Ken’s Labyrinth (1993): The Free FPS That Came Before the Build Engine
Every genre has a footnote game that history remembers mainly for who made it rather than what it was. Ken’s […]
FPS
Spear of Destiny (1992): id Software’s Wolfenstein Prequel
id Software had a formula that worked with Wolfenstein 3D, and rather than tinker with it right away, they went
Blake Stone: Planet Strike (1994): The Wolfenstein Sequel Doom Overshadowed
Planet Strike had the misfortune of shipping the same month as Doom — which is probably why it’s one of
Super 3-D Noah’s Ark (1994): The Weirdest Wolfenstein 3D Reskin Ever Made
There’s exactly one commercially sold Wolfenstein 3D-engine game that id Software didn’t publish themselves, and it’s about Noah putting farm
Shadowcaster (1993): Raven’s Shape-Shifting RPG Before Heretic and Hexen
Long before Raven Software became known for Heretic and Hexen, the studio spent 1993 building something stranger: a first-person RPG
Nitemare-3D (1994): The Hugo Series Goes First-Person
By 1994, nearly every small DOS studio was trying to make its own Wolfenstein clone. Gray Design Associates took a
Corridor 7: Alien Invasion (1994): Wolfenstein’s Engine Gets an Alien Makeover
By late 1994 the first-person shooter had already been reinvented once by Doom. Corridor 7 is what happens when a
Hovertank 3-D (1991): Watching Carmack Invent Raycasting in Real Time
Months before id Software formally existed as its own studio, John Carmack was already proving out the raycasting technique that
Catacomb 3-D (1991): The Rough Draft for Wolfenstein 3D
Every genre has an origin point that gets overshadowed by whatever came right after it. For the first-person shooter, that
Strife (1996): The Doom Engine’s Strangest, Best Detour
What do you get when you bolt a quest log and a reputation system onto Doom’s combat engine? Rogue Entertainment
Dark Forces (1995): The Star Wars Shooter That Out-Engineered Doom
Out-Building Doom, One Feature at a Time id Software’s Doom engine spawned countless imitators in the mid-90s, but Dark Forces
Blood (1997): Monolith’s Gruesome, Underrated Build Engine Standout
By 1997 the Build engine had already given the world Duke Nukem 3D. Blood took the same technology and pointed