Catacombs: The Rescued (Previously Presumed Lost) 1981 Version

(Continued from my previous posts on Catacombs, which you probably should read before this one if you want the full background.) Last weekend, I received a message from Marcel Ingram Lansing that one of the most sought-after Commodore PET games had been rescued. Specifically, Colin Haynes had copies of both Catacombs and Goblin Towers by Brian Cotton in Commodore PET disk format. They’re part of a series of five adventures from the author published by Supersoft starting in early 1981. Goblin Towers we already had in something close to the original form, but Catacombs we’ve only had as a broken DOS port from five years later which is impossible to beat. Catacombs is one of the earliest commercial British text adventures, and given how many they eventually came out of the country, it’s not exaggerating to say a landmark has now been preserved. LONG ASIDE: The first ad for Catacombs was from February 1981. Based on Gareth Pitchford’s research, we know of four (or maybe three) adventure…