Duke Nukem’ Research Paper

Any active video game player within in last 15 years will have no doubt come along the video game series “Duke Nukem.” Since the beginnings of the series in 1991, Duke Nukem has been a leader in the video game front. Apogee and the Duke Nukem franchise have had a long and winding road but in 2011, the final chapter in Duke Nukem history will come to a close. The company Apogee was founded in 1987 with a method of making money that will eventually be called the Apogee model. “Unlike traditional larger publishers that sold games through retail outlets, Apogee sold their products using the shareware method” (Wiki 3D Realms). Apogee had idea that if you give a game away free, ask people to pay for it, the public will financially support it in the hopes of promoting the further development of the game. When the company released their first game, Kingdom of Kroz, they found that this model was not profitable enough. They then made a variation of this model were they released the first few chapters of a game and then asked for a mail order for the rest of them. This purchasing model proved to be very successful and is still used greatly with game and software companies today. With the success of the company, Apogee could develop more complex and intriguing games. They started development on the first game in the Duke Nukem series, simply titled, “Duke Nukem” This turned out to be an instant hit. Duke Nukem was built on Apogee’s original engine, the Build engine. According to the Duke Nukem Wiki, “Developers of games based on the engine used reserved sprites that would allow the level designer to make a dynamic world that appeared to be 3D” (dukenukem.wikia.com/wiki/Build_engine). This type of engine is a 2.5D engine, which is like a 2D game engine but added the factor of changing height into games. This was a very new idea in the gaming world at the time of the release in 1991. Soon after in 1993, Duke Nukem II was released. This game was biased on the

Citations: * Thompson, Clive. "Learn to Let Go: How Success Killed Duke Nukem | Magazine." Wired.com. 21 Dec. 2009. Web. 23 Mar. 2011. * "Duke Nukem Forever: A Staggering History - ComputerAndVideoGames.com." Computer and Videogames. 03 Sept. 2010. Web. 03 Mar. 2011. * "Build Engine." Duke Nukem Wiki. Web. 03 Mar. 2011. * "3D Realms." Wikipedia. Web. 03 Mar. 2011. * Oxford, Nadia. "Duke Nukem Forever: A Timeline of Tortured Vaporware History." Game Theory. 01 Feb. 2011. Web. 03 Mar