Marathon: Aleph One
updated 2004-07-12
Deutsche Version dieser Seite ist verfügbar.
I made this page to bring all basic information about this game together.
Regards,
MacMark (ICQ 17461243, AIM (iChat) name "realMacMark")
Aleph One (A1) is a free, open source first person shooter.
The story line for solo play is like this: You're security officer on the colony ship "Marathon". The Marathon has several artifical intelligence (AI) computers it is controlled by. The Marathon was invaded by aliens and your tasks are now staying alive firstly and secondly checking all those terminal screens looking for instructions from the AI. Trust him on your own risk. There's no other option for you. One of the AIs is Durandal, the other name I don't remember. Durandal is the rampant AI whose taste for irony is second only to his unpredictability. Sometimes he seems to cooperate with the aliens too. The Marathon is pretty much damaged, so for example you shouldn't expect those doors all still working. Sometimes you can teleport resp. Durandal teleports you. This is usually no reason to be happy, because the place you arrive at is a mess ;-)
The real fun of course is showing your friends who's boss in a multiplayer carnage. You can use the bigger guns and blow some guys 25 meteres through the air, but it's much more humiliating sniping them with your magnum from a distance or doing some melee with your fists.
You're wearing a space suit with heads up display (HUD) and microphone. the HUD shows you what's going on (including up to 180° sight and some kind of infrared sight). The HUD features a motion sensor with a range of 15 meters, shows you your shield energy, oxygen.and available weapons and ammunition.
The weapons are all different. They differ in precision and range, projectile speed, cartrigdge capacity, effectivity versus armor, machines and living individuals and the ability to fire under water. You will need time to reload your weapons. Non stop firing isn't possible thus.
During the 1990s we had the classic game "Marathon" by Bungie. Marathon had an unprecedented game play atmosphere that's impossible to describe. You need to play it to understand why this isn't just another first person shooter.
After that we got "Marathon 2" as a Mac- and a Windows-version. Later again Bungie made "Marathon Infinity" based on Marathon 2, but featuring an editor allowing you to play on and on (thus "infinity"). The only problem was the mac and PC versions were unable to go head to head versus each other due to different network protocols.
Bungie later made the source code of Marathon Infinity open source, initiating and enabling a great further development. Since then marathon is developed by a group of free and independent programmers improving it more and more. What would you call a version following after "infinity". The theoretical number after "infinity" is "Aleph One". And so the further development was called.
A1 is in every regard improved over the original versions. It got many new features retaining the original spirit. here's a probably incomplete list what's new or improved:
Mac OS X, Mac OS 9, Windows, Linux, BeOS x86, BeOS PPC.
All you need is availabe at http://source.bungie.org, It's the official "Marathon: Aleph One" site. You have to do two downloads:
Both to find on their site in the list located at the right.
You can download the "latest stable build" or the "latest nightly build". I suggest the "latest nightly build", because it has fixed some bugs.
For the data part you can use the Marathon Infinity demo files or (it makes no difference) the original Infinity files, if you ever bought the game. Just get the demo data and be happy.
You should have downloaded the program and data files by now. Expand them and put them all in a folder "AlephOne" in your programs folder. That's it.
In case you want to use the original files from infinity, then put those five files into "AlephOne": images, map, music, shapes and sounds.
Now some special extras:
If you download additional maps, put them in a folder "maps" inside your "AlephOne" folder. Scripts (MML scripts) should be placed into the folder "Scripts" in "AlephOne" folder.
These weapon descriptions are taken from Bungie's original Marathon Infinity manual. Yes, I still own the original CD and printed manual.
.44 Magnum Mega Class A1
The new standard issue sidearm for all field personnel doesn't look much like your old .45 MMC, does it? That is because it has been built for a single purpose, by a dedicated people and not by underpaid laborers toiling for a thinly-veiled government-owned arms manufacturing machine (oiled with the blood of the underclasses, by the way) which exists solely to line the pockets of the greedy bureaucrats who run the military/industrial complex.
MA-75B Battle Rifle (with integral 40mm Grenade Launcher)
The original M .75 was a rediculous toy designed to impress aging pompous generals. Gone are the preposterously short barrel and the prodigious recoil that made firing the weapon akin to wrestling a greased pig. Still here is the oxygen hungry ammunition that makes it impossible to fire in vacuum.
Zeus-Class Fusion Pistol
The S'pht have done their best to create an infinite supply of fusion batteries out of the finite number you were transported on board with. If it were not for their ingenuity and industrious nature you wouldn't be able to run around firing with reckless abandon at everything that moves as you are wont to do. But, like the hundredth copy of a third generation duplication of a substandard bootleg – they're a little fuzzy. One might even say unstable.
SPNKR-XP SSM Launcher
A self-important human once said "… sometimes a cigar is just a cigar." This may be so, but in the case of the <<rocket launcher>> you've got one majorly explosive cigar.
WSTE-M5 Combat Shotgun
While goingthrough some data I appropriated from the Marathon (looking for design notes, of course) I stumbled across a reference to a weapon used by imperialist forces against the inserectionists druing the Ares Raid; July 14, 2444. (Never heard of it? I'm not surprised!) Many years of loving craftsmanship went into the design and construction of this brutal tool of mayhem, I hope you can appreciate that. I won't waste my time trying to explain the loading mechanismn to you — your primitive mind could never grasp its complex nature.
TOZT-7 Backpack Napalm Unit
I don't believe it is necessary for me to state the personality disorders evident in an individual who enjoys, or more accurately revels, in spraying their enemies with flaming napalm aerosol.
KKV-7 10mm SMG Flechette
… the flechette, with its small corss-section (4mm), longer body and pointed nose experiences far less wind resistance and thus retains more muzzle velocity over a greater distance with a flatter trajectory than its less advanced "slug-thrower" counterparts. Its armor piercing capabilities rival those of the mighty M1A2 .75 BR and the bio-organic trauma it inflicts is terrifying (being somewhat less effective against mechanical targets).
There're several kinds of cheats.
You can play any level (solo level or network level) directly. Just hold the keys Apple (other systems: control) and Alt while clicking New Game. You are shown then a list of all levels available.
You can get any time all weapons and ammunition (in solo), becoming transparent etc., if you enable cheats in Aleph One. For this you need a text file "cheats" in folder "Scripts" with this contents:
<marathon><cheats on="true"/></marathon>
If you're using Textedit, make sure you put it into plain text mode. Otherwise AppleWorks can do it too.
These cheats are useful to test a network level alone. You type these words while holding down the Control-key:
In network game these cheats don't work. What did you think?
Some hints to help you a bit.
You cannot jump in Marathon, well not by default. In cheats you see a possibility. The other way to jump is targeting in front of your feet with grenades or rockets while running. Make sure you have enough shield energy, else …
Run and sidestep should be done with one hand on the keyboard. Targeting and firing should be done with your mouse and the other hand. This gives you the speed to survive this game.
Since not all keys are documented, I give you those I know about. For OSX Exposé users: Put that on say Apple F9/10/11 since those F-keys are used by the game too..
| Apple-Tab | Switch programs. |
| Apple-W | End match. |
| Apple-Q | End match or end game. |
| Apple-J | Join network game. |
| Apple-G | Gather network game. |
| Apple-P | preferences |
| Apple-R | Watch last replay. |
| Apple-S | Save last game. |
| Apple-N | New game. |
| Apple-Alt-N | New game with arbitrary level. |
| ? | Show frames per second. max is 30. |
| Backwards Delete | Switch player view during replay. |
| F1 | Downsize screen. |
| F2 | Upsize screen. |
| F3 | Pixel doubling. |
| F4 | Reload OpenGL textures. |
| F5 | Switch chase camera left / right. |
| F6 | Switch chase camera on / off. |
| F7 | Snipervision on / off. |
| F8 | Crosshair on / off. |
| F9 | Screenshot. |
| F10 | Show coordinates of view point. |
| F11 | Darken screen. |
| F12 | LIghten screen. |
| F13 | Screenshot (again) |
| F14 | Reload OpenGL textures (Use when they're white). |
| ~ | Reload OpenGL textures (Use when they're white). (again) |
| [ | Slow down replay. |
| ] | Speed up replay. |
Everyone owning Aleph One regardless his operating system is your victim!
Go to chat channel "Aleph One" of AIM / iChat to find some players. AIM users need to invite themselve to join a channel.
You need to enable UDP ports 4226 and 15367 and TCP port 4226. All internet players need those ports, even the one who's joining a hosted game.
You can do a local area network game and an internet game at the same time.
The Marathon versions 1, 2 and Infinity had all a different look. If you want to revive them, you can do so with Aleph One (A1):
There're converters that make older scenarios A1 compatible. You find them in "user support" on the A1 page.
You can do with A1 the solo and network games of old versions. Just get those scenarios and play them with A1. For this you have to put a copy of the A1 application into the downloaded scenario folder and start this copy. You can get scenarios here:
So called SDL versions are for non Mac operating systems, but run on Mac A1 too. All other files (non SDL ones) are for Mac only.
If you like Marathon 1, the get M1A1 and you're back in time!
You can download lots of network maps. Expand them after download and put them into a folder "maps" inside your A1 folder.
Such a map file can feature 1 or several maps. To use one of them you go to Preferences > Environment in Map-Menu and do your selection. A new network game will show all maps inside the selected map file.
I made my first map. In fact it's an edtion of Bungie's "Route 66". I added weapons and another balcony plus teleporters, ambient sounds, aliens and called it "Route 68".
I tried the "Total texture enhancement 3.0" and it makes the textures really nice. To get it working follow the inlcuded read me file. You should regard this hint too:
I found that it must be "Scripts" not "scripts" folder ;-) The other important thing is to have only one script for textures in that folder. Plus it works with latest nightly too :-)
Tim Vogel told me: "There aren't any high-res weapons yet. But we're planning to start working on a 'Total weapon enhancement package' but that is not sure yet."
There might be some problems as of nightly build 2004-02-29. Meanwhile we have at least a version dated 2004-03-29. I'm not sure if those bugs still exist:
To ensure that weapons and ammunition reappear you should disable the option "dead players drop items".
Some Macs have trouble with the "latest stable build". Some have no sound, some cannot start the game. The "latest nightly build" fixes all this and works well at least for me.