What is a Doom clone and what is a Wolf3D clone?

[VGA]

After the discussion about that Dread game for the Amiga 500, I started thinking about how the term "Doom clone" is used. Simply put, I don't like all these simplistic "retro shooters" that present themselves as Doom clones but have simple Wolf3D-style maps with no height variation (and the lack of detail this entails, not to mention many of these are fully rectangular).

 

Here are a few examples of games I *don't* consider Doom clones. I would call them Wolf3D clones instead, to differentiate.

 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/893680/Project_Warlock/

 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/490360/Hermodr/

 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/495720/Intrude/

 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/522940/GUN_GODZ/

 

 

 

Here are a few examples of games I do consider Doom clones:

 

https://twitter.com/hellscreen_game?lang=en

 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/719180/Revulsion/

 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/753590/Hellbound/

 

https://store.steampowered.com/app/253610/Wrack/

 

 

[Pechudin]

Just interested, would you describe RoTT as Wolf3D clone (I know it used the modified Wolf3D engine, but it did have other advancements), or DooM clone?

[Noiser]

You can define them by engine, but I prefer a more arbitrary and personal definition, just for fun.

For example, for me Rise of the Tried looks more like a Doom clone despite being a game made on the Wolf3D engine. That because it tries to compete with Doom: Maps with a bigger scale, sky textures, bigger and less pixelated weapons, photo-rendered sprites, etc.

Another example is Dusk, despite being made on Unity, I think it really fits together with Quake, Hexen 2 or Chasm, specially when you turn on that chunky pixels and paletted look. LAB is a more cartoony game made on Flash that I would put together with Wolf3D, Blake Stone or Corridor 7.

Again, it's just an arbitrary definition. "Doom clone" was a term on the 90's, made before people started calling shooters as FPS. Now it doesn't mean much anymore.

Edited March 5, 2020 by Noiser

[VGA]

ROTT has fake height "variation" with its platforming and its map is way more complex than Wolf3D. But I would rather prefer to call it a Wolf3D clone, this is probably more accurate because the map geometry is not 2.5D.

 

Dusk is a Quake clone, not a Doom clone.

[Noiser]

3 minutes ago, VGA said:

Dusk is a Quake clone, not a Doom clone.

That's what I tried to say. I feel it as a Quake clone, despite not being made on the Quake engine.

[Doomkid]

I think it’s different for everyone (or the 5 of us left who care). For me, soon as I see height variation and outdoor areas, the thought of it being a Wolf clone goes right out the door.

 

Even though it is unfair to Doom to call obvious Wolf3D ripoffs “Doom clones”, I think that term was just all encompassing regardless of engine functionality before “FPS” caught on.

 

Even Duke Nukem, which was a lot more daring with level design and engine features, was still relegated to “Doom clone” status. Quake and Goldeneye were the first couple of games where it started to become obvious that “Doom clone” was no longer an accurate way to refer to an entire genre[/tangent]

[Maggle]

I think it depends. If a game simply has no height variation in its level design, but otherwise has Shotguns, Rocket Launchers, Chainsaws, Armor, Projectile Tossing Monsters, Liquids like water and acid, Colored Keys and lots of switches, then it's probably a Doom Clone in an engine that's less sophisticated than Doom's. A game is only a Wolf3D Clone if it has a similar gameplay loop to Wolfenstein 3D, which can be done with or without height variation. 

 

The game you're referring to, Dread on the Amiga 500, is only called a "Doom Clone" because it's literally made out of FreeDoom assets. The term "Doom Clone" really hasn't been used in the last 20 years, and for good reason. It's a poor descriptor that just came across as condescending and accusatory on paper. Hence the need for a new term, First Person Shooter. When the term is used nowadays, it's usually used to refer to literal doom clones, like Dread and FreeDoom, as opposed to, say, Duke Nukem 3D. Same deal with Wolf3D Clones. You're way overthinking this.

[BBQgiraffe]

I consider Doom clones games that try to mimic the graphics/gameplay, I would consider something like Star Wars: Dark Forces to be a Doom clone, but something like Nitemare 3D would be a Wolf3D clone

[Super Mighty G]

"Doom clone" refers to games in the 90s that tried to emulate Doom. Using it in any other context is a misnomer. 

[ReaperAA]

5 hours ago, BBQgiraffe said:

I consider Doom clones games that try to mimic the graphics/gameplay, I would consider something like Star Wars: Dark Forces to be a Doom clone, but something like Nitemare 3D would be a Wolf3D clone

 

My opinion is same.

[VGA]

9 hours ago, BBQgiraffe said:

I consider Doom clones games that try to mimic the graphics/gameplay, I would consider something like Star Wars: Dark Forces to be a Doom clone, but something like Nitemare 3D would be a Wolf3D clone

This also fits with the height variation requirement!

[Gez]

To me a Wolf clone is a game made out of squares. They can cheat a bit by having varying heights, even sometimes slopes and even angled corner pieces, but in the end if it's cells in a regular grid then it's a Wolf clone. Doom clones no longer deal with cells, but with arbitrary lines.

 

Basically, a Wolf clone's maps are like bitmap graphics, where you define the pixels, and a Doom clone's maps are like vector graphics, where you define shapes.

[seed]

Neither poll option is good enough.

 

A "Doom clone" is basically a game that tries to emulate the gameplay and feel of the OG Doom, same for Wolf3D, but by sticking a bit too much to the original formula which results in a lack of sharp distinction between the products. An example of a Doom clone would be Star Wars Dark Forces, and a Wolf3D one would be Blake Stone. "Doom/Wolf3D clone" used in any other context is both inaccurate and misleading.

Edited March 5, 2020 by seed

[Maggle]

I don't get how Star Wars Dark Forces is a Doom Clone, considering how different it is from Doom. I'm gonna need this explained to me.

[Gez]

How is it different from Doom? You have level geometry made out of sectors, you run around them in first person, and you have guns that you use to shoot your enemies, who are shown as sprites. There are doors, and elevators, and switches, and keys for the doors.

 

The engine is more advanced than Doom's, featuring scripting capacity, some cutscene, and some limited amount of 3D rendering, you get a lives system and can't save during missions, and of course it's Star Wars themed, but otherwise, it's very close to Doom. Arguably it's closer to Build engine games, since it's a portal renderer and the native image format is absolutely atrocious, but them's the break.

[seed]

^ Ditto.

 

Apart from some gameplay changes, most notably the lack of a saving system and replacing it with lives, + the theme of course, it can be mostly described as "Doom, but in Star Wars universe". There are some SW-themed wads out there, some rather solid stuff too, and it's amazing how easy it is to emulate it, blurring the distinction even further. Could you do that with a Build game for instance? Not really. It will do the look part just fine, but feel completely different.

[Quiver]

What about that one Korean fps called “Hades” or “하데스”? Only thing I remember about it is that it has only one sound channel that is constantly overloaded by tons of explosion sounds. 

[VGA]

3 hours ago, Quiver said:

What about that one Korean fps called “Hades” or “하데스”? Only thing I remember about it is that it has only one sound channel that is constantly overloaded by tons of explosion sounds. 

http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/korea/part2/company-ablex.htm

 

Interesting, a Doom clone with voxel terrain! Heh ...

 

@Maggle

Doom clone doesn't mean a game that tries to clone Doom. It means a first person shooter with generally similar movement and combat to Doom, pickups, switches etc. And usually freelook and/or jumping is not an important element of the game. Also, usually the maps are not 3D but 2.5D. And the weapons and enemies are sprites instead of 3D models.

[fufu]

13 hours ago, VGA said:

Doom clone doesn't mean a game that tries to clone Doom. It means a first person shooter with generally similar movement and combat to Doom, pickups, switches etc. And usually freelook and/or jumping is not an important element of the game. Also, usually the maps are not 3D but 2.5D. And the weapons and enemies are sprites instead of 3D models.

So 99% of fps games released on the 90s are doom clones?

[VGA]

Of course not, I wouldn't call Half-Life, Unreal and Quake engine games "Doom clones". For these games freelook-aiming and 3D geometry are strong elements. Also, they use 3D models ... hey, look at me repeating my previous post, please read the post you quoted.

[kinker31]

Wolf3D Based: Wolfenstein 3D, Blake Stone, RoTT, Ken's Labyrinth, Corridor 7

idTech 1 Based: Doom, Heretic, Dark Forces, Hexen, Pursuit of Greed (Greed was made with a proto-Doom engine), Chex Quest, Strife

Build Engine Based: Duke Nuken, Shadow Warrior, Redneck Rampage, Ion Fury, Powerslave, Blood, Witchaven

idTech 2 Based: Quake, Half Life, Goldeneye, Wrath, Heretic and Hexen 2, Resident Evil 2, Day of Defeat, Counter-Strike

 

Anything based off of Quake 2, Quake 3, Half Life 2 and/or beyond can be considered "modern FPSes" at that point, since Quake 2 introduced a lot of fancy hardware stuff that paved the way for modern FPSes.

[taufan99]

QUAKE and Hexen II are id Tech 2 based? I thought those were never considered part of id Tech 2, but rather an engine of their own (Quake Engine).

[BouncyTEM]

Yeah, id Tech 2 is actually the Quake 2 engine. Quake 1's falls out of that line.

[Graf Zahl]

From a technological standpoint Quake would be idtech 2 and Q2 would be idtech 2.1. They are too closely related to be considered two distinct generations.

 

Also, when thinking about "Doom clone", Quake would be the first game to come to mind. Despite the newer engine its gameplay is closest to Doom and shares the most striking trait: abstract level design that doesn't even try to recreate realistic locations.

 

None of the Build games features that, they all tried to go for more realism, even Blood with its anachronistic out-of-time setting.

 

[seed]

The Hexen 2 engine was based on Quake 2's engine iirc, and it was quite a bit different unlike Hexen vs Doom engine. This also prevented a ZDoom-like port from being made.

 

2 hours ago, Graf Zahl said:

Also, when thinking about "Doom clone", Quake would be the first game to come to mind. Despite the newer engine its gameplay is closest to Doom and shares the most striking trait: abstract level design that doesn't even try to recreate realistic locations.

 

Oh? That's a weird assessment tbh. Apart from abstract level design and centered weapons without reload, nothing screams Doom at all to me. Not the locations, not the atmosphere, not the enemies, or the sound design/music.

[Graf Zahl]

What's so weird about it?

When I see Doom I see a game where people made levels.

When I see Duke I see a game where people created quasi-realistic locations within the confines of a 2.5D engine

When I see Blood I see a game where people made some locations situated in a parallel universe (all the anachronisms and such.)

When I see Shadow Warrior or Redneck Rampage I see a game where people tried to up the ante on Duke's style of realism.

When I see Quake I see a game where people made levels.

When I see Quake2 I see a game where people created an alien high tech environment.

 

See the similarity? ;) Basically, Doom, Heretic and Quake are the ones where the locations are so abstract that they cannot be really placed. Hence "Doom clone".

 

[Doomkid]

I forgot about this old ass thread, but for those who like playing through/looking around Wolf and Doom clones, this old thread may be of some help to guide you.

 

Graf, I would definitely agree in terms of raw design concepts that Quake is the closest to Doom for the reason you mentioned. However, on a technical level, Build engine games look much more like Doom in that the guns and enemies are 256 color sprites of roughly the same resolution, they often feature a similar HUD, and other traits that are really somewhat superficial, since they're a result of hardware constraints of the era.

 

Really, all of these games that were made with any degree of care deserve to simply be called FPS in this day. The only stuff that should be called a "clone" is rubbish like Super Noah's Ark 3D. Even a game like Blake Stone, which is clearly using the Wolf engine, had enough love put into it to simply be called an "oldschool FPS" rather than being relegated to knockoff status. I'm glad that the "Doom/Wolf Clone" label is largely dead.

[Gez]

19 minutes ago, Doomkid said:

rubbish like Super Noah's Ark 3D

You're gonna make @Blzut3 sad.

[VGA]

58 minutes ago, Graf Zahl said:

What's so weird about it?

When I see Doom I see a game where people made levels.

When I see Duke I see a game where people created quasi-realistic locations within the confines of a 2.5D engine

When I see Blood I see a game where people made some locations situated in a parallel universe (all the anachronisms and such.)

When I see Shadow Warrior or Redneck Rampage I see a game where people tried to up the ante on Duke's style of realism.

When I see Quake I see a game where people made levels.

When I see Quake2 I see a game where people created an alien high tech environment.

 

See the similarity? ;) Basically, Doom, Heretic and Quake are the ones where the locations are so abstract that they cannot be really placed. Hence "Doom clone".

 

But the gameplay is so different between Doom and Quake! You believe Quake is a Doom clone because of the modding capabilities and the abstract maps?

 

By the way, Doom is way more abstract and arcadey than Quake :D Ask Sandy Petersen!

[Graf Zahl]

3 minutes ago, VGA said:

But the gameplay is so different between Doom and Quake!

 

I always considered the gameplay between those rather similar. Aside from bringing 3D into the picture, Quake is a game without any real new ideas, it's more a natural evolution of Doom's concepts as technology advanced. In that regard the Build games were far ahead and showcased where game design was heading in the coming years with their more grounded-in-reality environments.