''In Pursuit of Greed'' (also known as ''Assassinators'') is a

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel uni ...

-themed

first-person shooter First-person shooter (FPS) is a sub-genre of shooter video games centered on gun and other weapon-based combat in a first-person perspective, with the player experiencing the action through the eyes of the protagonist and controlling the p ...

(FPS) video game released in 1995 for

DOS DOS is shorthand for the MS-DOS and IBM PC DOS family of operating systems. DOS may also refer to: Computing * Data over signalling (DoS), multiplexing data onto a signalling channel * Denial-of-service attack (DoS), an attack on a communicat ...

, developed by Mind Shear Software and published by

Softdisk Softdisk was a software and Internet company based in Shreveport, Louisiana. Founded in 1981, its original products were disk magazines (which they termed "magazettes", for "magazine on diskette"). It was affiliated and partly owned by paper mag ...

Release

After Mind Shear Software's release of '' Ironseed'' in 1994, Softdisk Publishing reached out to them with the suggestion that they take advantage of the pre-alpha ''

Doom Doom is another name for damnation. Doom may also refer to: People * Doom (professional wrestling), the tag team of Ron Simmons and Butch Reed * Daniel Doom (born 1934), Belgian cyclist * Debbie Doom (born 1963), American softball pitcher * ...

'' code that Softdisk had access to in order to create a shooter, in the hopes of capitalizing on the popularity of Doom. (This was Id's Raven

engine An engine or motor is a machine designed to convert one or more forms of energy into mechanical energy. Available energy sources include potential energy (e.g. energy of the Earth's gravitational field as exploited in hydroelectric power ...

, licensed to

Raven Software Raven Software Corporation is an American video game developer based in Wisconsin and founded in 1990. In 1997, Raven made an exclusive publishing deal with Activision and was subsequently acquired by them. After the acquisition, many of the stu ...

for their 1993 game ''

ShadowCaster ''ShadowCaster'' is a first-person role-playing video game developed by Raven Software. It was published in 1993 by Origin Systems after Electronic Arts acquired them. A CD-ROM version was released in 1994, featuring two additional levels with ...

''.) Mind Shear agreed enthusiastically, expecting that they would be working on a nearly complete Doom engine. Only after contracts were signed and development was underway did they discover just how buggy and incomplete the codebase was. Problems with lag, jerky animation, and slow rendering plagued the project right up until a significantly delayed release. The game was re-released under the name ''Assassinators'' by Memorex Software in 1998. The game and its

source code In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the w ...

were released as non-commercial

freeware Freeware is software, most often proprietary, that is distributed at no monetary cost to the end user. There is no agreed-upon set of rights, license, or EULA that defines ''freeware'' unambiguously; every publisher defines its own rules for t ...

by the programmer around 2014.Greed
on redshadowsoftware.com ''"These sources are provided for educational and historical purposes. No assets or code may be used in any way commercially. Personal and educational use only."'' (2014)

Reception

Reception of the game by press and gamers was mostly unimpressed to negative. However, some game aspects like curved surfaces, the "rear mirror" mechanic, and the colorful protagonists were positively mentioned.The Technology Behind ID's Games
on slashdot.com by Sean Clifford ''"Softdisk tried to produce a couple of games, one called Greed (later In Pursuit of Greed) which was basically a 3D Doom-clone shooter. There was some neat technology (e.g. curved surfaces), but the art was...uh, well weak. The gameplay was decent, but there were some bugs to stomp and the ship date slipped...and slipped...and slipped. It was released, but didn't live up to the hype. The game was torn to shreds in the reviews."'' (August 13, 2002) Also the soundtrack, done by

Andrew Sega Andrew Gregory Sega ( ; born May 20, 1975), also known as Necros, is an American musician best known for tracking modules in the 1990s demoscene as well as for composing music for several well-known video games. He was a member of the synthpop d ...

, was positively noted. The game was not the hoped for commercial success due to the technical problems with the unfinished engine and the competing high-profile title ''

Duke Nukem 3D ''Duke Nukem 3D'' is a first-person shooter video game developed by 3D Realms. It is a sequel to the platform games ''Duke Nukem (video game), Duke Nukem'' and ''Duke Nukem II'', published by 3D Realms. ''Duke Nukem 3D'' features the adventures ...

'', released shortly before Greed, which lead to a cool reception from the press and the public alike. The game received a 59/100 in the ''

PC Gamer ''PC Gamer'' is a magazine and website founded in the United Kingdom in 1993 devoted to PC gaming and published monthly by Future plc. The magazine has several regional editions, with the UK and US editions becoming the best selling PC games m ...

'' August 1996 issue, stating "The Doom frenzy breeds another strange offspring, where mercenary cows, lizards, and cyborgs kill for sport. It's all pretty forgettable.".''

'' 1996-08 by T. Liam Mcdonald
The Ultimate Preview of the Year's Hottest Games: the 50 most anticipated games in the coming year
(August 1996)

Home of the Underdogs Home of the Underdogs (often called HotU) is an abandonware archive founded by Sarinee Achavanuntakul, in October 1998. Before shutting down the original version in 2009, the site provided reviews for over 5,300 games and offered downloads of so ...

gave it a 7/10 saying "All in all, if you have enough patience to slog through the first few levels, you will find an interesting and above-average game lurking behind the tedious beginning. It is by no means a classic, but it's worth a look."In Pursuit of Greed
on

''Old PC Gaming'' gave In Pursuit of Greed 2.5 stars calling it "not a particularly irredeemable game, just somewhat formulaic and woefully outdated"in pursuit of greed review
on Old PC Gaming (October 26, 2016)

References

External links

*
Source code
at archive.org {{Softdisk 1995 video games DOS games DOS-only games Science fiction video games First-person shooters Video games with 2.5D graphics Commercial video games with freely available source code Video games developed in the United States Video games scored by Andrew Sega Sprite-based first-person shooters id Tech games WizardWorks games Multiplayer and single-player video games