Catacomb was one of the games I would play on Sunday afternoon on one of the computers at the place my Mom worked. There were several games that I played on these days of leisure. I’ll make note of which were played on these “Lazy Sundays”. I will also note that this is one of the few games that I watched my brother play. I feel like he finished the game. I know that I finished the game. My recollection of all of this is fuzzy… it’s coming back to me a bit though as I re-play though!
You start off at the entrance to what I assume is a catacomb, ta ha. A young spell caster ready to fight demons, bigger demons, skeleton things and crazy pointy dragon dudes. Let’s not forget the scary fast wolf things (…in trench coats?). Travel between levels happens at special mirrors. Each level leading to the next. There is a linear progression through the levels that causes the game to ‘end’ at level 10. Kids, it’s a false ending. (I’m watching through HIMYM again, so if I throw in some “Kids, let me tell you about…” you can blame it on the comic geniuses that are Bays and Thomas.)
Once you discover that you can blow up walls with your fancy blasty hand fire you’ll discover an entire complex and challenging game lies ahead. Aside from your chargeable hand fire, you collect scrolls of “B” and “N” which I assume stand for “Bolt” and “Nuke”. “Bolt” being a volley of your most powerful hand fire launched in the direction you’re facing and “Nuke” being the same but in four directions around you.
Now that I’ve read through the Wikipedia page (which feels like cheating) I realize that the game actually had a plot whereby you (Petton Everhail… magician.) were dispatched to this cursed kingdom to recover treasure for a King. I guess that makes sense. I’ll let you read through that if you want to know the actual story.
Progressing through the levels eventually you wind up at a gigantic and complex “9th circle of hell” containing a room full of every bad guy the game has to offer. After this, on the final level you wind up in the king’s treasure room filled with nothing but treasure chests… and dragons.
Since you’ve stockpiled ALL of your nukes, bolts and potions to this point in the game being such the skilled player, you easily lay waste to these nefarious baddies and teleport out of the castle. The final screen showing the biggest struggle of the game which is trying to cart all that gold out of the castle. I can only imagine how much that thing weighs and we have no indication by the game play that our hero knows anything other than hand fire spells.
There were a handful of sequels to the game in 3d, that I will get to a bit later. I didn’t play them as much and in fact I was quite scared to play them as at that age I was rather skittish.
If nothing other than for sheer joy of finding secret things, this game shines as an early favorite. From the satisfying “broogoogloogloogloogloo” when you reveal a secret room with your hand fire, to the not secret but also sometimes secret teleport mirrors that bounce you through the game.
Then there is the text written on the top of walls that our hero never was able to read and thus lacked some context in his journey. Assuming you can get past the minor frustration of having to replay the entire game if you die because you were off one half tile trying to shoot a skeleton who was “brrp brrp brrp’ing” you… and I totally hit the spacebar!!
I digress, play this game if you will, it does live purchasable on GOG so if you’d like to throw money at… someone… I reckon, pick it and its sequels up in one easy bundle.
I hope you have a good one, you stay safe y’hear?
-NG
