Catacomb Abyss
Catacomb Abyss title screen
Developer(s)Softdisk
Publisher(s)Softdisk
Designer(s)Greg Malone
Programmer(s)
  • Nolan Martin
  • Michael Maynard
  • James T. Row
Artist(s)
EnginePrototype of Wolfenstein 3D engine
Platform(s)
Release
November 1992
  • MS-DOS
  • November, 1992
  • Catacombs Pack
  • Microsoft Windows, OS X
  • March 2013
Genre(s)First-person shooter
Mode(s)Single-player

Catacomb Abyss (also known as The Catacomb Abyss or The Catacomb Abyss 3-D) is a fantasy themed first-person shooter (FPS) game developed by Softdisk and released in November 1992 for MS-DOS.[1] It is the fourth entry in the Catacomb series of video games. Its predecessor, Catacomb 3-D, was developed by id Software as part of a contract with Softdisk.[2] When the contract ended, Softdisk kept ownership of both the 3D engine as well as the intellectual property of Catacomb 3-D.[3] The company formed a new, in-house team to develop three sequels, known as the Catacomb Adventure Series. This trilogy consists of Catacomb Abyss, Catacomb Armageddon and Catacomb Apocalypse. Softdisk published a shareware version of Catacomb Abyss, which could be freely distributed and played to encourage gamers to purchase the full trilogy.[4]

The plot is a continuation of the events in Catacomb 3-D. The player again takes the role of the high wizard Petton Everhail. After the death of arch-rival Nemesis, his minions construct a mausoleum near the Towne Cemetery to honor their deceased master. Soon evil forces start to emerge around the mausoleum. It is once again up to Petton Everhail to end the terror with the use of his magic spells.[5] The gameplay consists of navigating through the town cemetery, the mausoleum and other environments, while battling the servants of Nemesis with magic spells. Keys need to be collected to unlock doors. The game also contains an item shaped like an hourglass, which temporarily freezes time when picked up.

PC Gamer did a retrospective review of Catacomb Abyss in 2021. The reviewer describes the game as "incredibly primitive", yet also "an interesting glimpse at a direction shooters could have gone, had Wolfenstein and Doom not laid down the templates for the next few years".[6]

Gameplay

The gameplay borrows many elements from Catacomb 3-D. The player searches for keys in a maze to unlock doors that grant access to the next level. To aid navigation, each area within a level has a short description, which is displayed on the interface. The player can shoot magic missiles from its hand to eliminate enemies and to destroy breakable wall segments.

The game contains sixteen regular levels. The final level contains instructions to warp to any level, including three secret levels.[7] Whereas the levels in Catacomb 3-D consisted of mostly dungeons, the levels in Catacomb Abyss bring more varied environments. There are outdoor levels with lightning, an ancient aqueduct flooded with water and hellish corridors with pulsing walls. The five types of enemies from Catacomb 3-D return in Catacomb Abyss, along with several new enemies. Some of these can pop up unexpectedly, such as zombies that rise from the ground and skeleton warriors that emerge from a dirt wall.[8]

Screenshot of the first-person view in Catacomb Abyss

Just like in its predecessor, the player can pick up bolts, nukes and potions, although they are renamed into respectively Zappers, Xterminators and Cures. Functionally they behave the same: a Zapper generates a stream of magic missiles, an Xterminator shoots magic missiles in a circular pattern and a Cure restores the players health back to 100%. There are also treasure chests which provide a random combination of these three items. The player can carry a maximum of 99 of each item. Items can be accidentally destroyed when hit by a magic missile.

Catacomb Abyss introduces a radar called the Crystal Sphere, which shows the magic missiles and nearby enemies. Initially enemies will not show up on the Crystal Sphere. The player can collect up to a total of five gems to unlock the visibility of enemy types on the Crystal Sphere.[9][10] The game also introduces an item shaped like an hourglass. When picked up, time temporarily freezes. This enables the player to line up many magic missiles in front of frozen enemies, which will get hit once time resumes.[6]

Plot

In the previous game, the wizard Petton Everhail went on a quest through the catacombs to rescue his friend Grelminar from the evil mage Nemesis. Eventually the protagonist succeeded in killing Nemesis. After the death of their master, the minions of Nemesis construct a mausoleum near the Towne Cemetery to honor him. Soon after the construction of the mausoleum, evil forces spread across the land. In response to the terror, the local townspeople hire Petton Everhail to once again go on a quest against the forces of Nemesis. The protagonist starts his quest in the town cemetery, before descending into the crypts deep beneath the mausoleum.[5]

Development

The Catacomb series started in 1989 when programmer John Carmack developed Catacomb, a two-dimensional game with a top-down perspective for the Apple II. A year later Carmack joined Softdisk, a software company based in Shreveport, Louisiana. There he worked on a bi-monthly disk magazine called Gamer's Edge, which was started by game developer John Romero in August 1990. Customers could subscribe to Gamer's Edge to receive one or more PC games from Softdisk at a two-month interval. These games were developed fulltime by John Carmack, John Romero, Adrian Carmack and Lane Roathe, with some additional game and level design by Tom Hall. For the first issue of Gamer's Edge, John Carmack ported his Catacomb game to MS-DOS.[11][12] In September 1990, Carmack developed an efficient way to rapidly side-scroll graphics. John Romero immediately saw great potential in this new technology. They decided to secretly borrow company equipment to incorporate this technology into their own game: Commander Keen in Invasion of the Vorticons.[13] This game was released through the video game publisher Apogee Software on December 14, 1990. Commander Keen was released using the shareware distribution model; the first episode was offered as a free download, while the remaining two episodes were available for purchase as a mailed plastic bag with floppy disks. Commander Keen became a commercial success.[14] It didn't take long for Softdisk CEO Al Vekovius to find out that his employees had used company equipment to release a game via a competitive publisher. Nevertheless, Vekovius felt that the company was reliant on the Gamer's Edge subscriptions and tried to convince the team to form a new company in partnership with Softdisk. After several weeks of negotiation, the team agreed to produce a series of games for Softdisk, one every two months. On February 1, 1991, John Carmack, John Romero, Tom Hall and Adrian Carmack founded their own game company, called id Software.[15]

Some of the games that id Software developed for Softdisk utilized the side-scrolling technology from Commander Keen, but John Carmack also used this opportunity to further experiment with his game engines. He developed a 3D engine for the vehicular combat game Hovertank 3D, which was published by Softdisk in April 1991. In November this 3D engine was expanded upon with texture mapping for Catacomb 3-D.[16] At the end of 1991 the publishing contract with Softdisk ended. The team at id Software started development of their next game Wolfenstein 3D, to be published by Apogee Software.[2]

Due to the publishing contract with id Software, Softdisk obtained ownership of both the 3D engine as well as the intellectual property of Catacomb 3-D. This enabled the company to create additional 3D games in the Catacomb series. However, a completely new in-house team of game developers had to be formed at Softdisk to fill the gap that was left by the founders of id Software.[3] Head of the new team became game designer Greg Malone, who had previously designed Moebius and its sequel Windwalker.[9] He was joined by programmers Mike Maynard and Jim Row. Some of the enemy designs that Adrian Carmack created for Catacomb 3-D were reused in Catacomb Abyss, but most of the artwork in the game was produced from scratch by artists Jerry K. Jones, Carol Ludden and Steven Maines. The new team spent most of 1992 to produce Catacomb Abyss and its sequels Catacomb Armageddon and Catacomb Apocalypse.[4] Near the end of 1992, Gamer's Edge was discontinued. Mike Maynard and Jim Row left Softdisk to form their own game development company JAM Productions, where they developed Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold.[17] Game designer Greg Malone would later become the creative director for Duke Nukem 3D.

Release

With around 3000 subscribers, the disk magazine Gamer's Edge never became a commercial success.[12] Therefore, after having witnessed the success of the shareware title Commander Keen, Softdisk management decided to adopt the shareware model for Catacomb Abyss. Gamers could freely play and distribute the shareware version of Catacomb Abyss. Included with the shareware version was an electronic catalog, which advertised the registered version of Catacomb Abyss, as well as the two sequels Catacomb Armageddon and Catacomb Apocalypse. Customers could call Softdisk to order these three games for $14.95 each or $29.95 for the entire trilogy.[18] The registered version of Catacomb Abyss comes packaged with a hint manual, but otherwise contains the same set of levels as the shareware version.

The Catacomb series were acquired by the software company Flat Rock Software in 2012, who sold the games as downloads via their site flatrocksoft.com. The registered version of Catacomb Abyss was listed for $2.00.[19] In March 2013, the Catacomb series were published on GOG.com as the Catacombs Pack.[20][21] The MS-DOS emulator DOSBox is included with the Catacombs Pack to enable support for Microsoft Windows and Linux.

Reception

Contemporary reviews

American computer game magazine Computer Gaming World published a review in May 1993. It calls The Catacomb Abyss "very enjoyable" despite the "minimal" EGA graphics and sound. The review warns that some gamers might experience motion sickness due to the game's 3-D smooth scrolling technique.[10]

British video game magazine PC Zone also noted in May 1993 that the 3D graphics do not scroll as smooth compared to Wolfenstein 3D. On long playthroughs this can become irritating. However, the reviewer also states that the gameplay in the Catacomb series is better compared to Wolfenstein 3D. He praises "the atmosphere of real tension" in the games and considers Catacomb Abyss a good showcase of what shareware games can offer.[7]

German PC gaming magazine PC Games reported in their March 1993 issue that Catacomb Abyss was brought on the German market as an alternative to the id Software game Hundefelsen 3D. At that time German gamers used Hundefelsen 4C as a codename for Wolfenstein 3D, a game that was banned in Germany for portraying nazi's.[23] The review from PC Games states that "Catacomb Abyss is very playable and fascinating due to the well animated 3D perspective". The reviewer warns that a fast computer is required, as the game is a "first class resource guzzler". However, "the great 3D graphics contribute a lot to the atmosphere and the fun of the game".[24]

German video gaming magazine PC Joker reviewed the Catacomb 3D Adventure series in their November 1993 issue. According to the review, the "well camouflaged secrets, variety of bonus items lying around, hidden scrolls, nice graphics and fine sounds create a mood". It concludes that "right from the start, the game has made a passable figure on the full-price market".[22]

Retrospective reception

PC Gamer did a retrospective review of Catacomb Abyss in 2021 and describes the game as "incredibly primitive", containing "some of the most eye-poppingly awful wall textures ever". What makes the game interesting is the different design choices compared to popular contemporary games. As such it offers "an interesting glimpse at a direction shooters could have gone, had Wolfenstein and Doom not laid down the templates for the next few years". PC Gamer describes the ability to freeze time as an "extremely cool" feature that resembles the visual effect known as bullet time.[6]

The review from gaming website GameFAQs states that Catacomb Abyss is graphically a bit better compared to Catacomb 3-D, with better use of the color palette and some interesting effects, like animated walls, a level flooded with water and lightning in outdoor levels. On the downside, the game is considered to be too easy.[8]

YouTube game reviewer GmanLives also notes that Catacomb Abyss has slightly better graphics and a wider variety of enemies and environments compared to its predecessor. He dislikes that some keys that are required for progression are hidden behind unmarked, breakable walls. Furthermore, he could easily finish the game within two hours, which made it feel more like an expansion pack rather than a full game.[25]

Legacy

Following the publication of the Catacomb series on GOG, Flat Rock Software decided to open-source these games under the GPL license in 2014.[26][27] This enabled programmers to port the source code of Catacomb Abyss to other operating systems. The source port Reflection Keen, later renamed to ReflectionHLE, allows gamers to play Catacomb Abyss on Microsoft Windows, Linux, MacOS, AmigaOS and Android.[28]

Another source port for Catacomb Abyss called CatacombGL was introduced in 2018, which offers hardware accelerated rendering via OpenGL.[29] CatacombGL initially targeted Microsoft Windows. Support for native Linux was added in 2022.[30]

References

  1. ↑ Softdisk Publishing (November 13, 1992). "License Information THE CATACOMB ABYSS (TM)". Discmaster. Retrieved April 24, 2023.
  2. 1 2 "How id built Wolfenstein 3D using Commander Keen tech". Gamasutra. June 24, 2019. Retrieved April 24, 2023.
  3. 1 2 Shareware Heroes, p. 106
  4. 1 2 Stoddard, Sam (September 30, 2005). "The Apogee FAQ [2.7.2] What's Apogee's relationship with Softdisk?". RinkWorks. Retrieved April 24, 2023.
  5. 1 2 "Readme (txt) of The Catacomb Abyss". oldgames.sk. March 19, 2013. Retrieved April 24, 2023.
  6. 1 2 3 Cobbett, Richard (January 5, 2013). "Saturday Crapshoot: The Ultimate Shareware Games Collection, Vol 1". PC Gamer. Retrieved April 24, 2023.
  7. 1 2 Burgess, Mark (May 1993). "Off the boards - Catacomb Abyss". PC Zone. p. 101-102. Retrieved April 24, 2023.
  8. 1 2 16-BITTER (October 30, 2018). "The Catacomb Abyss – Review". GameFAQs. Retrieved April 24, 2023.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  9. 1 2 Bottorff, Jared (April 9, 2018). "Catacombs 3D". Hardcore Gaming 101. Retrieved April 24, 2023.
  10. 1 2 Miller, Chuck (May 1993). "Dungeons Make Me Dizzy" (PDF). Computer Gaming World. p. 46. Retrieved April 24, 2023.
  11. ↑ Carmack, John (July 8, 2019). "John Carmack on Twitter: "That is my old game Catacombs! Written for 8 bit apple 2 and 16 bit 2GS, then ported to PC."". Twitter. Retrieved April 24, 2023.
  12. 1 2 Maher, Jimmy (May 15, 2020). "The Shareware Scene, Part 3: The id Boys". The Digital Antiquarian. Retrieved April 24, 2023.
  13. ↑ Masters of Doom, pp. 48–51
  14. ↑ Masters of Doom, pp. 63–66
  15. ↑ Masters of Doom, pp. 66–76
  16. ↑ Shareware Heroes, p. 164
  17. ↑ "The Apogee Legacy; Past Pioneers of the Shareware Revolution; Issue #12 - Mike Maynard". legacy.3drealms.com. March 27, 2006. Retrieved April 24, 2023.
  18. ↑ Softdisk Publishing (November 20, 1992). "Screenshot from Gamer's Edge Electronic Catalog". MobyGames. Retrieved April 24, 2023.
  19. ↑ "Flat Rock Software". Archived from the original on July 6, 2012.
  20. ↑ GOG.com (March 15, 2013). "GOG.com on Twitter: "For only $5.99 you can go back to the roots of the FPS genre with Catacombs Pack Another classic, now on @GOGcom"". Twitter. Retrieved April 24, 2023.
  21. ↑ "Release: Catacombs Pack". GOG.com. CD Projekt. March 14, 2013. Archived from the original on May 18, 2013. Retrieved May 15, 2023.
  22. 1 2 "THE CATACOMB 3D-ADVENTURE". PC Joker (in German). November 1993. p. 60. Retrieved May 17, 2023.
  23. ↑ Stoddard, Sam (September 30, 2005). "The Apogee FAQ [2.4.1] Alternate titles for Wolfenstein 3D". RinkWorks. Retrieved May 17, 2023.
  24. ↑ Warnecke, Albert (March 1993). "Catacomb Abyss 3D - Wolfenstein II ?!". PC Games (in German). p. 77-78. Retrieved May 17, 2023.
  25. ↑ "Catacomb 3-D Series PC Game Review". YouTube. GmanLives. January 16, 2016. Retrieved April 24, 2023.
  26. ↑ Larabel, Michael (June 6, 2014). "id Software's Softdisk Open-Sources Some Really Old Games". Phoronix. Retrieved June 6, 2014.
  27. ↑ Halfacree, Gareth (June 9, 2014). "Early id Software game engines open-sourced". Bit-Tech. Retrieved April 9, 2023.
  28. ↑ "Catacomb 3D series and Keen Dreams - DOS based games coming over to the Amiga". Indie Retro News. October 12, 2016. Retrieved April 24, 2023.
  29. ↑ "Ancient history: Catacomb 3D goes OpenGL". Realm667. February 3, 2020. Retrieved April 24, 2023.
  30. ↑ Dawe, Liam (January 4, 2023). "Classic 1990s series Catacomb lives on with the CatacombGL source port". GamingOnLinux. Retrieved April 24, 2023.

Sources

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