THE COMMODORE 64 WAS HOST TO MANY A GREAT SHMUP, SCROLLING IN ALL DIRECTIONS. ONE OF THE MORE NOTABLE EXAMPLES WAS RAINBOW ARTS’ KATAKIS – AND IT WAS NOT ONLY FAMOUS FOR ITS HIGH QUALITY BUT ALSO FOR ITS HIGHLY EXTRAORDINARY DEVELOPMENT STORY
IN THE KNOW
» PUBLISHER: RAINBOW ARTS
» DEVELOPER: RAINBOW ARTS
» RELEASED: 1988
» PLATFORM: C64, AMIGA
» GENRE: SHOOT-’EM-UP
Every C64 owner knows Manfred Trenz: the father of Turrican, one of the best-known shooters on the C64. But before Turrican there was Katakis – and before Katakis there was the German computer magazine 64’er which hosted an animation competition in its June 1986 issue. The then 20-year-old Manfred had already had his first contact with 8-bit computers two years prior and was immediately captivated by them, whereupon he taught himself BASIC and Assembler programming. At the same time, he was also a talented graphic artist who had a lot of fun with the popular painting program Koala Painter. Putting all of that together resulted in Megamove II: a huge starship moving across a shiny starfield. This competition was concluded in issue 11, Manfred’s animation left him in third place, securing accolades and prize money of DM 100 (about 90 of today’s pounds). Much more important though was that this animation and the subsequently published pictures of his in the popular mag attracted the attention of German game studio Rainbow Arts who hired him as a graphics artist. The first projects to which he contributed his pixels were Street Gang, In 80 Days Around The World and The Great Giana Sisters (all released in 1987).
The other important player in the making of Katakis is Andreas Escher. He is slightly younger than Manfred, born on 23rd January 1966, and also a very talented pixel artist. The two knew each other from their youth, growing up in the same neighbourhood – and Manfred brought Andreas in as another graphic designer for Rainbow Arts. They shared an enthusiasm for fast arcade shmups, which then led to them wanting to develop their own game of that mould – a horizontally scrolling, graphically rich shooter with huge boss enemies – something that didn’t exist on the C64 back then. Manfred took care of all the programming and parts of the game design, while Andreas was responsible for all of the graphics and the general design.
At first, however, this was just a hobby project for the two – especially for Andreas, as he was working full time on another game for Rainbow Arts at the time. And according to musician Chris Huelsbeck it wasn’t even known that Manfred could code: “Up until then he was only doing graphics,” he says. “It was with this project that people found out that Manfred was actually a great programmer and wanted to create his own games.”
After a few months of tink
