The people of Issegeac believe that their good fortune depends on the spellbook that has been in their village for over nine centuries. When the keeper of the text, your grandfather, is killed and the Grimoire stolen, the villagers ask your help. Now it is your task to find the Black Sect's hideout and return the spellbook to Issegeac.

Have you ever heard of Lankhor's Black Sect? Have you ever tried it?
Lankhor's Black Sect is a great game (on the AGS forums we agreed 'intriguing' is a better word though). It has however a few features that where normal in 1993 but aren't so popular today. The game is timed, has dead ends, only 5 save slots, 20+ action icons, no smart cursor and you can die.

Because I thought there was a nice game buried under all that, I've made a remake that eliminates all those elements that are likely to frustrate players today. I also added a few puzzles, changed the ones I didn't understand and made new music.

This remake features among other things:
- Timeflow based on player actions, so no dead ends
- Unlimited save slots (Well, I don't know that. More than 30 anyway)
- 2 action cursors
- Smart cursor that lights up over interactive areas
- Extra puzzles
- Changed puzzles to suit the new interface
- Updated hint system
- New sound and music

And kept from the original game:
- first person exploration
- Lankhor's art and animations (mostly)
- 31 locations to explore
- day and night cycle

So if you like to try it you can download the game from http://www.adventuregamestudio.co.uk/Games.aspx/Detail/1578/Black_Sect_Remake

The game has a hintsystem that points you to the location or task that you should focus on. But if you're still stuck there is also a walkthrough here.

Hope you like it.

Thanks Handsfree!

Ana

HandsFree! I've come across screenshots for the older game so thank you for remaking it! I'm certainly going to give it a try!

Intriguing!

So far, I'm liking it, HandsFree, though I do seem to have that stuck to my cursor a lot.

Gil.

Thanks!
Right clicking will cycle through the available cursors, one of which is the inventory item you are holding.

How did you remake this game, HandsFree?

How did you get the source code?

Isn't this game copyrighted?

If it's copyrighted, how did you get around this, HF?

I just made screenshots from the original game and remade it in AGS (Adventure Game Studio). I don't have the sourcecode from the original game.
The original Black Sect is freeware but I suppose somebody somewhere has the rights to it...
There have been many remakes and fangames of King's Quest, Space Quest, Maniac Mansion, Indiana Jones etc so to be honest I assumed nobody would be bothered by my low profile freeware.

I believe as long as you are not profiting from it, it is legal. If you were selling it, it would be a different story.

Ana

I'm downloading it now, HandsFree, thank you !! Just love messing with remakes of oldies

Thanks HandsFree.

Chief

Thanks for the remake, HandsFree. I'd never heard of the original Black Sect. I probably wouldn't go out of my way to play the original even if I had heard of it because of all the "bugs" (game is timed, has dead ends, only 5 save slots, 20+ action icons, no smart cursor and you can die). But your remake looks interesting.

Really nice, I loved this game in spite of all its shortcomings. Of course, I'm still crazy over Maupiti Island. Now that is a remake I'd love to play.

A lesser known fact perhaps is that the mid-90's Black Sect was already a remake of a previous game (Secte Noire) for the Amdtrad CPC:



Unfortunately, all the early Lankhor output is in French

Yes and there's a sequel too: La crypte des maudits. But I don't know how to run Amstrad games and I don't understand French so that one is out of reach for me.

On the AGS forums the possibility of a Maupiti Island remake was also mentioned.
I started that game a few times but never got far. But I got the impression the timed element is essential in that game. Removing it wouldn't make much sense and leaving it in would make a remake pointless, so I don't really see what a remake should be like.

What do you think should be done to Maupiti Island then? (hypothetically of course )

Yes, it's essential to its design and a remake of Maupiti Island should be as faithful as possible. I heard they were working on an iOS port of the game, but no idea what happened.

Without the source code it's probably next to impossible to achieve a faithful reproduction because, put simply, there SO MUCH stuff going on, you can't keep trace without some sort of guide.

But sign me in to help if you ever want to do it (I'm one of Maupiti Island's staunchest fans :P)

This is what my parents told me about using other people's artwork/photos, and I believed them. However, the author of Diamond in the Rough (game created by Alkis21) told me my parents were wrong (sigh).

Cruise, you were lifting screenshots from games that are still being sold (like the Black Mirror series) and incorporating them into your comic books. That's not the same as remaking an old game that's now freeware so that more recent gamers can enjoy it.

Not only were you using someone else's art, you were using it in a way the artists had never intended, and which some of them might well object to.

These comics are strictly for my personal use only.

The fact that someone knew about them means they were more than for just you.

<offensive post deleted>

Cruise -- this is about the Black Sect remake and not all about you. Please tone the rudeness and sarcasm down several notches.

Ok, Becky - I just deleted that remark. So sorry. Was a bit angry at a twitter error that I later fixed, and now got over that incident.

Hi HandsFree

Enjoying myself with the game !! Thank you

Thanks Mad