Video Game / Team Fortress 1

The nine who began it all, wearing Team Red colors.^note From left to right: Engineer, Heavy, Soldier, Demoman, Scout, Spy, Pyro, Sniper, and Medic. Not pictured: Civilian

The one which started it all, Team Fortress, later known as QuakeWorld Team Fortress, is the first in the series of games of the same name.

It is a total conversion mod of the original Quake. Created in 1996 by Robin "Bro" Walker, John "Jojie" Cook, and Ian "Scuba" Caughley, it improves on the Competitive Multiplayer of the base game by introducing the premise of two teams, one Red and one Blue. (Sometimes an additional Green and Yellow team were allowed.) Putting focus on specialized skills and teamwork, players are given a choice between various classes (originally five before it was expanded to the trademark nine) with different loadouts and weaknesses. The teams then compete against each other in various game modes, such as Capture the Flag and Attack and Defend.

The mod became immensely popular. The community built hundreds of maps for the game and communed together for explosions of chaos, bullets, rockets, grenades, and nails. id Software had no hand in the level design, but the now-iconic "2Fort5" is itself a clone of the "FORTRESS.WAD" map from id's Doom.

Valve later took a interest in the game and hired the developers to work on a sequel, which the devs had been planning to base on the Quake II engine, but that version never made it off the drawing board. It would be nearly a decade later that said sequel was finally released. In the meantime, the newly-hired team made Team Fortress Classic (often mistaken for the first game in the series) to ease the wait and showcase the modding power of the GoldSrc engine.

The original game can be downloaded as a mod for Quake, either in its raw form or in a improved port from ModDB, if you're interested in seeing how the 'Fort came to be.

Tropes exemplified:

• Alien Sky: Some maps feature this like in the base game, while others, such as 2 Fortresses, have blue skies.
• Ascended Glitch: The Spy class is famously based on a glitch from the earlier versions of the game, when players would spawn with the wrong team colours. The mod also popularized the Rocket Jump and bunnyhopping, two glitches from the base game.
• Awesome, but Impractical: A lot of the weapons in the game are this.
  • The Pipebomb Launcher, which uses specialised placed bombs that can be detonated at will. This requires you to properly survey the area they're in, since you need to know when to detonate them and they just vanish if the shooter is killed.
  • The Super Nailgun, unlike in the game the mod is based off of, isn't too effective against moving enemies, since it has a very high rate of ammo consumption and doesn't do much damage by itself. However, it is very effective against slower enemies or Sentry Guns.
  • The Assault Cannon - unlike in Team Fortress Classic, it automatically uses up ten Cells just to spin up, and prevents you from firing while moving. While it can still shred down enemies with ease, these downsides plus the damage falloff makes it pretty ineffective when you're not playing on defence.
  • The Incendiary Cannon is very useful for fighting at a range or dealing with Snipers, but since it uses up three Rockets per shot and is a lot harder to aim than the Flamethrower or Shotgun, it's not very effective as a combat weapon unless you've properly trained yourself with it.
  • The Tranquilizer Gun stuns enemies and makes backstabbing them much easier, but is so slow and does so little damage that it should only be used as a Utility Weapon when actively taking down enemies.
• Back Stab: The Spy is the Ur-Example, with his Team Fortress Classic successor being the Trope Namer and his Team Fortress 2 successor being the Trope Codifier.
• Badass in a Nice Suit: Much like his Team Fortress 2 successor, the Spy wears a dapper suit and tie. A BOW tie, in this case.
• Bald of Authority: The Heavy Weapons Guy, who's bald, Ambiguously Brown, and the leader of any charge.
• Boom, Headshot!: The Ur-Example in FPS games with the Sniper Rifle.
• Bottomless Magazines: Averted with the Shotgun, Super Shotgun, Grenade/Pipebomb Launcher and Rocket Launcher. Played straight with everything else.
• Charged Attack: The Sniper Rifle does this. Hold it down long enough, and a simple body shot will suffice to One-Hit Kill any target.
• Cherry Tapping: The Scout's main method of combat.
• Chest Insignia: Visible on the Scout (a wide-open eye), the Sniper (a crosshair), the Soldier (a circle with a shell in it), the Demoman (a simple sphere), the Medic (a medical cross), and the Heavy Weapons Guy (the barrel of the Assault Cannon)
• Color-Coded Multiplayer
• Combat and Support: Scout, Demoman, and Heavy make up the Combat part, Sniper, Spy and Engineer make up the support part, and Soldier, Medic and Pyro can fulfil either role.
• Cool Mask/ Malevolent Masked Man: The Demoman (who has some type of rebreather mask) and the Medic (who has a surgical mask).
• Cut the Fuse: The Scout can disable a enemy Demoman's Detpack by just walking over it.
• Cyborg: Looking closely at the textures shows the Scout,◊ Sniper◊ and Engineer to have some cybernetic implants, mainly around their eyes.
• Difficult, but Awesome: The game in general, especially considering the fact that there aren't any immediate button shortcuts - you'll have to make scripts or a keybind to be able to use grenades and even the Sniper Rifle's scope.
• Do Not Run with a Gun: The Sniper and Heavy while charging the Sniper Rifle or winding up the Assault Cannon.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • The earliest builds of the game were absolutely nothing like the later games in the series. On Day 1, there were only five classes available (Scout, Soldier, Demoman, Medic and Sniper, with Heavy Weapons Guy being added in about a week after the first build was released), there were no official maps, and class roles weren't really defined yet, so you could expect a Medic to be the exclusive flag-runner while the Soldier would stay put in the flag room. The Scout also had a Super Shotgun and the Soldier had a Super Nailgun in earlier builds, but these were removed for being too overpowered.
  • The finished game also has quite a few elements that won't be expected by Team Fortress Classic players. The Nailgun and Super Nailgun are to be used much more than the Shotgun and Super Shotgun, the Assault Cannon doesn't allow you to shoot while moving, reloading weapons prevents you from switching to another one to defend yourself if you need to, the Bioweapon needs to be switched between healing and infecting modes to prevent it from infecting teammates and needs health supplies to be used, most weapons share models with each other, there's no Teleporter, and the Flamethrower and Railgun are actually useful.
• Electro Magnetic Pulse: The Engineer's EMP Grenades. Unlike other examples of this trope, it's actually less effective against buildings than it is against humans, since it'll blow up all their ammo when it detonates, typically being a One-Hit Kill.
• Everything Fades: Played straight, unlike in Quake. Dead bodies of players will vanish after a second or two.
• Fragile Speedster: The Scout - lowest health, tied with Sniper for lowest armour, least effective weapons, and no Frag Grenades, but also the highest speed and agility, making him a perfect Designated Point Man, flag-runner and occasional offensive support.
• Glass Cannon: Pretty much everyone applies in this game. They all have very powerful methods of combat, which can easily shred enemies to pieces - but said enemies also have their own super-powered weapons that can be a match for them. The only aversions to this are the Scout and Heavy Weapons Guy.
  • The Sniper in particular is this. He has a average amount of health, but is tied with Scout for the lowest armour, and doesn't have any Shotgun variant, leaving him vulnerable at close-range. This is, however, the price to pay for his Sniper Rifle's ability to One-Hit Kill any enemy with enough charge or a headshot.
• Have a Nice Death: By way of the same death messages as in the original game.
  "Player gets sawn in half by OtherPlayer."
  "Player eats OtherPlayer's pineapple."
  "Player didn't insert the correct change in OtherPlayer's Dispenser."
  "Player hates OtherPlayer's Sentry Gun."
  "No, Player, you're supposed to THROW the grenade!"
• Hitscan: In addition to the Shotgun and Super Shotgun, this also applies to the Sniper/Auto Rifle and Assault Cannon. Due to the engine, these hitscan weapons suffer damage falloff while projectile weapons don't.
• Interface Screw: This can be caused on a enemy by using the Scout and Medic's Concussion Grenades (making their screen violently shake and their body to become hard to control), the Pyro's Flamethrower, Incendiary Cannon and Napalm Grenades (which cause 2D flame sprite effects to appear on their screen), and the Spy's Hallucination Grenades (which makes enemies see damage effects and objects that aren't really there).
• Law of Chromatic Superiority: The armour used in the game, which is the same as in Quake but can only be used by certain classes. Only the Soldier and Heavy can use the Red armour, while the Scout and Sniper can only use Green armour and the Demoman, Medic, Pyro, Spy and Engineer can only use Yellow Armour. On the other hand, as all Armours absorb damage the same way, the Soldier and Heavy's armours have the shortest lifespan, while the Scout and Sniper's armours will last the longest.
• Nail 'Em:
  • The Nailgun, used by the Scout as a primary weapon and a backup weapon for the Sniper and Spy, is quite handy for combating enemies and destroying Sentry Guns.
  • The Super Nailgun, the main weapon of the Medic, is a more powerful variant of the Nailgun, doing more damage and having a higher range at the cost of a increased amount of ammo expended per shot.
  • The Railgun, used by the Engineer as his primary weapon, isn't a Ray Gun like its name would suggest, but rather a kind of nail rifle that shoots a single giant nail extremely fast, doing slightly more damage than a point-blank Shotgun blast. It doesn't lose damage over range, and unlike the other Nail-based weapons it only uses one nail per shot.
• Nerf:
  • The Shotguns, Grenade/Pipebomb Launcher and Rocket Launcher now need to be reloaded, and due to their damage falloff and the fact you're mostly playing against other players or highly-designed bots, the Shotguns and Grenade Launcher are much less effective. The Rocket Launcher can be useful if you know how to use it properly, and the Pipebomb Launcher is still quite handy for setting up traps.
  • The Nailgun and Super Nailgun are both nerfed compared to their Quake originals. Both use twice the amount of ammo for a single shot (two for the regular Nailgun and four for the Super Nailgun) and fire much slower.
• New Work, Recycled Graphics: Being a Game Mod, this is inevitable. The Civillian noticeably reuses the model for Ranger, and nearly all the weapons either share models with the base game's weapons or use reskins of them (the Bioweapon is a reskinned Axe, the Tranquilizer Gun and in early versions the Sniper/Auto Rifle use the Shotgun's model while the Railgun is a reskinned Shotgun, the Assault Cannon once used the Super Nailgun model, the Flamethrower and Pipebomb Launcher share a model with the Grenade Launcher, the Incendiary Cannon is the same model as the Rocket Launcher, and the Detpack is a reskinned Backpack) - the only exceptions to this are the Knife, Wrench, and in the Quake World versions the Sniper Rifle and Assault Cannon.
• Percussive Maintenance: Much like his successors, the Engineer fixes and upgrades his equipment by smashing it repeatedly with a spanner.
• Ranged Emergency Weapon:
  • The Shotgun, which is wielded by everyone except for the Sniper, Spy and Engineer. Unlike the decent sidearm that it is in TFC, it has severe damage falloff over ranges, making it only really useful for annoying enemies from afar or as a last-ditch survival tool when you're out of ammo and the enemy is too far away to use the Axe on them.
  • The Sniper Rifle's alternate mode, which fires rapidly and can do some good damage but quickly chews up Shells and is really only meant for either taking down a wounded enemy or getting to back down while you're retreating.
• Real Is Brown: Downplayed, but due to the mod cribbing the bulk of its visuals from Quake, this is inevitable, although there are some maps that feature more outdoor spaces and brighter colours.
• Sentry Gun: One of the earliest examples in video gaming of a Sentry Gun that can be remotely deployed and used by a player. The Sentry Gun in this game can be built by the Engineer and automatically targets enemies, but needs to Shells put into it before it can shoot at them. It can also be upgraded to have two machine guns and then a rocket launcher.
• Shotguns Are Just Better:
  • The standard Shotgun, used as a secondary weapon for the Scout and a backup weapon for the Soldier, Demoman, Medic, Heavy Weapons Guy and Pyro, is the general Ranged Emergency Weapon of the game, doing little damage and having severe damage falloff over ranges. However, it is still quite useful for Cherry Tapping a enemy while conserving ammo or bringing down one who's been horribly wounded by your other weapons.
  • The Super Shotgun, used as the main weapon of the Spy and a secondary for the Soldier, Medic, Heavy Weapons Guy and Engineer, is a much more effective weapon, although it's still only a sidearm. It does quite a lot of damage when used at close-range, but its damage falloff and pellet spread makes it ineffective at medium range and useless at long range.
• Sniper Duel: Very frequently occur between Snipers. The Incendiary Cannon is primarily designed for breaking up these battles.
• The Squad: Initially there were only five classes, but by the time of the mod's final official development in mid-1998, it had finally reached the nine classes that would become the standard of Team Fortress - Scout, Sniper, Soldier, Demoman, Medic, Heavy Weapons Guy, Pyro, Spy, and Engineer (Oh yeah, and the Civillian).
• Teleportation with Drawbacks: A Teleporter for the Engineer was included in one version, but was immediately removed in the next for being a complete Game-Breaker. Team Fortress Classic later re-added it and balanced it by giving it a recharge period after every use.
• Video Game Flamethrowers Suck: Unlike in TFC, this trope is actually averted with the Pyro's flamethrower. It has a decent range, does good damage, and even leaves behind physical flames on surfaces that can be bypass armour and keep damaging enemies.
• Weapon-Based Characterization: Each class has their own loadout of three or four weapons that they cannot change.
  • Axes: The Axe, used by everyone except the Medic, Spy and Engineer.
  • Healing Shiv: The Medic's Bioweapon.
  • Blade Enthusiast: The Spy's Knife.
  • Wrench Whack: The Engineer's Wrench.
  • Shotguns Are Just Better: The Shotgun used by everyone except the Sniper, Spy and Engineer, and the Super Shotgun used by the Soldier, Medic, Heavy Weapons Guy, Spy and Engineer.
  • Sniper Rifle: The Sniper's, well, Sniper Rifle. It also has a full-auto mode for self-defence.
  • Gatling Good: The Heavy Weapons Guy's Assault Cannon.
  • Nail 'Em: The Nailgun used by the Scout, Sniper and Spy, the Super Nailgun used by the Medic, the Railgun used by the Engineer (which despite its name isn't a Ray Gun, but rather a kind of rifle-like weapon that shoots a single high-damage nail extremely quickly), and the Soldier's Nail Grenades.
  • Tranquillizer Dart: The Spy's Tranquillizer Gun.
  • Fire-Breathing Weapon: The Pyro's Flamethrower.
  • BFG: The Soldier's Rocket Launcher and the Pyro's Incendiary Cannon.
  • Grenade Launcher: The Demoman's Grenade Launcher, which also has a Pipebomb mode.
  • Big, Bulky Bomb: The Demoman's Detpack, which isn't so much a weapon as much as it is a method of opening a new pathway on the map.
  • Throw Down the Bomblet: The standard Frag Grenade used by everyone except for the Scout.
  • Concussion Frags: The Scout and Medic's Concussion Grenades.
  • Recursive Ammo: The Demoman and Heavy's MIRV Grenades.
  • Caltrops: The Scout's, well, Caltrops.
  • Utility Weapon: The Sniper's Flares, which don't actually do damage but are often useful for lighting up dark areas, and the Spy's Hallucination Grenades, which induce a Mushroom Samba on any enemy (or user) who breathes in their fumes.
  • Molotov Cocktail: The Pyro's Napalm Grenades.
  • Electro Magnetic Pulse: The Engineer's EMP Grenades.
• You Require More Vespene Gas: The Engineer's metal, required for construction and upgrading.