''Abuse'' is a run and gun

video game Video games, also known as computer games, are electronic games that involves interaction with a user interface or input device such as a joystick, controller, keyboard, or motion sensing device to generate visual feedback. This fee ...

developed by

Crack dot Com Crack dot Com was a computer game development company co-founded by ex-id Software programmer Dave Taylor, and Jonathan Clark. History Crack dot com started from home with a staff of just four people. Their first completed game, which had I ...

and published by

Electronic Arts Electronic Arts Inc. (EA) is an American video game company headquartered in Redwood City, California. Founded in May 1982 by Apple employee Trip Hawkins, the company was a pioneer of the early home computer game industry and promoted the ...

in North America and

Origin Systems Origin Systems, Inc. was an American video game developer based in Austin, Texas. It was founded on March 3, 1983, by Richard Garriott and his brother Robert Garriott, Robert. Origin is best known for their groundbreaking work in multiple genres ...

in Europe. It was released on February 29, 1996 for

MS-DOS MS-DOS ( ; acronym for Microsoft Disk Operating System, also known as Microsoft DOS) is an operating system for x86-based personal computers mostly developed by Microsoft. Collectively, MS-DOS, its rebranding as IBM PC DOS, and a few ope ...

. A

Mac OS Two major famlies of Mac operating systems were developed by Apple Inc. In 1984, Apple debuted the operating system that is now known as the "Classic" Mac OS with its release of the original Macintosh System Software. The system, rebranded "M ...

port of the game was published by

Bungie Bungie, Inc. is an American video game company based in Bellevue, Washington. It is a studio owned by Sony Interactive Entertainment. The company was established in May 1991 by Alex Seropian, who later brought in programmer Jason Jones afte ...

and released on March 5, 1997. The game's

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 ...

, along with some of the shareware content, has been in the

public domain The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work to which no exclusive intellectual property rights apply. Those rights may have expired, been forfeited, expressly waived, or may be inapplicable. Because those rights have expired, ...

since the late 1990s and has been

ported In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desi ...

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, w ...

and many other platforms.

Plot

The protagonist of the game, Nick Vrenna, has been unjustly incarcerated in a prison where the staff are performing unethical medical experiments upon the inmates. A

prison riot A prison riot is an act of concerted defiance or disorder by a group of prisoners against the prison administrators, prison officers, or other groups of prisoners. Prison riots have not been the subject of many academic studies or research inqui ...

occurs and an experiment goes horribly wrong. The people inside the prison - except for Nick, who seems to be immune - are infected with a substance called Abuse that transforms them into monsters. With the water supply in danger of being infected, Nick arms himself and fights through the horde to prevent this, and then escapes from the prison complex.

Gameplay

''Abuse'' resembles a side-scrolling

platform game A platform game (often simplified as platformer and sometimes called a jump 'n' run game) is a sub-genre of action video games in which the core objective is to move the player character between points in an environment. Platform games are charac ...

. The keyboard is used to move Nick, while the mouse is used for aiming the weapons. The gameplay consists of fighting various enemies (mostly the various forms of mutants, who prefer to attack in huge swarms) and solving simple puzzles, usually involving switches. Networked play, through

IPX/SPX IPX/SPX stands for Internetwork Packet Exchange/Sequenced Packet Exchange. IPX and SPX are networking protocol, networking protocols used initially on networks using the (since discontinued) Novell NetWare operating systems. They also became wid ...

, is supported.

Development

''Abuse'' had a very different storyline coming out of production. The update for it replaced the original introduction with the current storyline. The original involved an invasion by an alien species called "ants". The player was a special ops agent, sent into their 'hive' to covertly destroy the aliens by shutting down the cooling system. This story was alluded to in a hidden section towards the end of level 14, where a large area, full of maroon tiles, can be found. The game was in development for 6 months by three people with a budget of $150,000

Release

''Abuse'' was originally released on February 29, 1996 for

and

, as an incomplete shareware version by

in North America, and

in Europe. The game was ported to

by Oliver Yu of

and published by

on March 5, 1997. The port was largely reworked for Mac, with the graphics partially redone to work better in

640x480 The graphics display resolution is the width and height dimension of an electronic visual display device, measured in pixels. This information is used for electronic devices such as a computer monitor. Certain combinations of width and height a ...

resolution.

Source code release

Approximately two years after the release of the game, Crack dot Com decided to release the game's

. Also the shareware release's game data (excluding the sound effects) was handed into the

Community development

Based on the source release the game's community worked initially on maintenance work, e.g. making the game work over

TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...

. In 2001 ''Abuse'' was adapted to SDL multimedia library,Abuse-SDL
on labyrinth.net.au (2001) with other technical refinements like more than the 8-bit color depth the original version was limited to. The SDL version allowed easy

porting In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desi ...

to modern platforms, for instance Microsoft Windows,

X11 The X Window System (X11, or simply X) is a windowing system for bitmap displays, common on Unix-like operating systems. X provides the basic framework for a GUI environment: drawing and moving windows on the display device and interacting wi ...

and also the Mac version has been updated to run on OS X. Over the years, the game became available for many more platforms, for instance BeOS, Nintendo Wii via Wii homebrew, OpenBSD, and in 2009

AmigaOS 4 AmigaOS 4 (abbreviated as OS4 or AOS4) is a line of Amiga operating systems which runs on PowerPC microprocessors. It is mainly based on AmigaOS 3.1 source code developed by Commodore, and partially on version 3.9 developed by Haage & Partne ...

. The game has also been ported to the mobile devices, to iPhone/ iPod Touch under the name Abuse Classic. Until 2011 the game was maintained by

Sam Hocevar Samuel Hocevar (born 5 August 1978) is a French software and video game developer. He was the project leader of the Debian operating system from 17 April 2007 to 16 April 2008, and one of the founding members of Goatse Security. Biography Ho ...

on his webpage. In 2014 the game was ported to SDL2 and transferred to a

GitHub GitHub, Inc. () is an Internet hosting service for software development and version control using Git. It provides the distributed version control of Git plus access control, bug tracking, software feature requests, task management, continu ...

repository. In 2016, on the 20th birthday of the game, a community developer released a "20th anniversary

source port A source port is a software project based on the source code of a game engine that allows the game to be played on operating systems or computing platforms with which the game was not originally compatible. Description Source ports are often c ...

" on base of the previous works which enabled custom resolutions, OpenGL rendering, and

Xbox 360 controller The Xbox 360 controller is the primary game controller for Microsoft's Xbox 360 home video game console that was introduced at E3 2005. The Xbox 360 controller comes in both wired and wireless versions. The Xbox controller is not compatible with ...

support, and fixed the music.

Reception

Reviewing the DOS original, a '' Next Generation'' critic said the game "has everything it needs to be a great arcade classic - intuitive play control, a variety of weapons, creatures, devices, and traps ... scores of secrets to be ferreted out". He also praised the inclusion of an accessible level editor, and said the game's strongest point is the depth of its challenging puzzles, though he criticized the lack of story. He scored the game 4 out of 5 stars. The game was also reviewed in '' Computer Gaming World''. Due to its futuristic yet spooky atmosphere, ''

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 ...

'' regarded ''Abuse'' as a 2D platform equivalent of the first person shooter ''

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 * ...

''. ''Abuse'' in its open-source version was selected in August 2011 as "HotPick" by

Linux Format ''Linux Format'' is the UK's first Linux-specific magazine, and as of 2013 was the best-selling Linux title in the UK. It is also exported to many countries worldwide. It is published by Future plc (which produces a number of other computer magazi ...

.Linux Format 147 August 2011
page 72

References

External links

*

current home page
Abuse-SDL v0.8
home until 2011 by

abuse2.com
official homepage until 2003 (archived) {{DEFAULTSORT:Abuse (Video Game) 1996 video games Acorn Archimedes games Amiga games AmigaOS 4 games BeOS games Bungie games Commercial video games with freely available source code DOS games Electronic Arts games IOS games Linux games Classic Mac OS games Run and gun games Science fiction video games Multiplayer and single-player video games Video games about genetic engineering Public-domain software with source code Video games developed in the United States Video games set in prison Video games scored by Bobby Prince Origin Systems games