“This will take you beyond the edge of darkness into a world of terror and fear. The ship may be state-of-the-art but is the pilot good enough to survive this merciless battle?” This ist the back flap text for Catalypse, a horizontally scrolling shooter released for the Commodore 64 by the Italian game company Genias in cooperation with Swiss publisher Linel in 1992. The game was programmed by Andrea Pompili, and the music was composed by Michael Tschögl.

Catalypse is a horizontally scrolling shoot'em up where you guide your ship against the alien CLIO civilization through five large levels, including a moon base, an alien forest, dark caverns, and an ancient city. The levels are full of small enemies, both stationary and mobile. There are also bigger mid-level creatures and, of course, level-end guardians. These include screen-filling giant creatures, robots, and spaceships. On your way, you collect cumulative weapon power-ups hidden in capsules. Available are angled forward shots, a backward shot, an angled bouncing laser, a powerful forward laser, and up to two hovering and indestructible satellites. Unique characteristics of the game include sampled speech in the introduction and an extended animated ending sequence.

The game was specially designed for Commodore C64. The flap promises: “ This will take your Computer to it's limits.” Genias had their offices at Via A. Volta, 2/A in 40055 Castenaso (Bologna). The game impresses with its good programming (occasional flickering of some sprites) and funny level design. “The graphic designer was clearly inspired by the shoot-'em-ups “Armalyte” and “IO” and drew the graphics in the same style. Despite this “borrowing,” the graphics are unique. The sound rounds off the successful appearance and is generous with appealing effects.” (64er, 6/1992, p. 92)

Since it was one more shoot’em up at the time, there have been discussions about the influence of other shoot’em ups and generally the quality and fun-factor oft he game. The British magazine Zap gave it a 30% rating, which was contested by many players. At the other end, it received very hig scores by other C64 mags; Commodore Format rated it with 91%! YouTube presenter “Press Fire to Start” elaborates in 2009: “At first glance, this game appears to be an attempt to copy the look and feel of Armalyte (1988); however, it plays quite differently, mainly due to the relative lack of power in the player's standard weapon and collectable diverging fire. Although this sense of being underpowered initially leads to frustration, the addition of the collectible bouncing 45-degree angle lasers and the two drone ships (called catalytes in this game help to even the score.” The game mechanics seem rather sophisticated, for example, when you lose a life, you lose your catalytes and the forward firing laser, but your bouncing lasers are kept and you also keep a weak diverging fire.

On Lemonamiga, Dan Locke comments in 2009: “What an awesome game! I don't see much of a resemblance to Armalyte, […]. If the gameplay is good, the presentation is stunning. There's a cool animated intro and an even cooler animated ending, and music and sound effects play simultaneously - a bafflingly rare feature in a C64 game. The in-game graphics have been drawn and animated with care, and few games look better. […] If this isn't the most well-executed shoot-em-up on the C64, it's at least in the top 3. Play this magnificent game - you won't regret it!”