Catacombs (JK Greye)

[MikeW]

Is it just me, or is Catacombs a roguelike games before roguelikes existed?

I'm not sure when Catacombs was released (81/82?), or even when rogue-type games became popular, but does anyone know the history of this game?

[yerzmyey]

Hi,
if it's possible, I'd be grateful for the link.

[MikeW]

Sorry, take a look at

http://www.zx81stuff.org.uk/zx81/genera ... combs.html

[oscar]

Is it just me, or is Catacombs a roguelike games before roguelikes existed?

I'm not sure when Catacombs was released (81/82?), or even when rogue-type games became popular, but does anyone know the history of this game?

I don't know anything about the history of that specific game (Catacombs), but according to Wikipedia, Rogue was developed in 1980. Of course, that doesn't mean that Catacombs was copied from or inspired by Rogue, they could have been thought of completely independently.

[angus]

Catacombs was the first 16K ZX81 game that I bought. I remember the advertising at the time boasted that it was a "graphical adventure" unlike all the text adventures at the time.

I doubt that John Greye would have seen Rogue, which according to the all-knowing WIkipedia was developed and played on college Unix systems in the USA in the early 80's. Catacombs was written in 1981 by John Greye who was more of a musician than college computer user.

There are certainly similarities but I would imagine the two games were written entirely separately of each other.

I still occasionally give Catacombs a play. It's a bit slow, but it is still quite exciting seeing the rooms appear as you move around.

[MikeW]

I too think it unlikely there's any connection between the two. However, acccording to wiki a roguelike game is

"The roguelike is a sub-genre of role-playing video games, characterized by level randomization, permanent death, and turn-based movement. Most roguelikes feature ASCII graphics, with newer ones increasingly offering tile-based graphics. Games are typically dungeon crawls, with many monsters, items, and environmental features."

I'm fairly confident catacombs fits most, if not all of that definitely. Maybe Rogue should be considered a Catacombslike

[angus]

Catacombs was published in 1981, so it is quite possible it appeared before Rogue. But the chances are both were developed independently.