Author Topic: 2011/04: Spear Of Destiny (PC) - DarkWolf  (Read 38498 times)

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Offline JonLeung

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2011/04: Spear Of Destiny (PC) - DarkWolf
« on: March 31, 2011, 07:56:41 pm »

For this month's "Maps Of The Month" featurette, I wish to draw your attention to DarkWolf's Spear Of Destiny (PC) maps.

The Spear Of Destiny, also known as the Holy Lance or the Lance Of Longinus, pierced Jesus's side as he hung on the cross. A number of artifacts are claimed to be this Spear Of Destiny, which could have mystical powers as suggested by modern legends. Adolf Hitler, with an obsession for such relics, may have had this at one point in time, and whether true or not, inspired this Wolfenstein 3-D prequel.

Before his adventures in Wolfenstein 3-D, B.J. Blazkowicz tried to reclaim the Spear Of Destiny from Nazi forces. In these twenty floors, he'll have to contend with the usual Nazi soldiers and labyrinths, but ultimately he'll have to face supernatural forces as well. With DarkWolf's maps, expertly derived from the game data itself, losing your way is one thing you won't have to worry about.

This game was mapped by DarkWolf, who also contributed maps of the same style as those of the original Wolfenstein 3-D (which was honoured in July 2008) and the Blake Stone games. He's shown that a third dimension doesn't stop a dedicated game cartographer!

So to recognize the effort put into spearheading new mapping techniques, DarkWolf's Spear Of Destiny (PC) maps will be known as VGMaps.com's Maps Of The Month for April 2011.
« Last Edit: March 31, 2011, 09:37:57 pm by JonLeung »

Offline Will

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Re: 2011/04: Spear Of Destiny (PC) - DarkWolf
« Reply #1 on: April 01, 2011, 06:54:14 am »
Unlike Blake Stone Planet Strike this game has a demo release. The game offers a few new features from Wolf 3D such as the new wall patterns and five new bosses. I'm surprised this game did not appear on other computers and consoles. I almost forgot it is April Fools. If you're looking a laugh check this out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQdzexzbumc

Offline JonLeung

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Re: 2011/04: Spear Of Destiny (PC) - DarkWolf
« Reply #2 on: April 01, 2011, 07:56:18 am »
Yes, April snuck up on us pretty quick.  No April Fools' joke again this year, pretty sure you shouldn't expect one for a while.  On the other hand, that might mean if I do find the time to make one, I'd actually have a chance of fooling you guys!  Maybe.

Offline The Ultimate Koopa

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Re: 2011/04: Spear Of Destiny (PC) - DarkWolf
« Reply #3 on: April 01, 2011, 04:49:04 pm »
I was just thinking, for the August 2012 map(s) of the month, are we (or should we) have some kind of extra special featurette of some sort? I say this, because, as you may not know, August 2012's MOTM would be the 100th one.

Offline DarkWolf

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Re: 2011/04: Spear Of Destiny (PC) - DarkWolf
« Reply #4 on: April 01, 2011, 08:40:45 pm »
Thanks for the Motm spot.  Although, didn't I get one for Wolfenstein 3d?

Offline Wario Bros

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Re: 2011/04: Spear Of Destiny (PC) - DarkWolf
« Reply #5 on: April 03, 2011, 11:19:30 am »
The map of the month is nice as always.

Well Jon, if you ever get back to April Fools maps (who knows when that'll be. I'm not trying to push/rush you), you're always welcomed to use that idea I PMed you about.

And I actually like The Ultimate Koopa's idea, even though that would be 16 months away.

Offline TerraEsperZ

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Re: 2011/04: Spear Of Destiny (PC) - DarkWolf
« Reply #6 on: September 06, 2011, 10:40:34 pm »
This sure brings back nice memories of my first days of PC gaming. Wolfenstein 3-D and Spear of Destiny were some of the very first computer games I played when I inherited my PC from an uncle who died of brain cancer. He'd show off while playing when we visited him a few years before his death so they were the games me and my sister wanted to try the most afterward (sadly, my sister lost her interest in videogames after beginning high school :().

With the computer, we also got a few boxes full of old 5.25 inch floppy disks full of games downloaded on old BBSes (with a few boot sector viruses too!) and one featured crude maps for Wolfenstein 3-D made in AutoCAD 8 (I think) by my uncle. I don't know if it's what got me interesting in mapping games, but it certainly didn't hurt because I tried mapping them myself first using ASCII characters in WordPerfect 5.1 in MS DOS and then by drawing little squares in Paintbrush in Windows 3.1. Even back then I was drawing the maps while playing on grid paper to make sure that every square in-game was drawn exactly as it was. Needless to say it took so long to do even one map that I never got past 6 or 7 maps in total but the seeds had been planted :).

Back to the games, I was always proud of having managed to finish both of them without resorting to the old M+I+L cheat, even though it was only on Normal difficulty. I sure could have used these maps back then, but back before automaps became common you simply couldn't survive in most games without a very good sense of direction, so I still managed.

Anyway, great work DarkWolf!
« Last Edit: November 08, 2011, 03:21:55 pm by TerraEsperZ »
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Offline jlomas

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Re: 2011/04: Spear Of Destiny (PC) - DarkWolf
« Reply #7 on: November 08, 2011, 01:18:30 pm »
I like the game very much but it's possible to play it on Linux based OS?
« Last Edit: November 10, 2011, 06:59:58 pm by JonLeung »

Offline Grizzly

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Re: 2011/04: Spear Of Destiny (PC) - DarkWolf
« Reply #8 on: November 10, 2011, 03:53:46 am »
Not natively, but it's not possible for new Microsoft OSS either. Instead, you may want to use DOSBox (http://www.dosbox.com/) to play it on Linux and other new Operating Systems.

It's a straightforward process getting a game to run in new DOSBox versions. If you have got Spear Of Destiny in a directory path named <sodpath> (e.g. "/home/username/games/sod"), then just start DOSBox and write
Code: [Select]
mount c <sodpath>
Afterwards, switch to C: and run the game. If it's too slow, try the command cycles=max for maximum CPU cycles.