Wolfenstein
The "Wolfenstein" series of video games started with the 1981 stealth-adventure video game "Castle Wolfenstein". It was developed by American programmer Silas Warner, a pioneer in the early eras of video gaming, especially the stealth genre. It was published by his (then) company M.U.S.E. Inc. (Muse Software). The player controls an unnamed American prisoner of war as he steals war files containing information about secret German war plans while avoiding or sometimes killing guards, and tries to escape the fortified Nazi stronghold Castle Wolfenstein, set during World War II. The game is often credited as one of the first video games of the stealth genre, since it focuses more on avoiding or disarming enemies, and killing them is considered a last resort.
Wolfenstein 3D
As development continued, id Software hired their former Softdisk liaison Kevin Cloud as an assistant artist, and moved the company out to Mesquite, Texas, near where Apogee was located. Scott Miller of Apogee was pleased to have his star developers nearby, and agreed to not only increase their royalty rate to 50 percent, but have Apogee create their next game for Softdisk, "ScubaVenture", so that id could focus on "Wolfenstein". The game was intended to be released using Apogee's shareware model of splitting it into three episodes and releasing the first for free, with ten levels per episode. The level maps were designed in 2D using a custom-made program called Tile Editor (TEd), which had been used for the entire "Keen" series as well as several other games. Upon finding out that the team was able to create a level in a single day using the program, Miller convinced them to instead develop six episodes, which could be sold in different-sized packs. Around the same time, the team changed members and structure: id fired probationary president Mark Rein and brought back Jay Wilbur, who had stayed in Shreveport, to be both their CEO and business team; Bobby Prince moved into the office temporarily to record sound effects, while Adrian Carmack moved out of the office to get away from the noise.