Wolfenstein 3D – Could this classic first person shooter be coming to the Sega Master System and Sega 1000?

Throughout the years we’ve featured many different types of news stories, from gaming updates, to music disks and even scene demos. Well here with another eye opening news story I think you’ll like, as if you have a Sega Master System or Sega 1000, then it might be worth checking out the latest demo of the Wolfenstein 3D game, which is being developed by Under4MHZ for the SMS. In light of this news there’s a new video posted below which gives us a better look at the demo which is still being worked on.

Although there is a much more detailed development discussion including how the game came to be which can be found at the forum linked below, here is what the creator says about the demo of which you can try right now.

“All the collectable objects are implemented. You can collect jewels etc. Points are added for valuable items. The SG-1000 can only store 60 objects due to it’s 1K, so the objects are heavily culled for that platform. You can now shoot and kill guards and they animate when they’re hit. You can be shot, but only 1 health each time. Guards only shoot when visible to the player. This avoids any line of sight calculation from the guard. The guards are stationary. All enemies are shown as guards and take one hit to kill”.

“Sprites are at a premium, so only one sprite is shown at a time. The closest guard, then the closest object. It would be possible to show more objects when they are all further away, but this requires the sprite space to be managed depending on the sizes of the objects. For now you’ll see objects appear and disappear since there are multiple in the scene, but only one is shown. Palette size is also a limitation, since all the objects combined use over 16 colours”.

“The end of level screen is updated with the correct stats. The par value is always 1:50, I’ll have to go look at the original to see the what the actual values are. I fixed the door, so they stay open and then close when the player moves 3 spaces. This allows me to keep the simple logic of ignore all doors that close to the player when open”.

“So there’s some feedback when shot, the red channel of the palette is or’d with 1 to make it flash red. There’s a bit of an accuracy issue with shooting I have to look into. It seems to favour one side over the other. Since it’s quite jumpy, I want to make the shooting range fairly forgiving. There’s also an alignment issue with the objects where they’re sometimes in the wall”.

“It may be possible to optimize it for speed more, but probably only 1fps or so. As an aside, it’s possible to do a full rotation in 4s on the original, and that’s what I’ve used as a reference for the fps vs rotation trade off. The first long corridor (behind the door) takes 4s as well on the original”.

Below is my todo list, in no particular order.

• – Enemy moving logic
• – Enemy shoots only if visible
• – Damage based on distance (player and enemy)
• – Object/wall alignment
• – Lose a life
• – Keys
• – Multiple objects on screen (when small)
• – Animate level end numbers
• – Animate/update player status image
• – Stay red on hit (reloads palette when animating)
• – Wall rendering glitches
• – Remove knife on collect ammo
• – Knife when close only
• – Rifle/Machine gun implement
• – Aim accuracy/offset
• – Key press in interrupt
• – Dog/Officer/SS sprites
• – Sound effects
• – Optimise speed (rendering)
• – Zoom sprites SG/GB
• – Straifing
• – End Boss
• – Collect items only on move
• – Select objects in places with no other sprites (skeleton, lights, armour)
• – GG/Microbee/Colecovision/MSX ports
• – GB sprite flickering
• – GB objects misaligned
• – GB show weapon

Links :1) Forum  – Thanks Earok for the heads up!