[typing]
Within certain retro gaming circles,
the name Wisdom Tree conjures up thoughts of unlicensed NES games,
like Bible Adventures and Sunday Funday.
But in case you're not aware, they were a company that started out under the name Color Dreams,
creating Nintendo Entertainment System games
and soon created the label Wisdom Tree
to become one of the first developers for the up-and-coming Christian games market.
One of these is the infamous Super 3D Noah's Ark from 1994,
or Super Noah's Ark 3D, depending on how you look at it.
Anyway, this has the dubious honor of being the only commercially-sold unlicensed Super Nintendo game.
Now, Nintendo included hardware that was supposed to prevent unsanctioned games like this,
but Wisdom Tree had some clever engineers that didn't take "no" for an answer.
The cartridge has a normal edge connector on the bottom, but along the top
there's a spot to plug in a legitimate SNES cart.
Simply insert the game, plop a licensed game on top,
and there you go.
A clever and some might say dastardly solution that earns geeky respect, but people didn't care.
The game was the worst seller in Wisdom Tree's history,
and it fell into obscurity.
At least, that is, until the Internet found it,
which combined with some mythology, led to its cult status today.
You see, "3D Super 3D Noah's Ark 3D" was based on Wolfenstein 3D by id Software,
the granddaddy of the first-person shooter and one of the hottest games of the early '90s.
Wolf 3D was released on the SNES as well,
but due to Nintendo's current policies forbidding things like excess violence and images it deemed harmful,
the blood and references to Naziism were removed.
The legend often goes that id Software was fed up with Nintendo over this
and went to Wisdom Tree,
gave them the Wolf 3D source code,
everything was re-skinned,
and it was released as a form of protest against Nintendo's censorship.
However, according to some folks actually involved with the project,
this is nothing but a made-up stick-it-to-the-man-style urban legend.
In fact, Wisdom Tree approached id Software
and paid the same licensing fee that anyone else would have for the Wolfenstein engine.
There was no leaked SDK, nothing was handed over in secret,
it wasn't just the same levels re-skinned,
and Elvis was not still alive somewhere in Nebraska.
It seems the only qualms at the time were on the part of id Software,
in that they wanted to be sure no laws were being broken and that no contracts were breached.
So if anything, they were the most reasonable of the bunch.
Nope, the more research I did into this over the past several months,
the less credible any of the rumors turned out to be.
But even though the game turns out to just be a result of a plain Jane licensing agreement,
there's still more to this story.
Because with all the attention being placed on their Nintendo games,
it's easy to miss that Wisdom Tree was no stranger to DOS PC development, either.
This makes sense, seeing that it was far easier to release a game on the PC,
rather than go to the trouble of creating bootleg cartridges that bypassed security lockout chips.
But yeah, back to "Noah's 3D Super Ark,"
which saw an MS-DOS PC release in 1995,
first on floppy disk and then on CD-ROM.
This version seemingly sold a bit better,
is definitely easier to find and is far less expensive
than the 1994 cartridge that goes for 150 bucks now.
This is a port of the SNES version,
but features higher-resolution graphics, directional sprites,
floor and ceiling textures,
and a new sprite for the Ark Quiz pick-ups, among other minor changes.
It also features a bizarre form of generating its music,
where it uses full General MIDI music files,
yet doesn't actually support wavetable sound devices that could play these songs.
Apparently, they just took the SNES music files and brought them over to the PC,
and then programmed a GM-to-OPL conversion to happen on the fly during gameplay.
This added some overhead to the executable,
making it slightly more resource- intensive than vanialla Wolf 3D.
But anyway, enough trivia for now. What about the game itself?
Well, as I implied earlier, it's more or less a total conversion of Wolfenstein 3D, but
it's worth noting that it's not just a straightforward re-skin.
The level layouts are different, some of the animation sequences have minor changes,
and there are the aforementioned quizzes
that test you on the biblical story of Noah's Ark from the Book of Genesis.
But yeah, the rest of it really is just Wolfenstein 3D, for better or worse.
Instead of a roided-up supersoldier fighting endless Nazis,
you play the part of Noah feeding endless animals.
Forget the story of two of each kind of animal boarding the ark.
It's clear that either a crapload more animals snuck on board
or they've been getting busy when you weren't lookin'.
So most of the time you'll just be quote-unquote "fighting" goats,
but there are also things like sheep, antelopes, ostriches and oxen that all need to be shot.
And by "shot," I mean "fed,"
since you wield a slingshot that shoots several types of food into the mouths of each animal.
Feed them enough food and they fall asleep instantly,
presumably because you've laced each morsel with ancient fast-acting tranquliizers.
If you fail to feed the animals, they will kick you until you die!
So yeah, it takes a few teensy liberties with the story from the Bible,
but then what Wisdom Tree game didn't?
I mean, having a game where you just wait around for 40 days and 40 nights
wouldn't exactly be the most exciting thing,
especially for the children this game was meant for.
And yeah, this was a kid's game, if you somehow couldn't tell,
so if you expected excellence from it, then you're probably not the target audience.
This was, is, and will always be geared toward the crayon-wielding glue muncher crowds,
so don't take it too seriously.
Unless you're like me and also really like the collector's aspect
and the story behind the game and its developers,
then you're probably not going to get much enjoyment out of this.
I mean, frick, other than the nostalgia factor,
I don't get much enjoyment out of Wolf 3D either,
so making it even more bland and repetitive is the exact opposite
of what I would want out of a Wolfenstein engine game anyway.
Buuuut, what if I told you you could play it at 1080p?
Well, now you can, with the 2015 re-release by Braden Obrzut, Piko Interactive and Wisdom Tree.
This was reverse-engineered and programmed by the same guy responsible
for the excellent ECWolf source port for Wolfenstein 3D,
and is thankfully not just a basic redistribution of the game running under DOSBox or something.
It's a complete overhaul using the most recent version of ECWolf
and includes all sorts of amenities like support for modern operating systems,
modern controllers, an incredibly useful auto-mapping feature,
and even planned multiplayer support in the future.
[chuckles] Multiplayer Super 3D Noah's Ark.
Yeah, I don't think anyone has ever wanted that,
but dang it if I don't need it in my life now that I hear about it.
It's on Steam for $4.99, which is three bucks less than Wisdom Tree is asking for their old DOS version.
It works well, it looks better and it plays...
the same, so that's unfortunate.
But hey, it's an official re-release of a game that's obscure as balls that practically no one cares about,
so I approve.
And believe it or not, this isn't the only time this game has been revisited.
There was also a reprint of the SNES version of January of 2014,
which goes for something like 60 bucks now.
I have no idea how or why that came to be,
but I guess Wisdom Tree are just super determined
to get a return on the worst-selling game in their history.
I wonder if that distinction will change with all these weird but kind of awesome re-releases lately.
Either way, "3D Super 3D Noah's of 3D Ark 3D" is a game that exists and
sorta sucks, but it's also something that I find absolutely fascinating
and therefore impossible to ignore.
I can't say it's very fun, unless you're a really young kid,
or perhaps are so wasted that you forget what you're playing.
But nonetheless, for a passionate few weirdos like me who just enjoy this stuff,
it's finally found its place,
and that makes me smile.
[MIDI music]
A special thank you to Jacob for sending me the PC version of Super Noah's Ark 3D,
as well as Mr. Braden Obrzut for providing all sorts of interesting backstory and information
on Wisdom Tree and this game, as well as the most recent source port.
And if you found any of this stuff as interesting as I did,
then perhaps you'd like to see some of my other videos.
I've got some here for your viewing pleasure.
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And as always, thank you very much for watching.