Wolfenstein 3D

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.

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
The engine is fairly simple, using maps composed of tiles, which only allow 90-degree angles between walls. Planes are shaded with flat colors instead of having textures. 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, and Operation Bodycount, which enhance the engine with numerous features, some similar to those ID added to Doom such as textured planes, distance shading, teleporters and switches.

Fanbase
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 Although Doom and its successors quickly superseded Wolfenstein to become an equally important milestone in the development of the first-person shooter, Wolfenstein still enjoys a substantial following on the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

 * The style of game divided in episodes is very similar to Wolfenstein. Wolfenstein had 3 episodes, each with 9 levels (and 1 secret level), and later the expansion pack "The Nocturnal Missions" with 3 new episodes was added. Doom had 3 episodes, with 8 levels (and 1 secret level) each, and an expansion pack with 1 new episodes was also released. Both games had a boss at the end of each episode. Both shareware versions included only the first episode.
 * The first episode of Doom contains only a couple of very weak opponents, and in the end there is a boss with 1,000 hit points. This resembles Wolfenstein gameplay style. However later episodes of Doom included more powerfull weapons and enemies, and the bosses were much more powerfull than any enemy.
 * The second Wolfenstein game, Spear of Destiny, included 18 new levels (and 2 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, including an health, ammo and keys display. Early versions of Doom would include an score, lives or weapon display.
 * The status bar face, which is very similar to the one in Wolfenstein, including a grin face when the player pick-up the Chaingun. Spear of Destiny also had an Ouch Face.
 * Originally Wolfenstein had 3 weapons, the Pistol, Machinegun and Chaingun, all which used the same ammo. Doom still keep the Pistol and Chaingun, however instead of the Machinegun it included the Shotgun which used a different set of ammo.
 * The ammo clip of Doom is similar to that of Wolfenstein, and is also dropped by the most common of enemy.
 * The Zombieman resemble the Guard, being the most common enemy, and the rifle he used is fairly similar to the pistol of the Guard. The Demon behaves almost identical to the dog.
 * The appearance of the Heavy weapon dude heavily resembles the Hans Grosse.
 * The super chaingun used by the Spider Demon has the same style of chainguns used by the bosses in Wolfenstein.

Homages in Doom

 * 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.