''Katakis'' is a horizontally scrolling shooter developed for the

Commodore 64 The Commodore 64, also known as the C64, is an 8-bit home computer introduced in January 1982 by Commodore International (first shown at the Consumer Electronics Show, January 7–10, 1982, in Las Vegas). It has been listed in the Guinness ...

Rainbow Arts Rainbow Arts Software GmbH was a German video game publisher based in Gütersloh. The company was founded in 1984 by Marc Ullrich and Thomas Meiertoberens and acquired by Rushware in 1986. The company's decline began in the early 1990s: The dist ...

in 1987, and converted to the

Amiga Amiga is a family of personal computers introduced by Commodore in 1985. The original model is one of a number of mid-1980s computers with 16- or 32-bit processors, 256 KB or more of RAM, mouse-based GUIs, and significantly improved graphi ...

Factor 5 Factor 5 GmbH is an Independent business, independent software and video game developer. The company was co-founded by five former Rainbow Arts employees in 1987 in Cologne, Germany, which served as the inspiration behind the studio's name. In ...

in 1988. It was re-released as ''Denaris'' in 1989. The name Katakis has a

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

origin and was found in a phone book in

Gütersloh Gütersloh () is a city in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany, in the area of Westphalia and the administrative region of Detmold. Gütersloh is the administrative centre for a district of the same name and has a population of 100,194 peo ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

. The name Denaris was created by a random name generator, and by coincidence, matches a Greek name as well.Katakis on C64-Wiki
/ref>

Plot

The game takes place on the planet Katakis, a human colony in deep space. There, scientists developed machinery with advanced

artificial intelligence Artificial intelligence (AI) is intelligence—perceiving, synthesizing, and inferring information—demonstrated by machines, as opposed to intelligence displayed by animals and humans. Example tasks in which this is done include speech re ...

capabilities. However, the machines eventually evolved beyond the control of their human creators and overtook the planet. The humans attempted to retaliate through the use of nuclear ballistic missiles, but the machines survived. The colonists' remaining plan is to use a series of DS-H75 Eagle Fighter space gliders to attack the machines and retake the planet.

Gameplay

Katakis has a very similar theme as the game ''

R-Type is a horizontally scrolling shooter arcade video game developed and released by Irem in 1987 and the first game in the ''R-Type'' series. The player controls a star ship, the R-9 "Arrowhead", in its efforts to destroy the Bydo, a powerful ...

'', with multiple levels, power-ups and various end-bosses. Players must eliminate enemy opponents to reach various end-bosses. One major innovation is the fact that the two-player mode features the second player controlling the Force module. This creates an unusual play strategy of the attacker and the defender, since the main ship is vulnerable to enemy fire and hazards.

Controversy

Due to the game's obvious similarity to ''R-Type'', rights holder Activision Europe delivered an ultimatum: either Factor 5 accept a contract to perform the official R-Type conversion for the

home computer, or receive a lawsuit for rights infringement. According to Julian Eggebrecht, this was because "Activision couldn't find any programmers" but the opportunity was "a dream come true".

Legacy

Factor 5 released the Amiga version of ''Katakis'' as freeware as follows: In ''

Turrican II ''Turrican II: The Final Fight'' is the second game of the '' Turrican'' series. The game, developed by Factor 5 was released in 1991 for the Commodore Amiga. This version was finished before the C64 version, but Manfred Trenz cites the C64 ver ...

'' (also designed by

Manfred Trenz Manfred Trenz (born 29 November 1965 in Saarbrücken) is a German video game developer. He is the developer of the ''Turrican'' video game series as well as the Commodore 64 version of the game ''R-Type''. He also made ''The Great Giana Sister ...

) there are references to the

version of Katakis. At the end of level 2-2, the main character takes off in a fighter resembling the one from Katakis. During the take-off sequence, the fighter's drone pod can also briefly be seen, hanging from the ceiling. From that point, and for the whole world 3 duration, the game turns from a platform shooter to a scrolling shooter. There is also an easter egg: before level 3-2's end boss, a Katakis bonus container ship appears. If shot down, it reveals a "question mark" (?) bonus (unique in the whole Turrican II game map) that, if picked up, makes a helicopter walker robot appear, towing a banner with "KATAKIS LIVES!!!" written on it. The

Super NES The Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), commonly shortened to Super NES or Super Nintendo, is a 16-bit home video game console developed by Nintendo that was released in 1990 in Japan and South Korea, 1991 in North America, 1992 in E ...

video game '' Super Turrican'' is also set on a planet called Katakis.

References

{{reflist

External links

Katakis Info
an
Denaris Info
a
Amiga Hall of Light

Katakis Free Download
from

1987 video games Amiga games Fictional planets IOS games Commodore 64 games Cancelled ZX Spectrum games Horizontally scrolling shooters Science fiction video games Video game clones Video games scored by Chris Huelsbeck Video games developed in Germany Multiplayer and single-player video games Factor 5 games Rainbow Arts games Video games set on fictional planets