![]() The first thing evident about this game is that keyboard controls are really awkward. The war plans are in a chest somewhere, and worth a lot to allied command.Uniforms will fool normal guards, but won’t fool the SS.Supply chests may contain supplies, and can be shot open.SS troops will follow you from room to room, and can only be killed by grenades.The tip screens go by a bit fast if you have enhanced disk speed emulation enabled, but the gist of it is: Starting a new game, the program offered some tips as it generated a new castle. The WOZ format for my first playthrough, so I could see the first out-of-the-box castle layout, and the “4am crack” release for subsequent playthroughs. So, I decided I’d use two copies of the game for now. The effect works fine until you close MAME or perform a hard reset – then the state of the disk reverts to the pristine file, and any changes are lost. Presently, MAME will remember changes to the disk in memory, but won’t actually modify the WOZ file. MAME, fortunately, does support writing to the WOZ format. Saving, of course, doesn’t work, you can’t get promotions, and generating a new castle layout freezes the game. Instead, the room just resets to its original state, as the data on the WOZ indicates their state was untouched. This is a big problem – not only does Castle Wolfenstein use the disk for saving your game, but it also writes to the disk to update the state of the game! For instance, you should be able to kill a room full of Nazis, leave, come back, and see your corpses where you left them. I went with the 1981 version.ĪppleWin currently supports reading from, but not writing to, the WOZ format. The game was also re-released in 1984 with a different title screen, and possibly some other changes. Furthermore, a WOZ release indicates that the disk was dumped in pristine condition, which is notable for Castle Wolfenstein because the castle generation process actually changes the data on the disk! The WOZ format release is the only realistic way of getting a copy of the game in its original, out-of-the-box state. WOZ images emulate the disks’ copy protection, rather than bypass it as conventional DSK images do, ensuring that the game behavior itself isn’t changed. ![]() There is a dump of this game in the WOZ format, which was only released in August 2019. Everyday phrases like Achtung! and Schweinhund are in there, but it’s nice of them to mention that Kamerad means I surrender. The manual also has, as an appendix, a dodgy German phrasebook for POW’s. Failure (usually) restarts the game in the same castle layout as before, although if you happen to blow up a chest full of explosives with a grenade, then the castle blows up and will have to be rebuilt for your next game. Supplies may be found in chests or on guards, and useful supplies include bullets, grenades, keys, armor, and uniforms. Exits may appear on any side of the screen, or as stairs to a different level. ![]() Guards patrol the hallways, and you can shoot in eight directions. The castle is randomly generated, but you always begin in the lowest level. Rules of play are reminiscent of Berzerk. A dying cellmate gives you a gun and ten bullets, and you must escape and find the war plans if possible. The manual outlines the premise – it’s WWII and you, an allied soldier, have been captured behind enemy lines and are held in the Nazi headquarters in labyrinthine Castle Wolfenstein. Perhaps in this alternate history, there’s a hit title Flucht aus Schloß Volchiykamen for the Volkcomputer 48kb. I understand that the latest spinoff has the mainline protagonist’s teenage daughters fighting Nazis in the 80’s. ![]() And they’re still releasing official Wolfenstein sequels. As I write this in 2019, Castle Wolfenstein is as distant a memory as WWII itself was in 1981. ![]()
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