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If you spent any time in a Christian bookstore during the mid-90s, you probably saw it. Tucked away between the VeggieTales VHS tapes and the Precious Moments figurines was a chunky, weirdly shaped Super Nintendo cartridge. It featured a smiling, bearded man and a bunch of animals. It looked innocent. It looked "safe."
But if you popped that cartridge into your SNES, you weren't playing a simple educational game. You were playing Super Noah’s Ark 3D, a game that is, quite literally, Wolfenstein 3D with a Sunday school coat of paint.
The story behind this game is one of the strangest in development history. It involves high-stakes licensing, a failed horror movie tie-in, and a clever hardware hack that allowed a small religious company to thumb its nose at Nintendo’s legendary legal department. Honestly, it’s a miracle it ever hit the shelves.
Why Super Noah’s Ark 3D Is Basically Wolfenstein Without the Nazis
Let’s get the obvious thing out of the way: this game is a reskin. In Wolfenstein 3D, you’re B.J. Blazkowicz gunning down Nazis in a fortress. In Super Noah’s Ark 3D, you’re Noah wandering the halls of a massive wooden boat. Instead of Lugers and MP40s, you have slingshots. Instead of bullets, you’re firing fruit and grain.
And you aren't killing anyone. You’re "feeding" the animals until they fall asleep.
When a goat headbutts you, you lose "health" (represented by a serene Noah face that gets increasingly grumpy). To get that health back, you eat porridge or answer Bible trivia questions found on scrolls scattered throughout the levels. It sounds ridiculous because it is. You’ve got a Super Feeder 5000 that hurls watermelons at a giant boss bear. It’s the kind of fever dream only the 90s could produce.
But the tech under the hood was the real deal. This wasn't a knock-off engine; it was the actual Wolfenstein 3D engine licensed directly from id Software.
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The Hellraiser Connection You Never Knew About
There’s a persistent urban legend that id Software gave Wisdom Tree (the developer) the source code for free. The rumor says John Carmack and the gang were so mad at Nintendo for censoring the SNES version of Wolfenstein—taking out the blood and the attack dogs—that they gave the code to a Christian company just to spite them.
It’s a great story. It’s also totally fake.
What actually happened was much more "business-as-usual." Wisdom Tree’s parent company, Color Dreams, had originally paid $50,000 for the rights to make a game based on the horror movie Hellraiser. They bought the Wolfenstein engine license specifically for that project.
However, they realized pretty quickly that the hardware they needed for the Hellraiser game—a special chip to help the NES handle 3D—would make the cartridges too expensive. Plus, they were pivoting their brand toward religious titles. They had a paid-for engine and no game to use it on. So, they swapped Pinhead for Noah, swapped the Lament Configuration for a slingshot, and Super Noah’s Ark 3D was born.
The Pass-Through Cartridge: A Middle Finger to Nintendo
Nintendo was notoriously strict back then. If you wanted to release a game on the SNES, you had to go through them, pay their fees, and get that shiny "Seal of Quality." Wisdom Tree didn't want to do any of that.
They were an unlicensed developer. But Nintendo had a lockout chip (the CIC) that prevented unlicensed games from booting up.
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Wisdom Tree’s solution was brilliant and janky. They designed the Super Noah’s Ark 3D cartridge with a slot on the top. To play the game, you had to take an official licensed SNES game (like Super Mario World) and plug it into the top of the Noah cartridge. The SNES would check the Mario cartridge for the "okay" signal, find it, and then proceed to run the Noah game instead.
It worked. It was legal-ish. And it made Wisdom Tree the only company to commercially release an unlicensed SNES game in the United States.
Is the Game Actually Any Good?
Look, if you like 90s shooters, it’s... fine.
It’s definitely better than most "Bible games" of the era, mostly because the core mechanics were designed by the masters at id Software. The movement is fast. The secret walls are everywhere. It’s a solid maze crawler.
But it has some serious quirks:
- The Music: It’s peppy. It’s repetitive. It will haunt your dreams.
- Hit Detection: Since they swapped human-sized Nazis for small goats and tall ostriches, the hitboxes are a bit wonky.
- The Aesthetic: There is something deeply unsettling about a first-person perspective of a man pelting a camel with cantaloupes until it passes out.
The DOS version, which came out a year later in 1995, actually looks and runs better than the SNES version. It has floor and ceiling textures that the console couldn't handle, and it even includes more complex MIDI music.
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How to Play Super Noah’s Ark 3D in 2026
Surprisingly, this game didn't die in the 90s. It has a weirdly dedicated cult following.
In 2015, a remastered version was released on Steam. They updated it to run on modern Windows, Mac, and Linux systems using the ECWolf source port. It supports widescreen resolutions and modern controller setups.
If you’re a purist, you can still find the original SNES cartridges on eBay, but they aren't cheap. Collectors love them because of that weird pass-through design. Piko Interactive even did a limited run of "reproduction" cartridges a few years back that don't require the pass-through trick, which are much easier on your console's cartridge slot.
What Most People Get Wrong About the Legacy
Many gamers assume Wisdom Tree was just a "scam" company. While it's true their games were often low-budget, they genuinely found a loophole in the market.
Parents who wouldn't let their kids touch Doom or Mortal Kombat were happy to buy Super Noah’s Ark 3D. It was the ultimate "compromise" game. It offered the "violent" thrill of a 3D shooter without any of the actual violence.
It remains a fascinating piece of gaming history because it represents a time when the "Wild West" of development was still alive. It’s a game born from a horror movie license, powered by the most controversial engine of its time, and delivered via a hardware hack.
Your Next Steps for Exploring Retro History
If you want to experience this weird piece of history yourself, here is the best way to do it:
- Check out the Steam version: It’s usually under five bucks. It’s the most stable way to play and supports modern hardware.
- Watch the Angry Video Game Nerd episode: James Rolfe’s review of this game is legendary and covers a lot of the visual frustrations of the SNES port.
- Look into the ECWolf Project: If you’re into modding, the engine that runs the modern port is an open-source marvel that keeps many Wolfenstein-era games alive today.
Whether you see it as a clever piece of business or a bizarre footnote in the 16-bit wars, there’s no denying that Super Noah’s Ark 3D is a one-of-a-kind artifact. It's the only game where you can "save" the animal kingdom one watermelon at a time.