I am pleased to announce the release of Hellpak Vol. 1: Not Recommended by Doctors. Hellpak is probably best described as an anthology of 30 weird challenge maps (plus a hub level) created by seven different mappers with a goal of breaking the mold of traditional Marathon content.
Hellpak is designed to challenge both players and the mapmakers themselves in unconventional ways; mappers used weird editors (including Obed and even Pfhorte) and often self-imposed various limits. The behaviour we wanted sometimes required unorthodox implementations, and levels may require players to find unorthodox solutions, though many also have multiple solutions; they’re intended to be difficult, but fair and fun.
Those expecting a story or custom artwork for textures or monsters should look elsewhere, but we do have a bangin’ soundtrack by four different people; the soundtrack includes 10 tracks not featured in the game, with unique artwork for all 40 tracks. The video description also contains a link to a FLAC download.
Hellpak Vol. 1 has multiple endings; see the readme for instructions on how to get the best ending. If you want the best ending, it’s important to follow the instructions precisely. The readme also contains important information on getting the soundtrack to work.
We also have a Discord server, which can be found at https://discord.gg/DTMvjFqtTA. People who need hints, wish to contribute to future volumes, or want to stream Hellpak should join.
Enjoy!
Hellpak Vol. 1: Not Recommended by Doctors
“People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.” —V, V for Vendetta (Alan Moore)
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
“If others had not been foolish, we should be so.” —William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
“The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.” —Frank Wilhoit
Last.fm · Marathon Chronicles · Marathon Eternal 1.2 · Where Monsters Are in Dreams · YouTube Vidmaster’s Challenge
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
“If others had not been foolish, we should be so.” —William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
“The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.” —Frank Wilhoit
Last.fm · Marathon Chronicles · Marathon Eternal 1.2 · Where Monsters Are in Dreams · YouTube Vidmaster’s Challenge
Poor Doctors
We have, unfortunately, had to release a patch due to a couple of bugs that slipped through the cracks during testing, as explained in the documentation, which you should very definitely read. You can find the new version at Simplici7y.
If you wish to resume your save from the previous version, your best bet to do so is to edit your saved game’s parent map checksum.
Caveat: You will only actually switch to the current map once you transition levels. If you’re on the levels “Bob-B-Overcooked” or “Security Officer-B-Q”, …sorry, you’ll have to get your saves of “This Is Not My Beautiful Space Station” or “Out of the Frying Pan, into a Used Car Lot”, respectively, and replay the latter levels. There’s nothing I can do about that right now.
With that aside, a brief explanation of how to how to edit the parent map checksum of a saved game:
If you wish to resume your save from the previous version, your best bet to do so is to edit your saved game’s parent map checksum.
Caveat: You will only actually switch to the current map once you transition levels. If you’re on the levels “Bob-B-Overcooked” or “Security Officer-B-Q”, …sorry, you’ll have to get your saves of “This Is Not My Beautiful Space Station” or “Out of the Frying Pan, into a Used Car Lot”, respectively, and replay the latter levels. There’s nothing I can do about that right now.
With that aside, a brief explanation of how to how to edit the parent map checksum of a saved game:
- Get a good hex editor if you don't have one. I used a Notepad++ plugin for this, but there are numerous other options.
- Back up your saved game in another folder somewhere. (You can find it in the Quick Saves folder. The location of this varies; see https://github.com/Aleph-One-Marathon/a ... ved-levels)
- Open the game in the hex editor.
- Go to hexadecimal 54 (decimal 84).
- Replace the hexadecimal codes at the hexadecimal addresses 54 to 57, inclusive, with the following hexadecimal values: 77 2a 25 17.
- Save it.
- Open the edited game in Infinity. If you’ve done this correctly, it should stop complaining about not being able to find the old map (if you've removed it from your Infinity directory), and when you transition levels, you should be able to continue on the new one.
“People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.” —V, V for Vendetta (Alan Moore)
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
“If others had not been foolish, we should be so.” —William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
“The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.” —Frank Wilhoit
Last.fm · Marathon Chronicles · Marathon Eternal 1.2 · Where Monsters Are in Dreams · YouTube Vidmaster’s Challenge
“The trouble is that we have a bad habit, encouraged by pedants and sophisticates, of considering happiness as something rather stupid. Only pain is intellectual, only evil interesting. This is the treason of the artist: a refusal to admit the banality of evil and the terrible boredom of pain. If you can’t lick ’em, join ’em. If it hurts, repeat it. But to praise despair is to condemn delight, to embrace violence is to lose hold of everything else. We have almost lost hold; we can no longer describe happy man, nor make any celebration of joy.” —Ursula K. Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas”
“If others had not been foolish, we should be so.” —William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
“The law cannot protect anyone unless it binds everyone; and it cannot bind anyone unless it protects everyone.” —Frank Wilhoit
Last.fm · Marathon Chronicles · Marathon Eternal 1.2 · Where Monsters Are in Dreams · YouTube Vidmaster’s Challenge