IMPORTANT NOTE FOR MOVIE PLAYBACK!! This run uses a different floppy boot disk than the typical FreeDOS one. It uses an MS-DOS 6.22 boot disk. The different floppy is due to CuteMouse interfering with the sound in Nitemare 3D. I have no idea why this happens, but ctmouse was definitely the cause and using this configuration was the only way to get the sound working perfectly.
This run uses Nitemare 3D shareware version 1.9.
Image:
Type: HDD
ID: e58b821e64d103dc57971e0df53c13bf
Tracks: 16
Sides: 16
Sectors: 63
Total sectors: 16128
MD5: 92a47f22e909bf98a30d16a31a662e13
Entry: N/A N/A 12 /
Entry: 19900101000000 3584d364e6785b07f0ad2821877c87c9 2206 /DEMO.1
Entry: 19900101000000 0fe4600ed90f4682f2b7569ace125408 398 /FILE_ID.DIZ
Entry: 19900101000000 975da524206b4bb14dfca5f916901c3c 1924 /GAME.PAL
Entry: 19900101000000 cd729c17c4f1285355bee8735ceeffd0 1975616 /IMG.1
Entry: 19900101000000 2924a47a6db8ab35864023554935c725 6266 /LICENSE.TXT
Entry: 19900101000000 cf4ff14398cd60d1cf63243354e30c2d 90626 /MAP.1
Entry: 19900101000000 b95a04272abadf182fb2addbff2221da 74426 /N3D.EXE
Entry: 19900101000000 cc7c9d0bf03ee18bce0d4c332264c17e 15800 /NITE3D.BSF
Entry: 19900101000000 24ca497e305e5f1f6c07c3f8bb48fb95 1391 /ORDER.TXT
Entry: 19900101000000 e4caa1d694eaa4bdf5cf42d1a3ca9348 548930 /SND.DAT
Entry: 19900101000000 f6a5a9bec750090882367dc154fcacac 6583 /TECHNOTE.TXT
Entry: 19900101000000 d83483cb651091e3ebf67fd701794d12 526520 /UIF.DAT
Entry: 19900101000000 5731d8ba157fce338e091e0852f0d812 3171 /VENDOR.DOC
Released by Gray Design Assoicates in 1994, Nitemare 3D is a first person shooter in the same vein as Wolfenstein 3D. The game is a follow-up to the Hugo trilogy of parser-based adventure games and chronicles Hugo's fight to rescue his girlfriend Penelope from an evil scientist named Dr. Hammerstein. The first episode is a journey through Hammerstein's bizarrely designed mansion, featuring witches, vampires, and closets that seem to go on forever.
This is an interesting Wolf3D clone that is a little more based on puzzles than combat. The game is often disliked for its clunky controls and weird graphics, but it's really charming to me and has a very underappreciated soundtrack. However, I'm fairly sure this game is haunted. The making of this TAS was plagued by phantom inputs such as unsolicited weapon changes, random gunfire, and the mouse redefining which direction "left" is. You've been warned.
Movement
So how is the movement so fast? Many DOS FPSes have both keyboard and mouse compatibility for movement, but if you try to move with both at the same time, there's some kind of speed cap that prevents this from being useful. No such limitation in Nitemare 3D! Full mouse movement is twice as fast as arrow key movement, and when added together, allow for movement three times faster than normal. On top of that, there's a button you can hold to run which doubles the movement speed! This multiplier also works for rotation, allowing for an absurd 30 degrees of rotation per frame. Another nice bonus is that backwards movement isn't any slower than forwards movement, unlike some other FPSes.
Moving at angles is when things get weird. Straferunning, as usual for an FPS, is the fastest way to move around, but the programmer didn't seem to understand how vectors work. When facing a cardinal direction, the movement speeds while running forward and strafing are 60 in both the x and y direction, resulting in an overall speed of around 85, which is mathematically correct. However, when facing a diagonal direction and straferunning, the overall speed is not 85, but instead 120, which is just the running and strafing speeds added together! Angles in between these two are also calculated wrong, with the speed varying between 85 and 120 depending on how close the angle is to a diagonal. This means that the player's overall speed is angle-dependent in this engine, which is wrong but allows for another doubling of the movement speed.
Items
There are three different weapon/ammo types, each with their own advantages:
Plasma gun
The first weapon you get, it's a decent all-purpose weapon but isn't super effective against anything. You can get an upgrade for this gun later that enables rapid fire.
Magic wand
This weapon uses spellbooks as ammo and is super effective against magician-type enemies such as witches. It also has a higher fire rate than the un-upgraded plasma gun, and can fire just as fast as the rapid fire plasma gun with perfect inputs.
Pistol
This gun uses silver bullets and is super effective against vampiric enemies. It's a hitscan weapon rather than a projectile weapon, but the downside is that it can't blow up exploding walls and its rate of fire isn't amazing.
Other items:
Eyeball/crystal ball
These power up your ability to display the map and enemy locations, respectively. While this is not displayed in the movie, this was used numerous times while rerecording to help figure out where enemies are gathering.
Keys
There are four different colored keys that open doors, and each level has an ID card that must be found to open the portal to the next level.
E1M2
The exploding walls work strangely. If you shoot them while they're exploding, they restart their exploding animation and you have to wait longer. Even weirder, if you're not looking at the wall while it's blowing up, it pauses the animation until you look at it again. The ID card is in a safe with a password, which you're supposed to find, but since this is a TAS we know it ahead of time.
E1M3
A strategy used in this level to optimize the time is to open doors while waiting for another door to open. This is used as often as possible throughout the run.
E1M4
The secret level is available right away, and it's not a terribly long secret level, but it requires a lengthy block-pushing sequence to get to, so we'll do this level normally. Fun fact: the safe password, 01532, is the zip code for Northborough, MA, which is where the author lives. The yellow key isn't strictly necessary to beat the level, but it does give you a shortcut back to the main hall area after you get the blue key.
E1M6
The reason E1M5 is skipped is because that's considered the secret level, so going through the normal exit in E1M4 jumps over it.
E1M7
There are instakill cannons in front of the pushable block. Normally you would have to push another block in front of one to safely make it through, but with good timing it's possible without it. When the lights get turned off, it's not possible to continue until you use the fusebox because the doors won't operate.
E1M8
This map features a small trick where you can shoot explodable walls that have solid objects in front of them by shooting at a very precise angle and position. You can also push tombstones while they're still embedded in an explodable wall. It's actually possible to make this map unbeatable if tombstones are pushed into the wrong places.
E1M9
The reason for the silly block pushing before getting the blue key is that for some reason, the skeleton blocking the way can't see you over the blocks, so you have to get behind the potted plant to get its attention. The most memorable feature of this level is the "dance room", where some enemies block the way and your weapon is mysteriously jammed. It's possible to get around the jamming and kill the skeleton anyway, but you get annihilated by the other enemies unless they're distracted. Turning on the radio gets them into dance mode, where they start dancing and move out of the way.
E1M10
To reach the final room of the episode, four pentagrams are needed to get through the mirror. Three of them are pretty easy to get, but the yellow one is tricky. Dracula is blocking the way to it, and he has to retreat all the way to the two dumbwaiters to get there. There are set retreat points where he must be shot in order to get him moving again. Once he gets to the dumbwaiter, he blocks it, forcing you to the other side of it via the other dumbwaiter. Once you reach Dr. Hammerstein, he kills you. (yes, this is supposed to happen)
Fog: This game, despite the spooky name, is not much of a nightmare at all. Instead, it actually looks quite goofy! If I paid for this game, I would have wanted my money back for not being spooky enough!
*ahem*
Where was I? Oh, right! Actually judging the run itself...
This was a good run, and definitely liked the abuse of the movement mechanics to reach supersonic speeds. This game was slightly different from other Wolfenstein 3D games, but my enjoyment levels were about the same as a regular Wolf 3D game. Audience reception was mostly positive as well.
Accepting to Moons!
