Ages ago (well over 4 years now, wow), a program was released that was designed to make creating a game with source code changes easier. That was, as you probably guessed from the title of this article, Wolf17. Dugtrio17, as he is known in the Wolfenstein community, designed this for the coding novice; a program that lets you make hard coded changes, without having to delve into any actual code, nor have any knowledge on the matter.
The program does this through a simple text menu. Users simply go through the menu, selecting options and inputting information wanted (such as ammo maximum, for example). The information inputted goes into a newly created file called “GAME.WL6”, which is then referred to by the Wolf17 executable, and used in game play. The program allows for all sorts of changes, some of which can be viewed in the screenshot above, along with others, altering how weapons behave (speed, explosion, attack type, so on), and even has the ability to add new weapons (allowing up to ten weapons total). As an added feature, Wolf17 can be run without any changes; if no GAME.WL6 file is detected, the game plays exactly like the original Wolfenstein. The program also comes complete with a help file which provides explanations for each feature within the program and what it effects; good for those who don’t know what the definition of a tic is.
Wolf17 is open source, and has been since the beginning of 2005. Unfortunately, the software has been lying stagnant for the better part of that time. Dugtrio17 created a Beta Breakers thread with the open source release, inviting people to find bugs, and improve the code. Future versions were going to include new features, the main of which being “enemy control”. However, unless there are enough people expressing interest in the project, the project will probably remain on the backburner indefinitely.
If you enjoy creating games for Wolfenstein 3D, but aren’t as efficient in programming, or can’t code at all, you really should give this little gem a try. Please, let me know if you make a game using the program, I’m currently unaware of any games that utilize the program, and it would be interesting to see what people could bring out. I would like to see a return of interest to the project.
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