Marathon: Pathways into Darkness

[Winter_Wolf]

Hey guys, I'm Nicholas Hoad the project leader for Marathon: Pathways into Darkness (MPiD).

For those who do not know, MPiD is a total conversion for Aleph One that brings to life the game Pathways into Darkness, the generally accepted prequel for Marathon.

I've received a lot of interest in this project over the years and I've decided I should at least let everyone know what's going on with it. For one, the project is NOT dead, just sleeping while I wage war on SheepShaver. In recent months the lack of a Intel or OS X friendly Forge/Anvil has forced me to try and use SheepShaver, which really doesn't like me. Also, I've been working on this project alone for some time now so when real life comes calling work on MPiD comes to a complete halt.

As soon as SheepShaver and I end our war I intend to finish up the remaining levels of MPiD. Because my own abilities are limited and the original PiD is VERY old there have been numerous problems. These problems, however, are only preventing me from putting a final polish on the project. Once the remaining levels and monsters are done most of MPiD will be finished. My current plan is to finish the levels and release MPiD to the public, and hopefully I will receive more information on my polish problems so that they can be corrected in another version of MPiD.

Things you should know:

1. In MPiD you cannot go back and forth between levels and you only have a limited choice in what path to choose to take (for example I am forcing the player to find the yellow crystal in the second level, whereas in the original the player could completely avoid the crystal).
2. Resting MIGHT be implemented. I am working on an interesting idea to implement this.
3. There are NO new monsters or new weapons. Its all original.
4. Not all of the crystals from the original game will be implemented (the blue and orange are in).

MPiD's website (sorry that it hasn't been updated in a while):

http://bighouse.bungie.org/pathways/

I am giving you guys a level List so that you can gauge for yourself how much work is left on the project. Note that some levels are repeats and so won't require a lot of work once one version of the repeated levels is done (levels in red are incomplete):

00. Ground Floor
01. Never Stop Firing
02. Ground Floor
03. Lock & Load
04. They May Be Slowâ?¦
05. â?¦But Theyâ??re Hungry
06. â?¦But Theyâ??re Hungry
07. â?¦But Theyâ??re Hungry
08. Evil Undead Phantasms Must Die!
09. Evil Undead Phantasms Must Die!
10. Evil Undead Phantasms Must Die!
11. Ascension
12. Evil Undead Phantasms Must Die!
13. Ground Floor
14. Wrong Way!
15. Welcome, Tasty Primate
16. Welcome, Tasty Primate
17. Welcome, Tasty Primate
18. Welcome, Tasty Primate
19. Wrong Way!
20. Welcome, Tasty Primate
21. Wrong Way!
22. We Can See In The Darkâ?¦ Can You?
23. Happy Happy, Carnage Carnage
24. Donâ??t Get Poisoned
25. The Labyrinth
26. Need A Light?
27. The Labyrinth
28. Lasciate Ogne Speranza, Voi Châ??Intrate
29. Watch Your Step
30. Lasciate Ogne Speranza, Voi Châ??Intrate
31. Iâ??d Rather Be Surfing
32. Warning: Earthquake Zone
33. Donâ??t Get Poisoned
34. Please Excuse Our Dust
35. But Wait!- Thatâ??s Not All!
36. Where Only Fools Dare Tread
37. Ok, Who Else Wants Some?
38. Iâ??d Rather Be Surfing
39. Lasciate Ogne Speranza, Voi Châ??Intrate
40. Warning: Earthquake Zone
41. The Labyrinth
42. Beware of Low-Flying Nightmares
43. A Plague of Demons
44. Feel The Power
45. Ground Floor

Thanks for your time and the terribly long post! I'll answer any questions anyone has.

[thomaslivingston]

Is this just a straight port. I would personally make new less cheesy looking monsters and try to make the game genuinely scary. Also what about textures, if you could make it look like the M1A1 intro with the high-res textures that would be brilliant.

[JohannesG]

great to hear that this project is still alive.

[Winter_Wolf]

@ Tommy-TBone: At the moment MPiD is a straight port. If I find people capable of creating new graphics I would happily give PiD a visual upgrade. However, for the moment the first release of MPiD will be a straight port.

@ Johannes: Thanks for your earlier help on the project, your fog really improves the atmosphere of the levels. Now, if the monsters were less cheesy looking...

[localwarming]

I've had plenty of interest in PiD for A1, being that I never played the original and that it is a predecessor to Marathon.

Thanks for the update.

[visciom]

At the moment MPiD is a straight port. If I find people capable of creating new graphics I would happily give PiD a visual upgrade. However, for the moment the first release of MPiD will be a straight port.

How many wall textures are there? I'm quite busy with other projects, however if theres only a few wall textures, I'd be happy to create hi-res textures for you.

[JohannesG]

@ Johannes: Thanks for your earlier help on the project, your fog really improves the atmosphere of the levels. Now, if the monsters were less cheesy looking...

You're welcome, and it's nice to see you here.
If you need help with something more, please do ask. I can't promise i will say yes, it depends on how busy i will be, but it's worth a try.

PS: I highly recommend Visciom. He has some great talent.

[Winter_Wolf]

How many wall textures are there? I'm quite busy with other projects, however if theres only a few wall textures, I'd be happy to create hi-res textures for you.

Thanks for the offer! I hope you are not scared by the number, just let me explain about MPiD textures before you run away!

If I count all of the textures it comes out to 38, however, only 21 are new textures (if you really pushed me I could probably reduce it more). Most of the textures are simply color variations of each other. For example 3 doors with the exact same graphic = 3 textures because 1 door is gold, 1 is silver and 1 is bronze. And then a lot of the textures are simply a floor texture with a symbol added. Create that one symbol and even I can just stick it onto the floor textures.

I would really love your help visciom! If 38 is too many textures I'll try and reduce it for you. But thanks for offering anyway!

@ Johannes: Thanks again for the support! Hopefully I won't need too much help to finish what I intend to finish. To find out how many textures I needed I actually had to use the dreaded SheepShaver! Its not as bad as I remember it, so as soon as I remember how to add files to it I think the project will be rolling again.

[visciom]

21 isn't that bad. I may be able to help you out after I give the finishing touches to my weapon enhancement pack, which will mostly likely be released sometime this week.

[Zott]

Glad to see this project is alive and kicking.

You said that you were forcing the player to get the Yellow Crystal, but if the player skips levels using the Vidmaster Oath (Assuming it isn't disabled) wouldn't they not have the yellow Crystal? Is it purely cosmetic?

2ndly, is that guy with the shield still in it? Cause he rocks Oh and Blue Chicken Flamethrower.


For the resting idea, health could probably be recovered easily with some lua, such as was done with Halothon and the shield bar. As for blacking out the screen though, and making the monsters move more quickly, I'm not sure, Can you adjust monster's speed on the fly with lua?

[Bobwithkeycard]

Glad to see this project is alive and kicking.

You said that you were forcing the player to get the Yellow Crystal, but if the player skips levels using the Vidmaster Oath (Assuming it isn't disabled) wouldn't they not have the yellow Crystal? Is it purely cosmetic?

A LUA script could check the inventory upon entering the level and give it to the player in case he doesn't has it

[Winter_Wolf]

The yellow crystal in the original allows the player to talk to dead people. That's why I am forcing the player to get it first.

However, it doesn't really matter if you skip past the yellow crystal level using the Vid oath because your inventory never shows it. There are dozens of items in the original PiD and very few item slots in Marathon. So a player will pick up an item to beat a certain level and a screen will show the item, its original description and its purpose instead of the player's inventory carrying around that item throughout the game.

The few item slots are saved for the very important items, such as the nuclear bomb.

However, I will probably have to introduce a LUA script for the nuke and such.

Ok, I'll settle this problem the easy way! The new Pidmaster Oath:

"I pledge to complete EVERY level, to leave the dead people alone (they're dead, give them a break), to never rest when there is a potion to drink, to always fight Banshees without a crystal, to never be caught by the ninjas and to never, ever, leave a single headless alive."

Obey the oath and you guys will solve a lot of my problems!

@ Zott: The Blue Chicken Flamethrower is fully operational and ready to kill. Do you guys want to know how I calculated his health? To say the least it involved a lot of bullets. The guy with the shield (Sentinel) is not in at the moment but he will be.

@Bobwithkeycard: Your resting idea is what I was planning on doing. The second weapon function of the survival knife will be a backwards attack that causes negative damage and black out (hence resting). Still experimenting though.

@visciom: Whenever you're ready I'll send the textures to you!

[treellama]

There's an entire slot for "balls" in Marathon, and there are 8 colors. With MML you might be able to get 8 different colored crystals in there, but you'd have to play with it to know for real.

[thomaslivingston]

For the resting idea, health could probably be recovered easily with some lua, such as was done with Halothon and the shield bar. As for blacking out the screen though, and making the monsters move more quickly, I'm not sure, Can you adjust monster's speed on the fly with lua?

I think there is a fade to black lua effect.

[RyokoTK]

How are you going to get around the Magic Wooden Box? Are you just going to leave more ammo around for the player, or screw him over?

[Winter_Wolf]

How are you going to get around the Magic Wooden Box? Are you just going to leave more ammo around for the player, or screw him over?

The way the level design is the level with the magic wooden box is the third to last level. This means the player will not be able to generate his own ammo. Not good right? I am going to go with Raul Bonilla's original plan to just have lots of ammo lying about with no explanation (heck, its a weird temple mass producing monsters, it could mass produce some ammo too right?).

@Treellama: I'll work with your suggest and let you guys know if it works out.

Now, I've been considering doing something for a long time. What would you guys think if I released a beta version of MPiD which including the first 26 levels listed? I could get some great feedback and actually prove I've done something with this project (not to mention it'll help people wanting to work on the project get an idea of what is happening). I need some feedback on my various problems as well so this will probably help.

So guys, should I release a beta?

[RyokoTK]

So guys, should I release a beta?

YES.

If nothing else, I'm interested. I didn't like PiD much but MPiD is really kindling my interest. I'd love to see what you've got done so far.

[treellama]

Let me know if there's anything small, engine-wise, that would help.

[Winter_Wolf]

@ Treellama: I remember a while back there was an issue when Portal of Sigma chp 1 was released with the Aleph One application in it. I would like to release the MPiD beta with the Aleph One application and the new icon for Aleph One. Am I allowed to do this? If so what do I need to add to the package to make it legal?

[Bobwithkeycard]

There's an entire slot for "balls" in Marathon, and there are 8 colors. With MML you might be able to get 8 different colored crystals in there, but you'd have to play with it to know for real.

I think from the dark forces TC team we gathered that it's impossible to utilize the ball slot for solo games, since some thing are hardcoded to netgame-only usage

Let me know if there's anything small, engine-wise, that would help.

I think the LUA function get_trigger(player) that comes in place when the player hits the use button might help the PID TC alot such as using a ladder to level exit or utilizing save point while standing on them ...any chance, treellama?

[Winter_Wolf]

I think from the dark forces TC team we gathered that it's impossible to utilize the ball slot for solo games, since some thing are hardcoded to netgame-only usage
I think the LUA function get_trigger(player) that comes in place when the player hits the use button might help the PID TC alot such as using a ladder to level exit or utilizing save point while standing on them ...any chance, treellama?

I thought I remembered the balls were not useable in single player but thanks for the heads up Bob.

Goran taught me how to make floor based pattern buffers so no problem there at the moment and if you stand by a 'usable' ladder you are automatically teleported out of the level. If you have failed to do something important on the level then you won't be allowed to leave anyway. I'll certainly look into LUA, but for the beta I'll stick to what I have. Hopefully later versions of MPiD will utilize LUA fully, thanks a lot for offers Treellama and Bob, I'll certainly take you guys up on them.

[treellama]

@ Treellama: I remember a while back there was an issue when Portal of Sigma chp 1 was released with the Aleph One application in it. I would like to release the MPiD beta with the Aleph One application and the new icon for Aleph One. Am I allowed to do this? If so what do I need to add to the package to make it legal?

We encourage distributing a Unimap, without the application, for a number of reasons. It makes the install process more consistent, so we are better able to help people who have problems. I will not answer support requests for scenarios that bundle their own version of the app unless the user downloads Aleph One and installs it the way we recommend. It's also easier to keep up with updates to the engine, and it's really essential to be running the latest version if there's online play. Lastly, someday we may have support for a scenario installer, or zipped scenario support in the engine, and if we do, it'll require Unimap-style data.

You are, of course, perfectly entitled to copy the application and do whatever you want with it under the GPL, so long as you respect the terms of that license. So, if you ship the application, you must either ship the source code with it, or make it available from the same site.

Changing Aleph One's icon is neither supported nor recommended. If you do that (if you can figure out how, in Windows), you're on your own.

[Switch]

You might just put the icon in a folder with .txt instructions

I know for OS X it's really easy, so nobody will have a problem.

[Winter_Wolf]

Ok then, Treellama, a Unimap it is (without the application). You've stated very good reasons for me to do so, thanks for the very informative reply. Now I just have to go figure out how to do unimaps...

Regarding the icon I'll do what you suggest appleswitch, since its not really that hard on my part or that of another user's.

[treellama]

All you need to know about Unimaps:

http://source.bungie.org/wiki/index.php/Cr..._Scenario_Guide