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in: 2004 mods, DOS mods, SDL mods,
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Abandon

Revision as of 19:00, 1 December 2020 by ThomasWeiling (Message Wall | contribs)
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Abandon is a mod for registered Wolfenstein, which was released on December 4, 2004. It is the first mod released by Possum Trot.

Initial mapping was started in September 2004 using MapEdit 4.2. Some of these levels were later found on an old CD-R by Possum Trot and was released in 2006 as Abandon v0.0.

Abandon plays as an episodic flow, though the storyline and the initial idea envisioned a seamless level flow. As early as 2003, Possum Trot had been putting together ideas for a mod taking place in a titanic castle, featuring 60, 100 and even 128 floors.

Episode 1 features only one level. This particular episode was redone twice, and both times, all 20 levels made for it got lost. At the time, Possum Trot was unfamiliar with the concept of backup and would remain oblivious to this fact until mid-2005. This lack of knowledge also resulted in Abandon's E2L2 being redone twice and haphazardly released as a brief shoot-and-run level. This level was edited to fit by Brian Lowe, as the original submission featured too many guards.

Episode 5 is noteworthy as being laboratory-oriented, loosely based on Episode 4 and ideas lifted from Project: Totengraeber and Chemical Warfare.

Episode 6 was put together just as Possum Trot had begun putting together graphics and sounds for his next project, Operation: Achtliebe. This caused the development of this particular episode to be extremely rushed. Levels 4-10 were made over the course of one evening, and some of the mapping leaves a lot to be desired.

Graphics

A small selection of graphics were original, e.g. a table with a primitive radar device, a spear rack attempted turned into a computer, "Nazi biscuits" as health pickups, a poster of BJ on a cave wall and a cartoon-like red brick wall. All original graphics were made using WolfEdit, which Possum Trot had used since April 2004, making numerous graphics that never got saved; though these were his first stabs at modding, Possum Trot still did not know how to use a map editor correctly.

When importing graphics in WolfEdit, some sizes and frames were corrupted in the process, making for haphazard redesigns of e.g. the mutant actor's death frames.

Level design; original graphics vs. new graphics

All levels were made using the even in 2004 obsolete MapEdit 4.2. It would be some time before Possum Trot learned how to use FloEdit. The bulk of the levels were made using the original graphics, and a lot of the design got lost with these new graphics, that were lifted from numerous mods, including:

And a great deal of many others. Numerous guards also came from Monkee's Image World, as mentioned on the title screen. Sounds were also picked up in numerous mods, including Secrets of the Grauburg Dungeons and Wolfenken. The sources for a lot of these changes were not properly credited in the Read Me, which featured a thorough listing of all the levels and a slightly confusing story loosely based on original Wolfenstein 3D's Episode 6.

Another last-minute solution was replacing the mutants with Mr. Wolf's Uzi guards. This leaves some of the level design in particularly Episode 2 to have little meaning, as they were conceived in the style of Project: Totengraeber's levels 13-18 section, the original Wolfenstein 3D's Episode 2 and the middle section of Spear of Destiny.

Release and reception

Originally finished and sent via e-mail to Brian Lowe on November 18, 2004, it was not released until two weeks later. Unbeknownst to Possum Trot, Lowe had been kind enough to put together an EXE with some ceiling colors changed, and the ability to get 110 % health and 200 ammo. Some marching points were put in, and minor design tweaks (stoves, extra ammo) were also added.

Initial response was muted, as the mod was released the day after End of Destiny.

Abandon was quickly disowned by Possum Trot, who less than a year after Abandon's release would be putting together All This & Wolf 3D. Despite this, some praised the mixture of graphics and the laboratory areas in particular, namely Brian Lowe and Zombie_Plan.

In Possum Trot's view, the mod makes more sense if played with the original Wolfenstein 3D graphics, while still acknowledging its naïveté, lack of floor codes and proper sense of level layout.

Ports and spinoffs

An SDL port was released on June 8, 2013. Initially, an overhaul fixing a lot of the subpar mapping and confusing graphical selection was in the cards, but it was decided to go with the version released in December 2004 using Lowe's custom EXE.

On April 13, 2020, Thomas released Abandon 2020 which essentially featured Abandon as it had been originally envisioned: A more classic-style setting with Episode 1 being a full episode rather than just one level, and the levels featured in a seamless flow. Made purely as an egotistical effort to properly explore whichever small potential these very first levels had, the project sadly became more known for its still-present bugs that marred a few of the maps maps and its cheap quality and status as a proper mod or not, much as the original Abandon had, to Thomas' chagrin.

Screenshots

External links

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