FAQ

[Blzut3]

Wow isn't this poor use of the Doom engine?

Excellent observation, but that would be because it uses the Wolfenstein 3D engine not the Doom engine.

Isn't this game illegal?

First off it's important to note that this is based off the PC version of the game from 1995. Wisdom Tree bought the license to the Wolfenstein 3D engine just like everyone else that used the engine did, so regardless of your feelings regarding the SNES version, this version is 100% licensed.

As for the SNES version, Color Dreams/Wisdom Tree (the same company) were very careful to ensure that they were operating within the law. The games were created entirely through reverse engineering, which is to say they did not use Nintendo's SDK to develop their games. One of the great things about the early consoles is that they didn't have an operating system, so once you rule the SDK out, all copyright is avoided.

With that said, the only way Nintendo had only two means of stopping the distribution of unauthorized games. First, they could make it technically difficult to make third party cartridges, which is why there is a lock out chip which was bypassed by forwarding the chip's requests to an authorized cart. Secondly, they can prevent stores from carrying the games by withholding shipments of authorized titles. Wisdom Tree formed because of the second obstacle. Given that Nintendo didn't alllow religous content in their games the folks at Color Dreams realized that there was an untapped market which wouldn't care about not being able to order games from Nintendo.

In other words, as far as the SNES is concerned this is similar to modern day homebrew.

Isn't this just a reskin of Wolfenstein 3D? I hear the levels are the same.

You heard wrong. The game is 100% new content. The two games share a lot of coding similar to how Chex Quest is very similar to Doom. In the end there are some subtle changes that one would probably not notice unless I listed them out.

Not so subtlely though they backported features from the SNES code base including the different damage calculations and the automap. Additionally, they added general MIDI playback (although they never supported wavetable synthesis for some reason) and adding floor and ceiling texture mapping.

Didn't they get the code for free out of spite of Nintendo?

Wisdom Tree maintains that they paid the same licensing fee that everyone else did. The only reservation that id Software had was to ensure that everything was legal and no contracts were being violated.

There is some evidence to suggest that id Software wasn't willing to work with Nintendo after the SNES version of Wolfenstein 3D, but from what I understand that was more due to the back and forth trying to get the game approved than any singular reason. In any case though, it didn't result in a free license and Wisdom Tree approached id Software for the license.

While at this point it's hard to track down exactly what happened I will note that they also licensed the engine for a Hellraiser tie in game. That game never made it past some concept art (and I think the "super" cart being prototyped) as the license for the Hellraiser IP lapsed, so there's nothing to see there.

Why would id Software allow a religious game to be made using their engine?

Why wouldn't they? id Software was a technology licensing company and they sold copies of the engine to anyone that could afford the asking price. This includes Wisdom Tree.

Why spread Christianity?

I guarantee no one is going to convert to Christianity because they played a game based on the Noah's Ark mythos. The "bible quiz" in the game only covers the story of Noah. The manual for this edition of the game comes with a complete guide to the quiz questions which contain only the relevant excerpts.

If you have zero interest in the mythos, then I will note that there is no penalty for getting the questions wrong. Instead of a sizable bonus you'll only get 4 points of health. The quiz is a pickup in the game and most of them can be avoided if you really want to, but why would you? (There are in fact numerous levels that don't contain any quiz pickups.)

Didn't you see the AVGN review? This sucks! Why bring it to Steam?

Didn't you see the AVGN FAQ? The AVGN is a character which represents the frustrated gamer. James likes some of the games which he reviews as the AVGN.

Am I saying this is a good game or that this is an example of a game he likes? That's not for me to decide. The game does have its fans though, and not just in the ironic way. I do think this game did some things better than Wolf3D, but going into detail isn't worth the space here since I would just be called biased.

What I recommend to you is to find videos on the PC version of the game (you can tell easily by the floor/ceiling textures) and form an opinion based on that. The reason being is that as of this writing I've yet to see someone make a video of the PC version predisposed into not liking the game. There's a pretty good let's play of the game on Youtube by WhamNinjaMolehill that I recommend if you want to see a full playthrough.

By the way, I am an AVGN fan.

How did the port come to be?/Why not release on GOG?

I've been working on a source port of Wolfenstein 3D since 2008. One of the goals of the port is to support every commercial game that used the engine. I reached out to Wisdom Tree to see if they would be willing to support the project and they were. They sent me a copy of the game on the condition that I could port the game on my own time schedule. I was quickly surprised that how good the game was compared to what the Internet was generally saying about it and instead of my original plan of throwing binaries at them and letting them distribute, I offered to pitch the game to GOG on their behalf. This was going to work out well for me as I had already had people requesting to donate to the source port monetarily, and entering a profit splitting agreement meant that I could give something in return to everyone that does.

GOG decided they were too cool for Noah. From there I got referred to itch.io where the game was released May 2014. (itch.io is cool since it allows people to leave a tip making the donation box aspect very realistic.) Piko Interactive, who earlier that year licensed the game for reissue on the SNES, contacted me about doing a Greenlight campaign. I thought there was no way it would succeed, but as you can see I was wrong. Very wrong in fact, as the game had an approval rating significantly above the average.

This needs a Brutal Doom mod LOL!!!

If you're trying to troll with this, keep in mind that I'm a regular contributor to ZDoom which powers Brutal Doom.

What about mod support?

Being the ECWolf engine which is partly based off ZDoom, mods are very much supported. This version of the game will get Steam workshop support at a later time.

[Fumpig]

This cleared up a lot about the game, thanks.

[aloby]

Looking forward to play this game! Keep up the good work.

[Lunick]

Great FAQ

[Lord_Kane]

Best FAQ A+ would FAQ again.

[redknight4 ﴾Σ﴿]

Great you did this at leat it would clear up a few myths surrounding the game.

A few questions on the ecwolf engine though.

Is it the reason for a map system overlay in some of the screen shots since i don't remember a map overlay in the original dos wolf 3d engine?

Does it support higher quality textures than the origanal engine?

[Lord_Kane]

Originally posted by redknight4 ﴾Σ﴿:

Great you did this at leat it would clear up a few myths surrounding the game.

A few questions on the ecwolf engine though.

Is it the reason for a map system overlay in some of the screen shots since i don't remember a map overlay in the original dos wolf 3d engine?

Does it support higher quality textures than the origanal engine?

In the original DOS engine no, It did not have a automap, but when the engine was updated for Rise of the Triad and Blake Stone they had automaps.

And yes it does, a mod for Wolf3D uses enhanced textures and sprites: http://forum.drdteam.org/viewtopic.php?f=192&t=6607

[Blzut3]

The original DOS version of Super 3D Noah's Ark has an automap. Every Wolf3D engine game has one except for the PC version of Wolf3D/Spear. Even the SNES version of Wolf3D.

ECWolf does have some enhancements to the automap view such as rotation though.

[c5]

As weird as it sounds, I'm actually interested in playing this. Good job getting a re-release going.

[Krunjey]

A Brutal Super 3D Noah's Ark does sound like a legit good idea. It can add back the blood and dead bodies, or maybe even add some new dinosaur sprites in.

[Sadie Crash]

Different graphics and new level design doesn't make it remotely different, or good for that matter.
Imagine if I modded Half-Life with new textures and models, changed up the levels, and sold it under the name Ultra Polygonal John Madden Adventure. It would look different, but it would be a weaker version of the original game. Plus, we'd rather shoot headcrabs than slingshot footbals in the end.

[Blzut3]

Saytenn, you never know. I never thought Half Life's level design was all that great (it was basically the birth of the linear shooter) so it depends.

[Mr Windblade]

Originally posted by Saytenn:

Different graphics and new level design doesn't make it remotely different, or good for that matter.
Imagine if I modded Half-Life with new textures and models, changed up the levels, and sold it under the name Ultra Polygonal John Madden Adventure. It would look different, but it would be a weaker version of the original game. Plus, we'd rather shoot headcrabs than slingshot footbals in the end.

Yeah like if you did that exact same thing and sold it under the name Portal... or Left 4 Dead... or Team Fortress 2...

Wait, let's try a different engine... what if it were like Hexen?

Darn. I can't think of a single way that this post is correct.

[Sadie Crash]

Originally posted by Mr Windblade:

Originally posted by Saytenn:

Different graphics and new level design doesn't make it remotely different, or good for that matter.
Imagine if I modded Half-Life with new textures and models, changed up the levels, and sold it under the name Ultra Polygonal John Madden Adventure. It would look different, but it would be a weaker version of the original game. Plus, we'd rather shoot headcrabs than slingshot footbals in the end.

Yeah like if you did that exact same thing and sold it under the name Portal... or Left 4 Dead... or Team Fortress 2...

Wait, let's try a different engine... what if it were like Hexen?

Darn. I can't think of a single way that this post is correct.

I'm not talking about using the same game engine for innovation. I'm talking about using the same game and giving it a new skin with different level design and slight changes to weaponry. You're still killing enemies on a flat surface, except the enemies are the animals Noah supposedly rescued, and the paintings of Hitler are replaced with...Noah?

[Blzut3]

Well they did add floor/ceiling textures, general MIDI file support, and made some tweaks to the animation sequences of the enemies. It is pretty clear that this game was made with the mindset of "we're going to make the best game we can" rather than "lets cash in" like everyone wants to believe. If they succeeded is going to depend on your opinion, but there was definitely effort put into the game.

Originally posted by Saytenn:

and the paintings of Hitler are replaced with...Noah?

While I'm sure it's going to be overly nerdy for me to point this out, but technically, going by the texture number, the noah pictures replace the nazi flag and the eagle picture. The hitler pictures were replaced by a picture of melvin the monkey and a red curtin. There's not really a 1:1 correlation from the Wolf3D texture and the S3DNA texture, so running the Wolf3D maps with the S3DNA resources would look pretty crappy.

[Mr Windblade]

Originally posted by Saytenn:

I'm not talking about using the same game engine for innovation. I'm talking about using the same game and giving it a new skin with different level design and slight changes to weaponry. You're still killing enemies on a flat surface, except the enemies are the animals Noah supposedly rescued, and the paintings of Hitler are replaced with...Noah?

So Call of Duty, Halo, Assassin's Creed, Doom, Wolfenstein, Quake... none of these are successful games?

I mean they're the same games, just with different levels, textures, and weapons. I mean Super Mario Bros. is just Halo with different levels, textures, and weapons.

I know you're trying really hard to make some kind of point about the lines between iterative, additive, inspiration, and infringement, but I think you're hurting your argument significantly when you diminish the efforts that these people put forth trying to make their... very strange Noah game.

I'm sorry, I can't take the Noah game seriously, despite being one of the earliest forays into psychological horror.