Wolfenstein 3D HTML5

[lazarv]

Play it online!
http://wolf3d.freebase.hu/

[Planky]

Plays well. The sounds take a while to load and have a delay before they are played, but gradually catches up.

You might want to change that to the shareware version. The full Wolf3d has not been released as freeware you know.

[lazarv]

All maps, graphics, music and sound effects are available in this repository.
https://github.com/id-Software/Wolf3D-iOS

[lazarv]

Alternative URL if the original link is broken due to bandwith limit.
http://wolf3d.atw.hu/

[Mr. T]

lazarv said:

Play it online!
http://wolf3d.freebase.hu/

Amazing! Well done! :-)

[Kinsie]

Id and Bethesda just released their own port, coincidentally enough.

[lazarv]

Trasher][ said:
Id and Bethesda just released their own port, coincidentally enough.

And which version is better? :)

[Maes]

lazarv said:

And which version is better? :)

The interesting thing about Bethesda's port is that the javascript source code is in plaintext, and it looks like a 1:1 adaptation of the original Wolf3D's C source code (kind of like what I did with Mocha Doom for Java), at least the way I remember it.

I'm surprised they chose this method, but in the end it might be more efficient than a cross compiling tools and more faithful than a recreation. The price to pay is that some poor devil must put his ass down and translate the whole thing (ask me about it!)

[Kira]

lazarv's version is way better in my opinion. It has (poor) mouse support though.

[Maes]

Some notes:

• Movement seems performed in fixed steps aka you can't move or turn just a bit if you want to. Pressing forward once moves you a fixed relatively large amount, or until you encounter a wall. Compare it with the movment of the Bethesda version to see what I mean.
  
• The quit options in the menu don't work (ok, there's no DOS to quit to...but pressing N doesn't get you back to the game, either).
  

[lazarv]

Maes said:

Some notes:

• Movement seems performed in fixed steps aka you can't move or turn just a bit if you want to. Pressing forward once moves you a fixed relatively large amount, or until you encounter a wall. Compare it with the movment of the Bethesda version to see what I mean.
  
• The quit options in the menu don't work (ok, there's no DOS to quit to...but pressing N doesn't get you back to the game, either).
  

The movement is not performed in fixed steps, but I liked this style of controller configuration. It's only a controller setup which is currently not available to the player.

The quit only works only in a new window that has been opened by JavaScript. Thank you for the bug report, N works now fine (clear the browser cache, if not). :)

[Aliotroph?]

The Bethesda version has shitty controls. You can't remap movement away from the cursor keys and the mouse support is done horribly wrong. I found it almost as hard to play as the iPhone version.

[Maes]

Aliotroph? said:

The Bethesda version has shitty controls. You can't remap movement away from the cursor keys and the mouse support is done horribly wrong. I found it almost as hard to play as the iPhone version.

As someone who finished all 6 episodes of Wolf 3D on DOS with the default keyboard controls (and after having played Doom), I find it hard to feel your pain :-p

However, this means that using my Java Doom port as a base, it's possible to do a non-cross-compiled browser-playable version of Doom. Some of the remapping will be painful though, especially disk-based I/O.

Versions of Mocha Doom up to v1.5 used a modified RandomAccessFile object with accessory methods for reading e.g. size-limited or null-terminated strings, which was passed to each object's deserializer -this even worked well with arrays of similar objects, replacing C's read() function, while current ones use input streams and can read even from network streams and zip files. I don't know which approach would map better for JavaScript HTML5.

[lazarv]

Maes said:

As someone who finished all 6 episodes of Wolf 3D on DOS with the default keyboard controls (and after having played Doom), I find it hard to feel your pain :-p

However, this means that using my Java Doom port as a base, it's possible to do a non-cross-compiled browser-playable version of Doom. Some of the remapping will be painful though, especially disk-based I/O.

Versions of Mocha Doom up to v1.5 used a modified RandomAccessFile object with accessory methods for reading e.g. size-limited or null-terminated strings, which was passed to each object's deserializer -this even worked well with arrays of similar objects, replacing C's read() function, while current ones use input streams and can read even from network streams and zip files. I don't know which approach would map better for JavaScript HTML5.

Porting your version is absolutely possible, but HTML5 needs a whole different approach if you want to achieve a good result in performance. Implementing file system and such is too much overhead. Converting the resources to HTML5 friendly formats and using native browser solutions is the best way. But this will be a full rewrite.

[Mr. T]

Maes said:

As someone who finished all 6 episodes of Wolf 3D on DOS with the default keyboard controls (and after having played Doom), I find it hard to feel your pain :-p

FISTBUMP

Wolf3Ds controls felt too "slippery" compared to even Doom. But yeah, it was the coolest thing ever when it came out. SO I think Mr. Complainer should just man up and learn the art of the keyboard. ;-)

[Remilia Scarlet]

This is very cool! I definitely like lazarv's version better, especially the smoothness of everything. But what's interesting is that I get the same weird graphical glitches as Bethesda's version, just less often.

[Mr. T]

Try it in Chrome. I like both; id's version has a certain "roughness" to it that really took me back. If whoever owns Microprose now would do an HTML5 version of Civ1 (complete with color and sound selection screen!) I would probably go catatonic ;D

[Maes]

lazarv said:

Converting the resources to HTML5 friendly formats and using native browser solutions is the best way. But this will be a full rewrite.

The ONE approach I'd wish to avoid would be using "cooked" (aka custom pre-converted) resources and tailor the code to specific data sets, as this would hurt one of Mocha Doom's stronges points: the ability to load PWADs and different IWADs just like native ports. I'm not sure what the Bethesda/id version does at this point.

[lazarv]

Maes said:

The ONE approach I'd wish to avoid would be using "cooked" (aka custom pre-converted) resources and tailor the code to specific data sets, as this would hurt one of Mocha Doom's stronges points: the ability to load PWADs and different IWADs just like native ports. I'm not sure what the Bethesda/id version does at this point.

The id version uses pre-generated images for everything. Even the menu texts is an image sprite.

It would be possible to write a converter in JavaScript and store the result in the local database. I plan to write a JavaScript converter for Wolf3D where you just have to drop the data files into the browser and everything is automatically converted and generated, but it's a whole lot of work. Using custom JavaScript code even new features or modifications of mods can work.

[999cop]

Where's Doomlive?

[fraggle]

I notice that the Medikits are now Geneva-compliant.

EDIT: It seems to be missing the Deathcam. Boo.

[lazarv]

fraggle said:

I notice that the Medikits are now Geneva-compliant.

EDIT: It seems to be missing the Deathcam. Boo.

You can watch the Deathcam replays in my version. :)

[lazarv]

Now my version of the game is updated and includes the Spear of Destiny missions as episode 7. Have fun playing! :)