Wolfenstein
Silas Warner, an American programmer and an employee of software company Muse Software, was a pioneer of early video game development, especially the stealth genre. He had access to computers in college, and when he worked for the IBM Mainframe architectures before joining Muse Software. The computer he used for game-development, P.L.A.T.O., was one of the firsts with multiple functioning terminals and an example of early computer networks. Warner developed, with P.L.A.T.O., a series of classic video games like his flight simulator and arcade shooter. Inspired by the arcade shooter video game "Berzerk" and the 1961 war film "Guns of Navarone", he developed "Castle Wolfenstein", a stealth-adventure video game in which the player controls an unnamed American prisoner of war as he steals German files containing secret war plans, while avoiding, disarming or at times killing hostile guards and trying to escape the fortified Nazi stronghold 'Castle Wolfenstein', set in World War II. The game was published in 1981 by Warner's company M.U.S.E. Inc. (Muse Software).
Wolfenstein 3D
"Wolfenstein 3D" was the second major release by id Software, after the "Commander Keen" series of episodes. In mid-1991, programmer John Carmack experimented with making a fast 3D game engine by restricting the gameplay and viewpoint to a single plane, producing "Hovertank 3D" and "Catacomb 3-D" as prototypes. After a design session prompted the company to shift from the family-friendly "Keen" to a more violent theme, programmer John Romero suggested remaking the 1981 stealth shooter "Castle Wolfenstein" as a fast-paced action game. He and designer Tom Hall designed the game, built on Carmack's engine, to be fast and violent, unlike other computer games on the market at the time. "Wolfenstein 3D" features artwork by Adrian Carmack and sound effects and music by Bobby Prince. The game was released through Apogee in two sets of three episodes under the shareware model, in which the first episode is released for free to drive interest in paying for the rest. An additional episode, "Spear of Destiny", was released as a stand-alone retail title through FormGen.