Hell Hole v1.3
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Version 1.3
By: Gary Simmons
the Battle Cat
| Hell Hole is by now an old friend of mine and I am getting pretty good at playing the game. I have learned lots of tricks and even how many shots of each ammo will take out a particular monster. It is now second nature to shoot just enough ammo and not even look to see if they have died because I know they are spewing innards out their nostrils. Version 1.2 is no longer challenging enough and it is way too cramped for me. Time to break out Forge and give it another go. Version 1.3 is one of my favorite incarnations of Hell Hole. This is a complete "toss the original and redo". Each column and passageway is 3 world units wide, giving the most open area possible without a too much distance error. At least so I thought at the time. The height has gone from 3 WU to 5 because I saw heads | bonking on the ceiling and in this game altitude gets respect, well, at least MINE. Every side has a return elevator from the Blood Trough which speeds up the action. This time I really did speed up the blood drips. Due to the immense size there are mondo mas aliens added. I came to the stark realization that there is only one item per poly teleported in so I added as many polys as I could without errors so as much ammo as possible could be added at the same time. Later I realized what an idiot I was. The Mosh Pit is now the weapons pit, go there the first thing as it is the only place to arm yourself. There are no weapons, aliens, or ammo allowed in the Blood Trough or Sniper Alley, snipers, enjoy and sharpen your skills, the rest of us melee/strategy types can oink out in the central portions of the map. |
| Back in February of 2000 I submitted a screen shot of some particularly nasty act of Hell Hole V1.3 mayhem to the MacAddict magazines "Screen Shot of the Month". Hey, guess what? They actually used it! It might have been the "Artists Statement" section of that feature that gave me the idea for my new Internet handle, "Symbol Thingy, the artist formerly known as the Battle Cat". Might have been, not sure about that but hey... it could have happened! Anyway, the screen shot graphic I submitted is the one I use as a "splash screen" graphic for the Hell Hole V1.2 page even though it came from V1.3. Don't try to figure it out, just understand that I am an artist, MacAddict said so, and because of this I must therefore be very deep and and and mysterious and there are just going to be some things you will never understand about me. Things like why I save my nummies on the window seal and call them "The Snooterific Inner-Children of my Humble Nose Mother". See? I'm deep. Anyway you can snag the "MacAddict Screen Shot of the Month" featuring my Marathon screen shot below. You should send in your own Marathon screen shots, they are very easy to do in Marathon. If you see something very cool happening in a VidMaster attempt, net game or a net style game like Hell Hole or playing against the BOBs in the Battle Cat's World Tour then you just save the film. Play the film back to where the cool thing is about to happen, use your film slowing key to slow it and when you get close you can advance the film one frame at a time. When you get to it, pause the film by slowing it to a stop and take a screen shot. You can use Snapz V1.0 or above or press "Shift 5" to allow background processing in Marathon and take a Macintosh system screen shot using the "Command Shift 3". Send your screen shots to letters@macaddict.com and show them that Marathon is still alive and kicking! |
Hell Hole v1.2
Version 1.2
By: Gary Simmons
the Battle Cat
OK, now I got the hang of using the map editors. I get a little better with my monster selection. The idea is to have a level that will let you play a new game each time you start a new game. The weapons and the items and the monsters all appear in random locations. Hell Hole was always meant to be more than just a practice level, it was supposed to be a help to people wanting to test a physics model or a shapes patch. All the weapons are represented here and most of the monsters. The high-pitched, incessantly whining users | nag the crusty snot out of me so here is what has changed... now go gargle blood and die. I added a return elevator to the North side. Many of the aliens hang out and fight each other in the Mosh Pit, fixed it so they are more evenly distributed over the map, now they don't hang out in the pit, and using some reverse perverted logic made the Mosh Pit an actual pit even though it is not a mosh pit anymore. Added a Hunter. Converted 4 Major Projectile Fighters into Major Fighters, making the map a bit faster. Made the outside corridor 1/2 world unit wider by stealing room from the Blood Trough |
How to Look Combat Fresh and "Marathon Cool": These instructions will guide you to the perfect look of having just been in serious combat and are fresh from the killing fields.
Now go out to that social function, job interview or net game. You will impress the hell out of everyone. |
Out on furlough for "good behavior while muzzled and chained to a wall in solitary confinement" is our resident cartoonist, Erkki Toukolehto (alias: Ice Felon X Dog Pak). Mr. Ice Pak has produced a graphical guide book for the only known fashion tips ever distributed by the irascible Battle Cat. You will quickly notice that these cartoons are probably the most stupid, immature, disgusting, adolescent, cruel and violent cartoons you have seen in a long time. My kind of cartoon Charlie! Now if only they were demeaning toward women he would have perfection. Give him more time (unlike the parole board) and he will get it right. Enjoy if you will these visual aids courtesy of the Battle Cat. Yes me boyo, you just got aids from the Battle Cat. People, you MUST wear a condom while viewing these graphics! Girls, these graphics are compatible with the Barbie Fashion Plate Paper Dolls Set available in most department stores. Just print 'em and clip 'em out and you will have Barbi or Skipper looking Marathon cool in no time! Course it will help if you wad her up and bap her with a ball ping hammer, light her on fire and blow a couple holes in her first. Well it looks like Erkki is hacking the electronic house arrest leg cuff that is locked around his ankle so, with no further warning and for your advanced education in the glamourous, fast paced world of high fashion... Erkki's Marathon-Cool fashion tips guide book! Marathon-Cool Fashion Tips Cover Page Marathon-Cool Fashion Tips Guide Book page 1 Marathon-Cool Fashion Tips Guide Book page 2 |
Hell Hole v1.1
Version 1.1
By: Gary Simmons
the Battle Cat
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| This is where it all started as this is my first map. I don't consider myself a mapmaker, I am a player (OK, so I'm a mapmaker now). The point of this map is to be way too damn hard, to help you stretch and learn to fight. Use "Hell Hole" to warm up before a net game or a tough level. There are no puzzles, no secrets, no cheesy circuits to plug in, just head to head non stop carnage till you die. When you live too long, set your difficulty up a notch. When Total Carnage gets too easy, split the map, add some more monsters or whatever and remerge it. When that gets too easy blind one eye with a soldering iron, nail your hand to your face, and play sitting on a lit camp stove while your little brother smacks you with a whiffle bat. | Ordinarily I used to populate a net map with aliens and weapons using editors and then use that to practice fighting to the spleen-squirting, brain-splattering, metal-twisting death. I thought I would create a map from scratch with Forge, making a simple room of my own design. The original "Hell Hole." Version 1.0 never made it off the operating table and version 1.1 was never released... until now! See what started it all! This is the version that was converted into "The Holodeck" level of "D-Day." Fast, fast, fast like a greasy photon, these mean streets will lay your smoking carcass out in a leaky body bag in record time. |
| The Cheat codes for Hell Hole:
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