---
product_id: 46415431
title: "Game Engine Black Book: Wolfenstein 3D Paperback – September 5, 2017"
brand: "fabien sanglard"
price: "HK$689"
currency: HKD
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 9
url: https://www.desertcart.hk/products/46415431-game-engine-black-book-wolfenstein-3d-paperback-september-5-2017
store_origin: HK
region: Hong Kong
---

# Game Engine Black Book: Wolfenstein 3D Paperback – September 5, 2017

**Brand:** fabien sanglard
**Price:** HK$689
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Game Engine Black Book: Wolfenstein 3D Paperback – September 5, 2017 by fabien sanglard
- **How much does it cost?** HK$689 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.hk](https://www.desertcart.hk/products/46415431-game-engine-black-book-wolfenstein-3d-paperback-september-5-2017)

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- fabien sanglard enthusiasts

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## Description

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## Images

![Game Engine Black Book: Wolfenstein 3D Paperback – September 5, 2017 - Image 1](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41uZhkS206L.jpg)
![Game Engine Black Book: Wolfenstein 3D Paperback – September 5, 2017 - Image 2](https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51qGboi9I1L.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    way back on my parents' 586 clone and it's fantastic to see the internals of how it all worked ...
  

*by E***S on Reviewed in the United States on September 13, 2017*

I've long been a fan of Fabien's work over on his website (google his name, Amazon doesn't allow external links...), and have been eagerly awaiting this book since he first announced he was going to write it three years ago. Wolfenstein was the first 3D game I ever played, way back on my parents' 586 clone and it's fantastic to see the internals of how it all worked laid out so clearly and concisely. I've made a couple of attempts at deciphering the original Id source code, but wound up stymied trying to piece it together - code dealing with the vagaries of raw VGA graphics, 16-bit memory models, inline assembly, and low-level audio programming was just a little too much for me to bite off. Now armed with this guide, I feel like I have a handle on how it all worked.The book is also beautiful - all too often, books on game engines and graphics programming are all in black and white, or at best have a handful of pages of color plates that you have to flip back and forth to. Not this book, which abounds in full color diagrams and screenshots.I'm so glad that this project made its way into print. Hopefully there will be more entries in the series in the years to come

### ⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    A great resource but sloppily edited
  

*by D***R on Reviewed in the United States on December 22, 2018*

A great resource but riddled with typos even in the 2nd edition. I believe English is not the author's first language. It could have used more eyes in editing, not only in proofreading but also in simplifying some clunky run-on sentences. Appendix G, a transcript of a John Carmack interview, is so rough and inaccurate that it appears nobody looked at it before publishing. Hopefully the 3rd edition will bring the book up to the level of polish it deserves.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ 







  
  
    Fascinating, charming, and renewed my enthusiasm for making computers do the impossible
  

*by M***N on Reviewed in the United States on September 20, 2017*

I really enjoyed this book. I have a vivid memory of first seeing Wolfenstein 3D at a "computer show" (remember those?) in 1992 when I was only 11 and quickly buying the shareware disks. This game, Doom, and the Quakes were a big part of what got me excited as a kid about programming and the endless possibilities computers offered.So it is extremely satisfying to finally understand the intricacies, hacks, and genius behind the Wolf3D engine. I admittedly never attempted to read the source prior to this book, but a big reason for that (beyond lack of time) was that so much context is necessary to make sense of the code. Fabien's book provides a huge amount of necessary context for understanding both what the engine is doing and more importantly, WHY it is doing it. The book explains DOS memory limitations, the insane complexity of VGA graphics programming, and fixed point computations (which were necessary due to lack of floating point units), among many other things. Without all this background, the source code would not make much sense at all. As John Carmack has said about this book, it is a great piece of software archeology.I came away from this book with all the more appreciation for the brilliance of the hacks that were used to get the game running at a reasonable framerate on the 386'es (and even 286'es!) of the early '90s. For example, Sanglard explains how Wolf3D draws walls one column at a time: the engine actually dynamically generates assembly routines that shrink or expand a wall texture to an exact number of vertical pixels (the height of the wall on the screen). Each of these routines contains only the assembly instructions necessary for this wall height and no loops.It's really cool to read about this stuff and renews my enthusiasm for programming, finding creating solutions, and trying to make machines do what seems impossible. Though I wouldn't recommend this book for someone who isn't a programmer, Sanglard takes his role as software archaeologist seriously and provides tons of asides and anecdotes about the history of computing, the personalities behind id Software, and little details about things like map design. For example, he includes an architectural diagram of the house the team worked in. This is pointless from a technical perspective, but I greatly enjoyed all of these details. The book is also full of full-color (and large!) screenshots and illustrations.My only criticism of this book is that it is a bit rough around the edges, particularly with regard to typos, of which there are many. In a way this adds to the book's charm, however. It isn't trying to be super polished, and you can tell that it was (lovingly) laid out and organized by one person, the author. It reads more like a hacker manifesto than a textbook, and I love it for that.

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*Product available on Desertcart Hong Kong*
*Store origin: HK*
*Last updated: 2026-02-27*