Wolfenstein 3D and Spear of Destiny, while objectively the pinnacle of gaming, are not devoid of flaws. There are a handful of bugs and glitches that modders and players alike have had to learn to accept as part of the experience.
Active Bugs and Glitches
"Active" bugs and glitches are present in either Wolfenstein 3D or SOD during normal gameplay without any help from user-made maps.
Fireball Speed
The Fake Hitler's fireballs are one of the most apparently bugged aspects of the game. Almost all actions in Wolfenstein 3D are tied to a timer to create consistent timing ingame without influence from processor speed. The fireballs, however, are not tied to this timer.
As a result, on computers with faster processing speed than was the norm when Wolfenstein 3D first released the fireballs travel much slower. Additionally, if the player causes a dialogue message to pop up (for example, by entering a cheat) the fireballs will suddenly jump forward when the dialogue is closed.
This completely alters the challenge of fighting a Fake Hitler. While it may seem that slower fireballs can only make things easier for the player, it also means that the hazardous projectiles stay active in the game for longer while the Fake Hitler may continue polluting the arena with more fire.
The source port ECWolf fixes this issue.
Becoming one with enemies
There is a glitch in Wolfenstein which is caused if the player and an enemy move into the same location at the same time. The result is the player and enemy both becoming stuck in place and the enemy's sprites no longer rendering.
While the enemy can continue to damage the player, the player can no longer attack the enemy.
Inactive Bugs and Glitches
Inactive bugs and glitches are ones that would never appear in the original Wolfenstein 3D or SOD if not for modders finding them by editing game assets such as maps. These may be issues that modders need to keep in mind to prevent problems or they may be considered bonus tools to be exploited for unique ingame effects.
"Holowalls"
One of the most famously exploited glitches is the "holowall" trick. By placing a dead guard inside of a wall the player can walk through the wall as though it weren't solid.
A holowall can also be created by placing a living enemy inside of it. While getting guards inside of walls to be alerted by action in the correct floor codes can be tricky, this is a neat way to create guard ambushes. After the guard leaves the wall it will remain a holowall, so be aware that the player can still poke their head in if this is something you want to prevent.
The holowall is a nifty trick, though there are some possible issues which can arise.
- Most notably, while inside of a wall the player's attacks cannot extend outside of the wall and enemy's attacks similarly cannot pierce into the wall. As a result, if enemies block all exits of a holowall the player will need to reload a save or they will remain permanently stuck.
- Firing a weapon while inside of a holowall can alert all enemies in a level.
- Guards killed inside of holowalls may not drop ammo.
Stationary Dogs
All dogs in Wolfenstein and SOD are always moving if they're not attacking or dying. There are, however, snippets of code for stationary dogs present in the game. If a stationary dog is placed ingame it will transform an enemy beside it into a dog when alerted.