Mot, who will go in search of hamburgers, another for the house’s condition, constantly degrading thanks to the monster, and a third for your patience/mental sanity, which will erode as it plays his jokes on you or your father gets angry with you.

All this mix makes this short game really hard and intense.

To compensate, the other two games included are not up to it. I would say they are both much longer, but also easier, and also have little to do with the previous as they are action games. The two are basically the same and you just have to move forward punching enemies, the difference is that in one you have to kill a number of them to advance to the next part, while in the other you are free to keep pushing forward as much as you wish.

This is no doubt a primitive game, coming from a company which was founded on the times of the Spectrum, and they were clearly trying to experiment, not having a full idea of what they can manage to do. But still ended managing to do a surprisingly good job even if there are the usual controls problems, the action game feels like a filler, and the adventure part is very short.

It’s this last part, the adventure one, which takes the full weight, as you can see reading the review, it gives the feeling of being in a small interactive world which few games manage. Had they expanded on it, this would be a true gem, but still it shows why the decade it was published is known as “the golden age of Spanish soft”.

Screenshots

PC (DOS)

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Box

PC (DOS)

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