Spear of Destiny, often also called Spear, Wolfenstein 3D: Spear of Destiny or just SoD, is a 1992

1992 in video gaming

-Events:-Notable releases:* Gremlin Graphics releases Zool, Amiga's answer to Mario and Sonic. It goes on to become the best selling Commodore Amiga game, boosting the already popular computer to be the leading gaming machine in Europe....

 first-person shooter

First-person shooter

First-person shooter is a video game genre that centers the gameplay on gun and projectile weapon-based combat through first-person perspective; i.e., the player experiences the action through the eyes of a protagonist. Generally speaking, the first-person shooter shares common traits with other...

 computer game developed by id Software

Id Software

Id Software is an American video game development company with its headquarters in Richardson, Texas. The company was founded in 1991 by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and artist Adrian Carmack...

 and published by FormGen Corporation

FormGen

FormGen Corporation was a shareware and computer game company that was founded in 1987 by Randy MacLean and James Perkins. The company was later bought out by GT Interactive in 1996....

, and is the prequel

Prequel

A prequel is a work that supplements a previously completed one, and has an earlier time setting.The widely recognized term was a 20th-century neologism, and a portmanteau from pre- and sequel...

 to id Software's Wolfenstein 3D

Wolfenstein 3D

Wolfenstein 3D is a video game that is generally regarded by critics and gaming journalists as having both popularized the first-person shooter genre on the PC and created the basic archetype upon which all subsequent games of the same genre would be built. It was created by id Software and...

. As in Wolfenstein 3D, the player assumes the role of allied spy William "B.J." Blazkowicz, on a mission trying to recapture the Spear of Destiny

Holy Lance

The Holy Lance is the name given to the lance that pierced Jesus' side as he hung on the cross in John's account of the Crucifixion.-Biblical references:The lance is mentioned only in the Gospel of John and not in any of the...

 from the Nazis

Nazism

Nazism, the common short form name of National Socialism was the ideology and practice of the Nazi Party and of Nazi Germany...

 after it was stolen from Versailles

Versailles

Versailles , a city renowned for its château, the Palace of Versailles, was the de facto capital of the kingdom of France for over a century, from 1682 to 1789. It is now a wealthy suburb of Paris and remains an important administrative and judicial centre...

.

Gameplay

The game consists of a single 21-level

Level (computer and video games)

A level, map, area, or world in a video game is the total space available to the player during the course of completing a discrete objective...

 episode, 19 of which need to be completed in order to win the game. The remaining two levels are secret levels that can be accessed from within the first 18 levels. The gameplay is identical to that of Wolfenstein 3D, which uses the same game engine. The levels can be divided into four blocks ("Tunnels", "Dungeons", "Castle", and "Ramparts"), each ending with the player having to defeat a "boss".

Unlike Wolfenstein 3D, the game did not include a shareware

Shareware

The term shareware is a proprietary software that is provided to users without payment on a trial basis and is often limited by any combination of functionality, availability, or convenience. Shareware is often offered as a download from an Internet website or as a compact disc included with a...

 version; however, a 2-level playable demo was distributed.

The Lost Episodes

Two mission packs for Spear of Destiny, titled Return to Danger and Ultimate Challenge, were also created and published by FormGen Corporation in May 1994. These are collectively known as the "Lost Episodes", because they were sold in low numbers and their existence is not widely known. Each of these, too, consists of 21 levels. For The Lost Episodes, entirely new textures were created for items, enemies, and walls- more than just a palette swap

Palette swap

A palette swap is a practice used in video games, whereby a graphic that is already used for one element is given a different palette, so it can be reused as other elements. The different palette gives the new graphic a unique set of colors, which make it recognizably distinct from the original...

.

Releases

A CD

Compact Disc

The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...

 version containing all three episodes, titled the Spear of Destiny Super CD Package, was also released in late 1994. The Steam release (August 3, 2007) includes the Lost Episodes. The source code

Source code

In computer science, source code is text written using the format and syntax of the programming language that it is being written in. Such a language is specially designed to facilitate the work of computer programmers, who specify the actions to be performed by a computer mostly by writing source...

of Spear of Destiny was released in 1995. In October 2009, the iPhone Wolfenstein 3D app was updated to include Spear of Destiny.

External links

• Official Spear of Destiny website