Catacomb First Playthroughs (via DOSBox)
0I have decided to play the Catacomb games leading up to Wizordum's 1.0 release. I begin not with Catacomb 3-D, but even earlier, with the top-down DOS games - the 10-level version included on a GamersEdge disk, and the 30-level version that released later (which has an entirely different set of levels).
Both games have their share of conveyance issues, or being overly "clever". Unfortunately, I ended up unnecessarily restarting my first playthrough of Catacomb (the 10-level version) thinking I had soft-locked myself when I actually hadn't - and that's particularly punishing as that version does not include save/load features.
The Catacomb (the 30-level version) was far more interesting than I'd expected, as it practically turns into Hexen when you reach level 10. Unfortunately, conveyance struck again, as I got the wrong idea of what was expected, which led to unnecessarily replaying a bunch of that as well, when what I actually needed to do was find a key in the most obnoxiously unintuitive spot possible.
Conveyance issue aside, it's really neat to see an earlier entry by id Software devs prior to the actual existence of id Software, and the exploration aspects seem remarkable for a game this early, even if they're overly clever at times.
00:00 - Intro
08:23 - Catacomb: in-menu and in-game documentation
19:26 - Catacomb: game start
1:51:22 - Intermission: Dangerous Dave (not a full playthrough)
2:02:37 - The Catacomb: in-menu documentation
2:08:16 - The Catacomb: game start