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geo

A few terrible, modern Wolfenstein 3D clones

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I have a feeling there's some bad Wolfenstiend 3D engine clone that people are just churning out terrible games with. Here are some of the games:

 

CASTLE WEREWOLF 3D

http://store.steampowered.com/app/586520/Castle_Werewolf_3D/

Clearly not Castle Wolfenstien 3D, but it has enough blue bricks and soldiers to make you think otherwise. I played it, the game is slow, clunky, cumbersome, but then that will be a trend in the games I'm about to talk about. The real problem with this particular game is the draw distance is just shrouded in darkness. So even looking at something far enough away its just pitch black. Another issue is lack of a map when you're working your way through a labyrinth that is all one texture.

 

MERGER 3D

http://store.steampowered.com/app/527750/Merger_3D/

Seems like the same engine, but there was more work put into the game so its not a rip-off of Wolfenstien 3D. It plays better, your character is more spry and there's more action. The problem is there are enemies from everywhere so you don't know where the action is coming from. Melee creatures spawn in and trap you against walls. Is there a gunman with a sniper's aim shooting you through two walls of trees? I just don't know.

 

There are one or two others that use whatever this abomination of an engine is. Both games have no achievements and they're DOS based which is a rarity now. There is no map in either game, death sends you back to the title screen, so if you didn't save you're going to have a tough time getting anywhere in either one.

 

Games are getting worse than they were 20+ years ago.

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I thought Intrude was pretty dull, even though its user ratings are very positive for some reason. The whole time I just kept thinking how much I'd rather be playing Wolfenstein 3D. 

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4 hours ago, wheresthebeef said:

Any of it is more acceptable than Space Trucker

 

Never heard of this game before, but oh man, this looks horrendous. How are the system requirements so high? The voice actors sound like they just want to go home. 

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This clearly goes to show that you can still release New games based on old engines though these fail miserable

 

Super 3-D Noah's Ark deserves a mention here, its a copy but ID Officially handed the Code of Wolf3D to Wisdom Tree to create a Clone since they were in bad situations with Nintendo, not that its a bad game infact its better than the craps you listed here, but its not great either.

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52 minutes ago, Maisth said:

This clearly goes to show that you can still release New games based on old engines though these fail miserable

 

Super 3-D Noah's Ark deserves a mention here, its a copy but ID Officially handed the Code of Wolf3D to Wisdom Tree to create a Clone since they were in bad situations with Nintendo, not that its a bad game infact its better than the craps you listed here, but its not great either.

But its not modern.

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16 minutes ago, geo said:

But its not modern.

 

16 minutes ago, geo said:

But its not modern.

shit

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those two games run on a free W3d engine clone called "raycasting game maker" I've used it to make crappy game a while back.  

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Never heard of this game before, but oh man, this looks horrendous. How are the system requirements so high? The voice actors sound like they just want to go home.


That's a small issue compared to plagiarism.

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Funny how free mods for wolfenstein 3D are WAAAAAY better than these paid copycats.

 

I remember playing this wolf3D mod about a woman living in a dystopian world. Dunno, forgot how it was called, also dunno if it was finally finished (I played a demo of it). I mean, it was amazing, even though most of the textures are unoriginal, this mod still managed to capture me, just like that.

 

Meanwhile, just looking at these stuff here repulses me immediately.

 

Am I cheap, or do I have a decent taste?

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The Description of Werewolf 3D is already a bad indication.

 

"Welcome to the sinister castle "Werewolf" where are settled soldiers turned into a bloodthirsty shaggy monsters!
The game is made in the tradition of the classic first-person shooters - especially Wolfenstein 3D. In the game you will have to wait interesting 13 levels of huge castle (dark dungeon, beautiful officers' rooms, scary laboratory, bloody ritual temple and others.), finding secrets (sometimes the walls are not what they seem), various monsters, 6 types of weapons, a lot of bloody effects, classic old school gameplay and much more."

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The sprites and textures look nice. I wish that the games were actually good. I also wish there was a better engine out there to make clones on. 

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4 minutes ago, Coopersville said:

The sprites and textures look nice. I wish that the games were actually good. I also wish there was a better engine out there to make clones on. 

You can use GPL engines (like some Doom source ports) to create commercial Wolf3D or Doom clones.

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9 hours ago, Battle_Kirby said:

Funny how free mods for wolfenstein 3D are WAAAAAY better than these paid copycats.

 

You are really surprised?

People who make free mods do so out of love for the game.

These cheap ass rip-offs are just money scams, possibly built out of stolen assets from various sources and near zero investment. Find 1000 fools to pay for them and it was worth the effort.

 

The number of reviews, albeit bad, show that there's an audience that would pay for this shit.

Hell, if I had some assets to burn I'd probably do the same thing to earn some quick money. :D

 

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*Wolfenstein

On-topic: I'm not sure if these games are made in Raycasting Game Maker or something else. It could very well be, considering their overall level of shittyness.

It's funny, because I'm part of several indie game designer groups on social media, and we get a lot of messages by aspiring game-designers saying they want to invest in some really crappy interface for Unity 3D that turns their game into a pixelated nightmare just so they can appeal to the "RETRO" crowd.
I always tell those people: if you want to create a game that looks and feels like an old game, why not use something that is similar to that? Wolfenstein 3D clones were quite popular at some point about a year ago, but nobody seems to want to take the effort of learning something like ECWolf and create something that feels like a proper old game that actually runs reasonably well on modern machines.

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13 minutes ago, Agentbromsnor said:

*Wolfenstein

On-topic: I'm not sure if these games are made in Raycasting Game Maker or something else. It could very well be, considering their overall level of shittyness.

It's funny, because I'm part of several indie game designer groups on social media, and we get a lot of messages by aspiring game-designers saying they want to invest in some really crappy interface for Unity 3D that turns their game into a pixelated nightmare just so they can appeal to the "RETRO" crowd.
I always tell those people: if you want to create a game that looks and feels like an old game, why not use something that is similar to that? Wolfenstein 3D clones were quite popular at some point about a year ago, but nobody seems to want to take the effort of learning something like ECWolf and create something that feels like a proper old game that actually runs reasonably well on modern machines.

I believe the same situation applies to Strafe, that new "inspired by Quake" game.

 

Also, when did this "appeal to retro crowd" begin? Seems like most of the stuff on Steam is either "relieve the 8bit era" or "bask in 2018's ultra graphics", but either way only Source based games and mods happen to run perfectly on almost every machine, just because they don't want to appeal to the people who are in for the visuals.

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They are using the retro excuse as a crutch to avoid big effort into creating assets.

 

That's why they go full retard with these simplistic games with no height variation and only orthogonal walls, minimal sprite work with no sprite rotations etc ...

 

Ridiculous. How about putting in some effort and creating something equivalent to Doom or Duke3D? Way too much work, huh?

 

By the way, which are the best games like Wolf3D? Blake Stone is the best I have played, it has a source port, too!

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It's also infurating how the sprites they use are just simplistic shit and they call it retro. I mean, just look at Wolfenstein 3D. id Software tried to make the sprites as realistic as possible with the technology available at the time.

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17 minutes ago, VGA said:

They are using the retro excuse as a crutch to avoid big effort into creating assets.

 

That's why they go full retard with these simplistic games with no height variation and only orthogonal walls, minimal sprite work with no sprite rotations etc ...

 

Ridiculous. How about putting in some effort and creating something equivalent to Doom or Duke3D? Way too much work, huh?

 

By the way, which are the best games like Wolf3D? Blake Stone is the best I have played, it has a source port, too!

I think part of it is the level editors.  If you make a new 2.5D engine from scratch you'll have to create your own level editor which is significant amount of work, possibly more than making the game engine to begin with.  For these tile-based Wolf3D clones you can almost define the levels as text.

 

Blake Stone and Rise of the Triad might be the highlight of the Wolf3D clones, but honestly some of the Wolf3D mods are probably better than either.  I find the tile-based engines to be a bit too primitive for me (the levels all end up being incredibly samey).

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I've looked into creating my own game engine similar to Doom, and even something as simple as that is a huge undertaking; to do that as an indie dev for a single project is not the best thing to seek.

 

I'm currently working on a little shooter inspired by Doom, Blood, and Bioshock, and I'm taking it very seriously, taking influences while also trying to do something unique. I showed a little test scene in the Post your Doom picture thread (found here) which is something I put together with assets already completed into Doombuilder for a quick mockup, and son of a bitch is it a lot of work.

 

It's one thing to create a custom level or enemy for something like Doom, it's another thing entirely to make a new bestiary, weapon list, basic and advanced mechanics, etc etc.

 

I feel for these small devs; while yes there is minimal effort in these clones, you can also create something far quicker and easier this way, and most importantly you can do it completely by yourself. A single or even two person indie dev team will have a much more hard time producing something on the level of Doom or Duke3D, and if they can't do it themselves and they have to contract some of the work out, well not all indie devs have that sort of income to use.

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17 hours ago, Maisth said:

This clearly goes to show that you can still release New games based on old engines though these fail miserable

I think it's overly simplistic to think that, though you do have a point. Certainly it's possible to make a new game where the graphics are primitive/simplistic, and there are enough successful indie games now which demonstrate this. I don't think it matters too much whether it's a brand new engine or an old one that's been repurposed.

 

The key thing is that the game is never going to win on graphics. And that might be okay, as long as it's embraced wholeheartedly and an effort is made to do something else compelling - whether it's gameplay, clever level design, or something else that's new and different. 

 

I'd echo what KVELLER said - "retro" has become a gimmick that lazy designers use to make shitty games. I've lost track now of how many "90s retro shooter" games I've seen announced and they never seem particularly interesting. We already have dozens of such games - they were released in the 90s, won a bunch of awards at the time and are probably more interesting to play.

 

That's not to say that "retro" can't be done well - my favourite example is Retro City Rampage, where the creator has the credentials and deep knowledge of game history to have done it properly, and the whole game is jam-packed with tons of '80s/'90s references which tickled my nostalgia nerve the whole way through. He's also given some interesting talks. So retro can be done well, but only if you really know what you're doing. 

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I keep meaning to try and extract the nes rom from retro city rampage and put it on my NES Classic 

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This thread makes me want to take GZDoom, rename it, cut down half of the functions, then make a mish mash of gameplay wads, make something on my own, make 10 maze levels, and then repackage it all, and rewrite the specs so that it says it requires 4 gigs of RAM (would still lock the frame rate to 25-29), then I would make a trailer of the same game but with tons of cinematic effects, and make it all "thrilling and exciting" by ringing super pitched bells and chiptune music from key-gens, and then go shit on and on how this "completely new original game" is "inspired by the likes of Castle Wolfenstein and Commander Keen" and "adds another dimension to the mazes of old" with "new enemies" "extensive lore" and "countless hours of fun" and just make the potential gamer buy it at the price of 1-2 dollars/euros, without any microtransactions or DLCs. Even with this extensive Doom remixing, I think I would end up as a game developing hero since I don't charge money for more of it.

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They can't be making much money off these, surely? The thought of someone actually spending money on a crappy Wolf3D clone in this era is almost painful, even the best ones haven't aged all that well.

 

I don't mind the assets that much actually - sure they may look a bit cheap, but I've seen far worse. I know making a game engine even approaching Doom's capabilities might be hard for some small devs, but the effort would still be better spent on that since you can actually construct memorable maps and areas. Maybe the audience for "those same Wolf3D tunnels for the 99999th time" does exist, but I have a feeling the market for a game that at least has non-orthogonal walls is significantly more broad. I think the effort would be worth it if they want to make something people may actually want to buy.

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I dunno, I watched a partial playthrough of Intrude and it looked pretty boring. The dude played 5 levels of 15, it took him only around 20 minutes and there was barely any variety in enemy choice and weapon selection. The player didn't seem at risk ever until one of the levels that had a stupid "run away from a laser gate" gimmick, and all of the enemies used the same stupid "C'Mere!" shout on sight and the same death sound. At least Wolf3D gave you different sight/death sounds!

 

If I wanted to fuck around in a environment where everything is giant blocks, I'd just play Wolf3D or Spear of Destiny, or maybe some of the other engine games like Blake Stone. I'm not huge into it, but it is fairly fun and much more interesting than these games.

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1 hour ago, Doomkid said:

They can't be making much money off these, surely? The thought of someone actually spending money on a crappy Wolf3D clone in this era is almost painful, even the best ones haven't aged all that well.

 

I don't mind the assets that much actually - sure they may look a bit cheap, but I've seen far worse. I know making a game engine even approaching Doom's capabilities might be hard for some small devs, but the effort would still be better spent on that since you can actually construct memorable maps and areas. Maybe the audience for "those same Wolf3D tunnels for the 99999th time" does exist, but I have a feeling the market for a game that at least has non-orthogonal walls is significantly more broad. I think the effort would be worth it if they want to make something people may actually want to buy.

Judging from lack of non key reviews they've made no money. With ballparking a "review vs purchase" its 1 review to 20 or more purchases for the little guys. For the big guys I hear its 1 review to every 1,000. On top of that there's the refund system... buy a game to leave it a bad review and get a refund.

 

Then again bundles offer people percentages and the bundles instantly sell. Steapspy ball parks the owners at 110,000.... but does that mean bundles? Free giveaways? Bulk sales where its 100,000 copies for $1,000 only to get resold on other sites for 3 - 7 cents? https://steamspy.com/app/527750

 

Depending on the price of Steam cards a developer of a 100,000 cards can make $4 per day per card as long as the price of the card is 4 cents or less. Looks like in its prime the game was selling 300 - 400 per day which still means less than $3 - $4 per day as Steam takes a cut of the developer's cut on top of the 5% that is already taken out. Likes like the prime was between March and May:

 

http://steamcommunity.com/market/listings/753/527750-Beast?filter=merger 3d

 

As you will see the price per card rose so there's no one buying them. They'll probably have to let out 100,000 more copies to make the price drop again so they sell again so they make more money. Then again Steam is clamping down on the games that have 100,000 copies floating around from bulk keys.

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