Wolfenstein 3d Wiki

Wolfenstein 3d bosses wikiWolfenstein 3d Wiki

From DoomWiki.org

Wolfenstein 3D

This article is a stub. You can help the Slender Fortress Wiki by expanding it. Wolfenstein 3D is a map in slender fortress Based off of the original Wolfenstein 3D level, this map tasks the players to take down the Nazi Warlord himself. Adolf Hitler, sporting his classic sprite and sounds. Wolfenstein has three weapons, the pistol, the machine gun and the chaingun, all which use the same ammo. Doom still kept the pistol and chaingun.

Wolfenstein 3D (also written Wolfenstein 3-D) is a first-person shooter created by id Software and published by Apogee Software in 1992. It involves the adventures of an Allied soldier, B.J. Blazkowicz, fighting his way through a series of Nazi dungeons during World War II. It owes much of its success to an aggressive shareware marketing campaign which was later repeated with even greater success for Doom. It also spawned a commercial prequel, Spear of Destiny, which used the same engine. Since then several Wolfenstein games have been made on newer tech.

Wolfenstein 3D manual art

Inspiration for this game came from the even older 2D games Castle Wolfenstein and Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, published by Muse Software. Unlike these predecessors, Wolfenstein 3D shifted the focus away from puzzle solving in favor of more action-oriented gameplay. Though id had planned to include more strategic elements seen in these earlier games (such as wearing captured uniforms and dragging bodies), these features made gameplay too complex, slowing the action down. The final release did retain some arcade-style concepts, such as lives and scoring.

Technical[edit]

The engine is a fairly simple textbook raycaster, using maps composed of tiles, which only allow 90-degree angles between walls. While walls are textured, horizontal planes forming the floor and ceiling are shaded with flat colors. Much of the source code for Wolfenstein 3D was later reused in Apogee's Rise of the Triad, released in 1995. Like the Doom engine, the Wolfenstein 3D engine was also used for several other games; Blake Stone: Aliens of Gold, Blake Stone: Planet Strike, Corridor 7: Alien Invasion, Operation Bodycount, and Super 3D Noah's Ark, which enhance the engine with numerous features, some similar to those id Software added to Doom such as textured planes, distance shading, teleporters and switches.

The game data is spread across four files (AUDIOT, GAMEMAPS, VGAGRAPH, and VSWAP) with four additional files (AUDIOHED, VGADICT, VGAHEAD, and MAPHEAD) containing metadata such as offset positions, size, and compression dictionary allowing to actually retrieve the game data. The file names are hardcoded, but the extension varies depending on the game — WL1 for the shareware, WL3 for the registered game, WL6 for the full game with the added 'nocturnal missions', SDM for the Spear of Destiny demo, and SOD for the full Spear of Destiny game. Each data blob is referenced in the executable by its hardcoded index position, rather than by a lump name; and since different versions of the game have different amounts of game data, the offsets change for each version. This design has two consequences: it is not possible to replace only one part of the resources from one data file, all the other resources need to be included as well; and in addition each version of the game needs its own executable. Playing a mod involves replacing the relevant data files by the modded ones.

Despite these hurdles, a Wolfenstein modding scene emerged fairly quickly, and because of them many mods had to be essentially stand-alone games that did not require the player to actually own the games before they can play them, a practice to which id Software naturally objected. The WAD format used in Doom was intended to resolve these problems: identifying resources by lump names allow to simplify the engine considerably by not having to maintain different index lists for different versions, which also allows to have the same executable running all versions of all Doom IWADs, and it also makes modding much easier by allowing to put all data in a single file whose content can override that from the main game file without having to replace it.

Probably because British school kids in the 1980's and 90's took Ordinary Level (O-Level) exams in their major subjects, too. She is very Luna-esque, in personality, and is just spot on for me.' Harry potter and the order of the phoenix online free. Ever wonder why wizards take Ordinary Wizarding Level exams (O.W.L.s)? The queen has spoken.

Fanbase[edit]

At the time of its release, Wolfenstein 3D was seen as a revolutionary new product, and is regarded by many to be the grandfather of all FPS games, as it popularized the genre tremendously. It is especially noteworthy for having directly led to the development and publication of Doom just a year after its release. Although Doom and its successors quickly superseded Wolfenstein on a technical level to become an equally important milestone in the development of the first-person shooter, Wolfenstein still enjoys a substantial following on the Internet, including websites, user-created maps, and even totally new games based on the source code, which was released on July 21, 1995.

Similarities with Doom engine games[edit]

  • The style of game divided in episodes is very similar to Wolfenstein. Initially, Wolfenstein had three episodes, each with nine levels and a secret level. Later on, the expansion pack 'The Nocturnal Missions' with three new episodes was added. Doom had three episodes originally, with eight levels and a secret level each, and an expansion pack with a new episode was also released. Both games have a boss at the end of each episode. Both shareware versions include only the first episode.
  • The first episode of Doom contains only a couple of weak opponents, and in the end there is a boss that is supreme in comparison with them. This resembles Wolfenstein's gameplay style. However, later episodes of Doom include more powerful weapons and enemies, and the bosses are much more powerful than any enemy.
  • The second Wolfenstein game, Spear of Destiny, includes 19 new levels and two secret levels in a single campaign, and the episode select screen was removed. Doom II was released in a very similar way.
  • The status bar has the same style, including displays for health, ammo and keys. Early versions of Doom included displays for score and lives, and the selected weapon was also illustrated in the bar.
  • The supercharge power-up in Doom resembles the extra lives in Wolfenstein.
  • The status bar face is very similar to the one in Wolfenstein, including a grin face when the player picks up the chaingun. Spear of Destiny also had an Ouch Face and the face has golden eyes in god mode.
  • Wolfenstein has three weapons, the pistol, the machine gun and the chaingun, all which use the same ammo. Doom still kept the pistol and chaingun. However, instead of the machine gun, it included the shotgun which used a different set of ammo.
  • The ammo clip sprite of Doom is similar to that of Wolfenstein, and is also dropped by the most common type of enemy.
  • The Doom demons act almost exactly like the Wolfenstein dogs.
  • The chaingunner is somewhat reminiscent of the first Wolfenstein boss, Hans Grosse.
  • The chaingun carried by the Wolfenstein bosses looks similar to the spiderdemon's chaingun. The most clear similarity is that they both have six barrels.
  • The rocket launcher carried by Otto Giftmacher and General Fettgesicht fires similar homing missiles to those of the revenant's, complete with smoke trail.
  • Similar to Wolfenstein 3D, Doom has a particular door texture used for the start area and the final room.
  • Excluding the textures used in the two secrets level in Doom II, the following flats and patches are ripped or based on Wolfenstein 3D walls:
    • FLAT1_1 and FLAT1_2
    • FLAT5_7 and FLAT5_8
    • GRNROCK, RROCK13, RW30_1, RW30_2 and RW30_3
    • RROCK11 and RW1_1
    • RW35_1 and RW35_2
    • RW41_3 and RW41_4

Homages in Doom engine games[edit]

  • The swastika room of E1M4: Command Control (removed in version 1.4 and subsequent revisions).
  • The SS Nazi monster, based on the same enemy in Wolfenstein 3D.
  • The two secret levels, which are recreations of E1L1 and E1L9. Instead of attack dogs, brown-uniformed foot soldiers, and Hans Grosse, the player encounters Demons, the SS Nazi troopers, and a Cyberdemon respectively. The secret levels also include music from Wolfenstein 3D and Spear of Destiny.

See also[edit]

  • Doom II's secret levels: MAP31: Wolfenstein and MAP32: Grosse
  • Raven engine, a technological stopgap between Wolfenstein and Doom
  • Wolfenstein 3D TC for ZDoom at the ZDoomwiki

Sources[edit]

  • This article incorporates text from the open-content Wikipedia online encyclopedia article Wolfenstein 3D.

External links[edit]

  • id Software's Wolfenstein 3D site (archived 🏛)
  • id Software's Spear of Destiny site (archived 🏛)
  • Download Wolfenstein 3D shareware at Gamers.org
  • Download Spear of Destiny demo at Gamers.org
Retrieved from 'https://doomwiki.org/w/index.php?title=Wolfenstein_3D&oldid=213730'
Castle Wolfenstein
Developer(s)Muse Software
Publisher(s)Muse Software
Designer(s)Silas Warner
SeriesWolfenstein
Platform(s)Apple II, MS-DOS, Atari 8-bit, Commodore 64
Release1981
Genre(s)Stealth, action-adventure
Mode(s)Single-player

Castle Wolfenstein is a stealth-based, action-adventure, shootervideo game developed by Muse Software for the Apple II. It was released in 1981 and ported to MS-DOS, the Atari 8-bit family, and the Commodore 64. Beyond Castle Wolfenstein is its sequel. With an emphasis on trying to avoid detection for as long as possible, Castle Wolfenstein and its sequel are considered by gamers to be prototypical stealth-based games—some of the first in a genre that would not gain popularity until the late 1990s.

Gameplay[edit]

Castle Wolfenstein is a stealth-based action-adventure shooter game set in World War II. The game's main objective is to traverse the levels of the castle to find the secret war plans and escape alive. There are a total of 60 discrete rooms in the castle, on five separate floors. Although the internal contents of rooms are shuffled at the beginning of each game, the path through the castle always remains unchanged. Therefore, it is possible to fully map the castle, and then utilize the map during subsequent games. Progressively higher military ranks are earned upon each successful escape with the war plans, and the game becomes correspondingly more difficult as each higher rank is achieved. There are eight ranks, beginning with Private and culminating at the rank of Field Marshal.

The game is played from a top-down perspective, though the characters are seen upright like in a side-scroller. The player traverses the levels by sneaking past, impersonating, and sometimes even killing Nazi soldiers. Castle Wolfenstein can be controlled with a joystick, paddles, or a keyboard.

The player starts the game with a gun and ammunition. Once the player starts moving, he attracts the attention of the guards, who will try to shoot or apprehend him. He must either run from the guards or kill them. There are two styles of guards, the basic guards, and the SS Stormtroopers who wear bullet-proof vests marked with the SS insignia. The basic guards are not very intelligent, reacting only to the sounds of gunshots and grenades, or after seeing the player wandering around without a uniform, and will gladly walk their patrol paths into your raised gun and surrender to a search. Additionally, they are unable to leave the rooms they are stationed in. The SS guards are much smarter and, once alerted, tend to chase the player from room to room. They require a large number of rounds or a grenade to kill.

The player can kill enemies by firing the pistol (which expends ammunition, a scarce commodity, and risks raising the alarm if another guard is present) or throwing a grenade (though this will also attract the attention of nearby guards). Once an enemy soldier is dispatched, his body can be searched for ammunition, keys, grenades and bullet-proof vests. If the player reaches maximum carrying capacity, any remaining ammo and grenades will be left on the body. To avoid detection, the player can find a uniform (either in a chest or from a dead guard), which will convince the normal guards that the player is one of them. However, the SS guards will usually expose the player as an impostor. Pulling a gun on a guard usually will cause him to put his hands up, allowing him to be frisked for ammo, bullet-proof vests, grenades, and keys, depriving the guard of the full quantity of these he carries. Any in excess of the player's carrying capacity disappear from the game. Optionally the player can kill the guard at this point.[citation needed]

The Commodore 64 version of the game (released in 1983).

Some rooms contain locked chests that can be picked and searched. Some are empty, but others contain useful items such as bullets, grenades, uniforms, bullet-proof vests and the war plans. Chests can also contain bratwurst, Liebfraumilch wine, Schnapps, Eva Braun's Diaries, cannonballs, and medals, though all are worthless in gameplay. Edible items, when ingested, result in comments on their flavor. After drinking an alcoholic beverage, the player's aim is temporarily thrown off balance, resulting in bullets and grenades missing their target.

Other than the outer walls of the room and the stairs, the entire room is destructible using grenades. This can be necessary in order to access a chest from another direction if a body has fallen in front of it: searching a body has precedence over opening a locked chest. Chests can also be destroyed with a grenade, but if the chest contains explosives (bullets, grenades, or cannonballs) it will explode and end the game. Chests can also be shot open, but attempting to do so also risks setting off any explosive contents.

Running straight into walls temporarily stuns the player, but vertical walls can be clipped slightly by the player's motion and not stun him. Also, some horizontal walls can be walked into from the side without effect. Fallen dead guards can also allow the player to walk through horizontal wall segments and chests, albeit not from directly below. Surviving guards and SS will not walk over bodies, so they can be used to block passage to areas of the room, trap guards in cul-de-sacs, as well as block entrance by the SS into rooms.

One of the main drawing points for fans was its unprecedented use of digitized voices. German words shouted by the guards, such as 'Halt!' ('Stop!') and 'Kommen Sie!' ('Come!') were frequent. Though limitations in technology only allowed for a few distorted shouts, the voices added to the game's atmosphere and made Castle Wolfenstein stand out from other games released at the time.

Plot[edit]

An Allied spy has been captured and taken to Castle Wolfenstein for interrogation by the SS and is subsequently thrown into the dungeon. A dying prisoner emerges from a hiding place and in his last moments, hands the spy a fully loaded Mauser C96 pistol. The spy proceeds to escape the dungeon, steal the battle plans from the officers' headquarters and leave Castle Wolfenstein.[1]

Development[edit]

Castle Wolfenstein magazine advertisement from 1981

Silas Warner was inspired to create Castle Wolfenstein after seeing the video game Berzerk at an arcade, and then watching the 1961 film adaptation of The Guns of Navarone on television a few weeks later.[2]

Reception[edit]

Reception
Review score
PublicationScore
AllGame[3]

Debuting in September 1981, Castle Wolfenstein sold 20,000 copies by June 1982.[4]Creative Computing Video & Arcade Games criticized the Apple version's slow gameplay but concluded that 'the thrill of the escape is worth the wait'.[5]Ahoy! criticized the Commodore 64 version's slow load times and annoying wall-collision detection, but called Castle Wolfenstein 'addicting. I am not all that big on killing everything that moves, but I really got caught up in the adventure'.[6]Antic criticized the Atari 8-bit version's use of the Apple II original's 'lousy sound and black-white-green-purple graphics'.[7]

The Apple II version received a Certificate of Merit in the 'Computer Game of the Year' category at the 4th annual Arkie Awards.[8] A 1991 Computer Gaming World survey of strategy and war games gave Castle Wolfenstein one and a half stars out of five.[9] However, in 1996, the magazine named Castle Wolfenstein the 116th best game ever.[10]

Legacy[edit]

Castle Wolfenstein became so popular that by 1984 at least one commercial game trainer for a video game was created for it.[11] Muse released a sequel, Beyond Castle Wolfenstein, which is similar in gameplay and appearance. The objective is to assassinate Adolf Hitler with a bomb hidden in a briefcase, similar to the 20 July plot as part of Operation Valkyrie implemented by Claus von Stauffenberg.

Castle Wolfenstein inspired the game Wolfenstein 3D and its sequel Spear of Destiny by id Software,[12] which were both released in 1992 and helped popularize the first-person shooter genre. Id went on to release Return to Castle Wolfenstein in 2001, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory in 2003, Wolfenstein in 2009. Wolfenstein: The New Order, using the Id game engineid Tech 5, but developed and published by MachineGames and Bethesda Softworks, respectively, was released in 2014.

A 1983 hack named Castle Smurfenstein which replaces the Nazis with Smurfs[13] is regarded as one of the earliest examples of the art mod.[14]

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^'Castle Wolfenstein advert'. Computer Gaming World. No. 1. Golden Empire Publications. December 1981. p. 5.
  2. ^Olson, Mathew (26 October 2017). 'The Best Way to Experience the 'Wolfenstein' Games'. Digg. Retrieved 16 January 2020.
  3. ^Cavanaugh, Chris. 'Castle Wolfenstein Review'. AllGame. Archived from the original on December 10, 2014. Retrieved March 21, 2017.
  4. ^'Inside the Industry'(PDF). Computer Gaming World. September–October 1982. p. 2. Retrieved 2016-03-28.
  5. ^Ahl, David H.; Brill, Andrew; Lubar, David; Coffey, Michael; Archibald, Dale (Spring 1983). 'Apple Computer Games'. Creative Computing Video & Arcade Games. Vol. 1 no. 1. p. 86.
  6. ^Herring, Richard (June 1984). 'Castle Wolfenstein'. Ahoy!. pp. 57–58. Retrieved 27 June 2014.
  7. ^Bernstein, Harvey (May 1985). 'Beyond Castle Wolfenstein'. Antic. p. 83. Retrieved 8 January 2015.
  8. ^Kunkel, Bill; Katz, Arnie (March 1983). 'Arcade Alley: The Best Computer Games'. Video. Vol. 6 no. 12. Reese Communications. pp. 32–33. ISSN0147-8907.
  9. ^Brooks, M. Evan (November 1991). 'Computer Strategy and Wargames: The 1900-1950 Epoch / Part I (A-L) of an Annotated Paiktography'. Computer Gaming World. p. 138. Retrieved 18 November 2013.
  10. ^'150 Best Games of All Time'. Computer Gaming World. November 1996. pp. 64–80. Retrieved 25 March 2016.
  11. ^'If they won't fix Castle Wolfenstein, we will'(PDF). Computer Gaming World. Vol. 4 no. 1. February 1984. p. 15. Retrieved 17 April 2016.
  12. ^Plunkett, Luke. 'In Memory of the Original Castle Wolfenstein (the one That Wasn't In 3D)'. Kotaku. Retrieved 24 December 2011.
  13. ^'Triumph of the Mod'. Salon. 2002-04-16. Archived from the original on 2015-07-03. Retrieved 2013-04-01.
  14. ^Bogacs, Hannes. Game Mods: A Survey of Modifications, Appropriation and Videogame Art. Vienna University of Technology - Design and Assessment of Technologies Institute. February 2008.

External links[edit]

  • Castle Wolfenstein at MobyGames
  • Castle Wolfenstein can be played for free in the browser at the Internet Archive
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Castle_Wolfenstein&oldid=947773990'