January 27, 2022 (Thursday)

So... a week ago I referenced a piece of Marathon-inspired art by jamessmith6 entitled "Incoming" dating from February 2019.

(click the image to enlarge)

I pointed out that its inspiration was "BioCore Vent #88A with its ceiling-mounted cryogenic chambers".

As expected I got back a few comments along the lines of... "BioCore Vent #88A?",   "cryogenic chambers in the ceiling?",   "You're making this stuff up." .

Oh no.

Back in July 21, 2012 I posed the question: "On what level do you first find a cryo-storage unit and what is odd about it?"

John Sumner was quick to come back with the answer that they were on Bigger Guns Nearby and that they were all all recessed into the ceiling.

So there you have it.

Was this someone's idea of a joke or a mad space saving design?

Of course this does remind me of the long running usenet thread about Marathon ship design and what happened when the Pfhor ate all the coconuts. But I'll leave that story for another day.

Coconuts?... WTF!

January 25, 2022 (Tuesday)

So... I am getting a lot of questions about the "Marathon betas".

Marathon betas... They're everywhere!

How many? What were they? Any screenshots? Where can I find them? How do I play them?

So where do we start?

"Marathon zero, alpha, beta, gamma, blamma."

So we have the Inside Mac Games first look at Marathon in January 1994 which shows what is now called the "Marathon Zero/Alpha" In this early version of Marathon your job was to investigate the disappearance of colonists living on a hollowed-out asteroid near the planet Pluto.

"hollowed-out asteroid"... that sounds familiar.

Fast forward to the release of Marathon Trilogy Box Set on May 1, 1997.

According to the Marathon Scrapbook this first version of Marathon, which was shown at Macworld San Francisco in January 1994, was eventually canned because it looked too much like Pathways Into Darkness.

The Marathon Scrapbook relates:

Marathon started out as a series of coding experiments; Jason modified the Pathways engine to make it faster and more structurally elegant, but concentrated the most on enhancing monster intelligence. Bungie demoed the first alpha version, aptly titled Marathon Zero, at the San Francisco Macworld Expo in January 1994. But as Jason recounts, the game barely made a ripple at the show: many people dismissed the game as Pathways with minor cosmetic enhancements.

The Marathon Scrapbook relates further:

Determined to salvage the Marathon project, Bungie returned from the Macworld show, barricaded themselves in their Pilsen office and went to work. Jason abandoned the Mosaic project and devoted his full attention to Marathon. He and Ryan rewrote the game's rendering engine from the ground up. Ryan also began work on Vulcan, a Marathon map editor which is best described as all the madness and misery in twenty lunatic asylums, distilled into a single Macintosh application.

The Marathon Scrapbook goes further than it should...

In February, Greg Kirkpatrick joined the Bungie team. Several months earlier Jason had declared that if Marathon was going to have a story, Greg would have to write it. Greg, who had recently suffered a direct blow to the head from a washing machine, readily agreed. Doug Zartman joined Bungie as their first paid employee in May. He started out doing tech support for Pathways but found his role expanding into public relations in the same way that petty larceny eventually

Wait WHAT?!!! You mean Greg Kirkpatrick was never a "paid employee"?

Yeah... the blow on the head from a washing machine dishwasher will do that to you.

Rule No 186?   So Bungie took advantage of this guy?   I'm totally confused...

Check out more information about the Marathon Zero/Alpha on A secret, hidden game????,   Nicolas Cage 0.5 gone in 30 seconds, the Grendal section... and here... oh... and over here... and over...

SERIOUSLY?!!!... this stuff is all over the place. What kind of page is this?

to be continued

January 22, 2022 (Saturday)

So... I have had a number of questions about this screenshot I posted a few days ago.

Most people spotted it was a screenshot from the front of the Marathon box. It was also part of The Marathon Collage released on September 22, 1994. So it's one of the very first official screenshots.

And yes, it shows a dead Bob on Arrival.

Dead Bob?

Bobs were present on an earlier version of Arrival. But were later removed which probably explains why the Marathon Demo v0.0 has a legacy Bob in the Impossible Room. Someone just overlooked him. The Bob in the Impossible Room was removed from the final game and all subsequent versions of the Marathon Demo after v0.0. Thus not many people have actually seen him in person.

How can v0.0 even be an actual thing?

And of course... "It is your sworn duty as a security officer to protect Bob.". But this did not stop evil people doing evil things to Bob in the Impossible Room. This was immortalised in Shogoki's famous Bob picture, simply called "heh heh". Shogoki wrote:

"This picture leaves the imagination open to ponder what one
would do to a Bob if one ever found him in a dark alley."

In the Impossible Room... no one can hear you scream.

And a little known fact about the Marathon Demo v0.0 was the ability to play it in a looped fashion carrying over all your weapons and ammo to the 2nd, 3rd, 4th, Nth iteration. Each time you looped back to the start, the game played slightly differently. You could even decide to torch Bob in the Impossible Room with Tozt.25 and REALLY hear him scream.

WTF?

Of course, if you had bothered to read the file called "DON'T READ THIS!!!" it did say:

Q: Why am I reading this?
A: 1. You have played the demo 35 times and you're looking for a hint so that you can find something new.
2. Actually you're not real and right now, you're inside a computer game, where someone else is directing your actions and wearing a virtual reality body suit. That other person is now making you read this instead of playing the Marathon demo for the 36th time...

     

Unfortunately, no one can be told what the Marathon Demo v0.0 is. You have to play it for yourself.

January 20, 2022 (Thursday)

Staying on the subject of Marathon-inspired artwork a number of people have pointed out that Arne Niklas Jansson of Android Arts has created some new Marathon-inspired art.

Some of you may remember Arne from back in the day when he created a Marathon-inspired poster for Bungie's 20th anniversary in 2011. His Marathon page has a very nice write up on how he worked with Bungie to create this charity drive poster. One dedicated fan had the limited edition poster framed. Kind of like the guy who did this... BUT nothing like the guy who did THIS and then another guy had one framed. I mean come on.... Bungie has reserved a special place for people like you. ;)

But I digress.

Arne's new image of Durandal hits the proverbial 'nail on the head'. Arne writes "Old Durandal thing that I noodled on (sword+spooky face)."

(click the image to enlarge)

You can see the original "sword+spooky face"   here.

Check out Arne's 'nudie' (unarmored) Pfhor and 'clothed' (armored) Mjolnir Recon number 54.

Who said Marathon was dead?   Oh wait... I made a List.

For the humorless impaired... I was only joking about the 'special place' for hanz333. Hats off to you Sir.

January 19, 2022 (Wednesday)

Following up on yesterday's update I was pleasantly surprised to find an earlier piece of Marathon-inspired art by jamessmith6 on his Deviant Art page. This one is called "Incoming" and dates back to February 2019 no less.

(click the image to enlarge)

No guesses as to where this is in the game. It's BioCore Vent #88A with its ceiling-mounted cryogenic chambers. Which of course reminds me of that famous (or infamous) Bob cry "Frog Blast The Vent Core" that was never actually written down for obvious reasons.

The search for its meaning led to the Bungie WebMaster's "Frog Blast The Vent Core Joke Contest". By all accounts a gruelling Marathon for the Bungie staffers who had to judge it. The winning joke is now a perennial favorite at Marathon parties.

Doug Zartman would later go on to reveal the real tru7h behind the line that made him famous.

One day someone will write all this down for posterity. Somewhere on a big page... they are reading.

But I digress.

jamessmith6 also has a Pathways-inspired piece called Zombie dating back to December 2015.

(click the image to enlarge)

I think it nicely captures the creepiness of the Zombie. It is also quite rare to see Pathways-inspired artwork so this piece was a really nice surprise.

January 17, 2022 (Tuesday)

Well it's always nice to see new Marathon-inspired artwork surface.

Over on r/marathon prochristus (aka jamessmith6) has posted a very nice piece which captures the aesthetic of the first game using Blender 3.0 render with Cycles, paintover/ bash in Photoshop. Simply entitled "MP" it...

...shows a multiplayer match in the Marathon universe.

(click the image to enlarge)

And it wouldn't be Marathon without hazard stripes... right?

Check out his artwork on Deviant Art and follow him if you want to see more Marathon-inspired artwork. His bio reads:

I am a self-taught artist with high-functioning autism, with focus on digital works since 2009. I have been drawing for 20+ years, concentrating significantly on comic books.

January 17, 2022 (Monday)

Nicolas Cage doing his version of "Vic on a real bad day".

No doubt some of you are asking "Vic on a real bad day... what's that?"

Well we have to go all the way back to 2004 when it was noted that Bungie had put up some Marathon wallpapers one of which was entitled "Vic on a real bad day". You'll note that this is a modified version of the opening Marathon 2 chapter screen. Which is a modified version of this pic. And then there is the whopping 2500 x 2250 pic by Craig Mullins which is not the original. A modified version was also used for the cover of the February 1996 edition of MacAction magazine. It was also used by Wired magazine for a completely different purpose.

The fact that Bungie were now calling this pic "Vic on a real bad day" led to some interesting speculation.

I don't know... maybe we need a Craig Mullins section to write all this stuff down for posterity.

But back to Nic... or should we call him Vic... it doesn't really matter as he is never actually named in the film. In the credits he is simply listed as "The Janitor". In addition, he never says a single word throughout the film. Much like the Security Officer in Marathon. He just kicks the living crap out of 'rampant' animatronic characters. All done in the best possible taste... err. Just leave your brain at the door.

What's the name of the film?

Oh... Willy's World Arena... or was it... Waldo Wonderland... or... Willy's Wonderland... ah yes that's the one. Willy's Wonderland (2021).

Cool... I'm going to use that name for my next Marathon net level.

And I do apologise to Nicolas Cage in advance if he is a Marathon fan and has waited 25 years to do his "Vic on a real bad day" impression on film.

January 16, 2022 (Sunday)

Thanks to treellama in a Story forum post for pointing out that Aleph One 1.5 has been released.

Apart from additional functionality and bug fixes this update adds support for Apple Silicon.

Good news for those wishing to play right up to 2046.

2046?

January 15, 2022 (Saturday)

Lots of interest in a new Marathon Boxes section. A number of people have pointed out that there is quite a bit about the Marathon boxes already on the Story page.

There is the Box Acronyms section and the infamous "TBWSAF" acronym.

TBWSAF?

The Missing Boxes and why Doug Zartman didn't get punched!

Punched?

The Marathon Trilogy Box Set Unboxing by Bob-B-Q.

Bigger on the inside than on the outside?

The screenshots on the boxes and why they never quite match what we see in-game.

Never quite match?

January 14, 2022 (Friday)

A Marathon Boxes section?

Sandra Bullock?

Thanks to all those who pointed out that the credits for the Marathon packaging are in the Marathon manual. But what was the 13th Floor?

Sandra Bullock?

In response to a possible new section for the Marathon Boxes, it was pointed out that we should not forget the Marathon Trilogy Box Set. It is the only game box that is "bigger on the inside than on the outside"... that's a first in gaming history.

Sandra Bullock?

Mr Angry from Surbiton writes to say that the Story page is already as big as "fucking doctoral thesis" so don't go adding another section for boxes... please.

Sandra Bullock?

Was she "the man you were searching for in the "No Artificial Colors" level of the original Marathon game."

I mean... come on... who makes this stuff up? Bungie apparently... in their Marathon Trilogy Box Set Trivia Contest.

Sandra Bullock was in "No Artificial Colors"?

January 13, 2022 (Thursday)

Josh Jansen <jansenart@gmail.com> writes to point out that LGR Blerbs has dropped a YouTube video about the game boxes of Hock Wah Yeo.

Who?

Hock Wah Yeo is a graphics designer who in the 80s and 90s created some of the most innovative and creative packaging in the gaming industry. The boxes for JetFighter: The Adventure (1988), Spectre (1991) and Prince of Persia (1992) spring to mind as some of his best early work. His boxes were shaped like pyramids and trapezoids, they made you stop and pick them up. I know I did. I bought Spectre back in the day.

The Obscuritory also has a very informative article on the work of Hock Wah Yeo entitled The incredible boxes of Hock Wah Yeo. Worth a read... or just look at the pictures.

So where is all this leading to? Well Josh asks:

Do we know who designed the boxes for the original [Marathon] series release? A cursory search of the story page revealed nothing specific.

Good question. They could easily have been inspired by the designs of Hock Wah Yeo.

Time for a Marathon Boxes section perhaps.

January 12, 2022 (Wednesday)

A number of people have been quick to point out that I am "way out of date" as tcbr has just done a new speed run of Marathon 2 with a time of 35:35 on YouTube.

As the man himself says he is not doing these on Total Carnage as he does not want be here for 7 hours. No... I did not make that up. Watch the video.

Mr (Ms) Angry from Surbiton writes to complain ask why the Marathon Vidmasters' Page has not been updated? Is no one doing Vidmaster (Vidmistress) films any more? He (She) goes on to say that 'Kindergarten' is on the Story page. Do a search and find a hidden page. sheesh... you guys.