Aleph One: Pathways Into Darkness v1.4

• About
• Installation
• Important Settings
• Game Controls
• Known differences between the port and the original game
• Gameplay
• Multiplayer
• Corrections / Bugs
• Cheats
• Misc
• Changelog
• Credits

About

Aleph One: Pathways Into Darkness is a scenario for the Aleph One engine that seeks to completely re-create the 1993 mac game, Pathways Into Darkness by Bungie.

This is a little different from a typical marathon scenario, as it features:

• Levels that can be re-visited multiple times with their state preserved.
• Advanced inventory for carrying and using many items.
• Resting to heal.
• Use of crystals to use special powers, along with conventional weapons.
• RPG elements.
• An ending score based on how you do while playing the game.
• Talking to the dead.

Included in this download is the original Pathways Into Darkness manual. I'd recommend reading it, as it has important information about what your mission is, and the nuclear bomb arm code.

Installation

To play AOPID, visit GitHub and download the standalone Aleph One client. Place the Aleph One client in the AOPID folder, and you should be ready to play.

/!\ IMPORTANT /!\
You must use version 1.7 of Aleph One or newer in order for this scenario to work correctly.

Important Settings

This scenario requires OpenGL with Fog. This is critical for:

• Making certain things transparent.
• Making fog limit your view distance correctly.
• The HUD.

I've made absolutely no attempt to make this scenario work without OpenGL or when using the default Marathon HUD.

Along with that, I'd highly recommend making sure under your advanced OpenGL settings that you have texture filtering set to None for everything.

Under Environment -> Plugins, all plugins that start with "PiD Essential" must be enabled. As the name states, they contain things that are essential to making the game work correctly.

The game difficulty should be set to normal if you want it to match the original game difficulty (monster health, projectile speeds, etc). Experienced PiD players are free to play on higher difficulties as a challenge. I believe Total Carnage would literally be impossible due to ammo issues under normal circumstances, so if you have your difficulty set to Total Carnage, you get 2 Walther P4 Magazines each time you receive one. I have tested the game on TC and it is possible to beat it. If you're trying to beat the game on Total Carnage and are struggling, I've got some videos below in the Gameplay section below where I played through the entire game on Total Carnage.

The original game had a 4:3 aspect ratio, so if you want an experience more true to the original, choose an appropriate resolution.

I'd recommend playing without a mouse, as the original game didn't have mouse controls in that way you'd get them in Aleph One. If you do use a mouse, you'll be able to turn faster than you're supposed to.

Use 16 bit sounds. I didn't bother to update the 8 bit sounds.

Game controls

Saving: When standing over a red rune, you can hit the action button to save the game.

Inventory: Tap the mic button to open up your inventory. Tap it again to close it.

• Previous/next weapon buttons scroll through the list.
• To quickly jump to the beginning or end of your inventory, hold down the secondary fire button while you use previous/next weapon. Instead of scrolling to the previous or next item, it will scroll to the top or bottom of the list.
• If you want to move an item, select it and hit the map button. Then scroll to the new location in the list, and hit the action button. If you hit the action button when a container is selected, it will move the item into the container if there is room.
• The action button will activate the item (if anything can be done with the item), or open the container.
• When viewing the contents of a container, primary trigger will remove the item from the container and return it to your regular inventory.
• To drop an item out of your inventory, hit the primary trigger button. (This only works with the alien gemstone).

Crystals: Select a crystal in your inventory and use action to ready it. It should say (ready). The blue bar in the HUD will indicate the power level of your crystal. When it is full, you can use the secondary fire button to activate the crystal.

Resting: Press hotkey 10 to start resting. The key for hotkey 10 can be changed in aleph one preferences.

Ammo selection: The grenade launcher and assault rifle can use multiple ammo types. In order to choose which type of ammo is selected, open your inventory, and at the top of the list, there will be an option to select your ammo.

Looting from the dead: When standing over a dead body, you can tap the mic button to open up the dead person's inventory. Using the action button will transfer the item from their inventory to your inventory.

Talking to the dead: You can use the yellow crystal while standing over a dead body to talk to it. When doing so, the greeting message from the body will show up in the messages area. To ask questions, open up the console by hitting the '\' key, and type in something like .topic to ask about a specific topic. For example to ask the name of the dead person you would type:
\.name
To end the conversation, you can either type \.bye or hit the microphone button.

Other information: Open the map to view other information like points, the amount of treasure collected, and total ammo in your inventory.

Known differences between the port and the original game

There are a number of differences from the original 1993 game, due to differences in the engine.

• Monster AI and activation rules are slightly different, although I tried to make it as accurate as I possibly could.
• TURBO and the red cloak don't work exactly the same. TURBO is a cheat, and the red cloak is mostly useless, so I'm not too worried about this.
• The red potion doesn't slow down monster attack animations or lower the pitch of sounds. However, like the original game, it does cause monsters to move slower, attack less often, and projectiles to move slower.
• You can't just drop any item. The Alien Gemstone is the only thing in the game you can drop, because it's the only thing worth dropping. Technical issues prevent being able to drop everything at any time.
• Doors open from top to bottom instead of left to right.
• Ammo does not show up in your inventory (it is in the HUD). You also don't need to micromanage your cedar box, as it will automatically "empty" each time new ammo is created.
• The inventory system is managed differently (obviously).
• This port allows you to change the difficulty, play in full screen, play on more than just macs, and other quality of life things that come with Aleph One.
• Various visual differences.
• Containers don't get full based on weight, I just did it based on number of items. Mostly this is laziness and it just doesn't matter to me.
• You cannot pick up partially empty magazines for weapons like the original game. If you pick up a weapon that you already have, you'll be given one full magazine of that type of ammo. In the original game, there was often a partially used magazine inside the gun.
• You cannot skip weapon reload animations (although there is a similar exploit in this port that basically does the same thing).
• The Labyrinth pulls from a pool of 50 levels rather than generating on the fly. Also, the mazes are probably a little less annoying than the ones the original generated.

Gameplay

I've included the manual that came with the original Pathways Into Darkness in this download, so that may answer questions that aren't addressed here.

If you're having trouble or have gotten stuck while playing the game, I created a set of playthrough videos that can guide you through the game:
Normal difficulty playthrough / guide videos.

In these videos, I also talk about how certain things were done or decisions that were made for the port, if you're interested in that.

There's also a lot of information captured at pid.bungie.org, and there was an official hint book, if you can find that. Make sure you have the game difficulty set to normal. The original game wasn't designed to be played on higher difficulties (although you can try if you know what you're doing and want a challenge).

If you do want a challenge, playing on Total Carnage is a bit of a different experience, and can actually be pretty fun. Early in the game you'd normally need to use your knife and conserve ammo, but with Total Carnage, you don't have to worry about ammo nearly as much and can just focus on the more intense gameplay. If you are trying to play on Total Carnage, and are struggling with something, I've made a set of Youtube videos demonstrating the Total Carnage gameplay. Or if you're not up for playing on Total Carnage, but are curious what it is like, the videos can give you an idea.
Total Carnage difficulty playthrough videos.

Some basic hints:

• Make sure to loot bodies as you come across them.
• You decide when to rest and heal, so make sure you're doing that as needed. You can be attacked while resting, so you may want to back up to a safe area before resting.
• Use your knife early on in the game to conserve ammo. You'll need it later.
• You should find a yellow crystal very early on in the game. If you do not, you probably took a wrong path and you should backtrack and look for a different way to go. The yellow crystal allows you to talk to the dead, and adds something to the game that you shouldn't be missing out on. Talking to certain people is required to succeed in the game.

Multiplayer

Multiplayer of any kind is not supported.

Corrections / Bugs

I would like this port to match as closely to the original as possible, and although there are some differences from the original due to engine differences, there may be a few things I just got wrong by accident. I was the only one that worked on this port, so it's entirely possible there are some things that don't match the original exactly. If you determine that something is wrong with any animations, monster speed, projectile speeds or anything like that, please let me know so I can correct it. I did not use any particularly scientific methods for determing speeds of things, I just kind of got it close until it "felt right" to me. Obviously, this may not be exact.

I'd also like to know about any errors with game behavior that I might not be aware of. Check the list of known differences above to make sure it's not something I already know about. The items in that list are very unlikely to be fixed for one reason or another. If anyone can figure out the exact rules for monster activation, I might be able to correct it.

If you have some information about things that are incorrect, you can find me (wrkncacnter) in the Marathon Discord https://discordapp.com/invite/NvF3pdV.

Cheats

The original game had 3 cheat codes TURBO, ANYWHERE and CARNAGE.

TURBO: This is sort of implemented if you open up the console with \ and type "turbo()". It will cause you to walk twice as fast, monsters to move twice as fast, and projectiles to move twice as fast. It doesn't match the original implementation exactly, since monsters won't attack more often, animations won't be faster, and sounds won't have a higher pitch. The red cloak has similar issues. Also, you may experience weird glitches with turbo mode enbabled.

ANYWHERE: This cheat allowed you to save anywhere. If you open up the console with \ and type "save()", it will save your game.

CARNAGE: This doesn't exist exactly, but you can sort of achieve the same thing by opening the console with \ and typing in "Players[0]:teleport_to_level(25)". This will trigger the ending sequence as if you had just walked out of the pyramid at that point in the game. You will need to save your game before doing this, because you'll have to reload your game to get back to where you were.

Misc

I'd recommend using Hopper's "System Se7en" Aleph One theme, as it fits well with the old mac theme for Pathways Into Darkness.

Changelog

Version 1.4 (Nov 28, 2023):

• Updated fog to work with the new version of Aleph One.
• Can now go back to the menu by clicking on the score screen after a delay.

Version 1.3 (Jan 15, 2022):

• Updated to work with hotkeys for weapon switching.
• Changed resting to use a hotkey.
• Made health text easier to read when using the larger HUD size.
• Fixed a bug where AK-47 was unable to be selected in certain situations.
• Tied flying rat/reptile things to game ticks instead of frame rate.
• Updated fog plugin so infrared goggles work correctly with new versions of Aleph One.

Version 1.2 (Aug 30, 2020):

• Making use of new Lua stash feature in Aleph One to reduce the hackiness of the overall implementation of many features.
• Gold key now appears in inventory after looting it.
• Stop giving ammo when picking up a violet potion.
• Fix issues with glancing.
• Fix spelling of Labyrinth.
• Prevent activating a crystal while the overhad map is active.
• Fix issue with scrolling through weapons if they were aquired in a non-standard order.
• Can now drink potions from within containers.

Version 1.1.1 (March 11, 2019):

• Fix issue with people that started a game on v1.0, upgraded to 1.1 and continued their saved games. They were not able to arm the bomb.

Version 1.1 (March 2, 2019):

• The Labyrinth will now be properly populated with monsters.
• Try to improve reliability of the ending score screen, as it was not working for everyone before. If it still doesn't work properly, hopefully it will be less broken than before.
• Fix issues with playing the game below Normal difficulty.
• Added a difficulty bonus/penalty when playing on a difficulty other than Normal.
• Add ability to jump to the beginning and end of your inventory quickly.
• Switch key to drop the alien gemstone from your inventory from secondary trigger to primary trigger to make it more consistent with removing an item from a container.
• When playing on Total Carnage, the first 3 numbers of the bomb code will be randomly chosen each time you start a new game.
• The time bonus will now be based on when the bomb detonates, not when you exit the pyramid.
• Make it harder, if not impossible, to walk past the Big Blue Meanie (this was impossible in the original game).
• Greater nightmare projectiles don't seek as effectively when using a red potion to match the behavior of the original.
• Added a message to the screen when resting to make it clear what is happening.
• Fix an issue where teleporters were not always showing up on the overhead map.
• Added a sound when the Big Blue Meanie gets hit.
• Fix an issue when trying to remove something from a container when you're currently trying to move an item.
• Remove the time bonus from the ending score screen unless you actually arm the nuclear device.
• Try to make certain secret areas more secret.
• Prevent monsters from spawning outside the playable game area.
• 48 hours is now the maximum delay when arming the nuclear device to match the original.
• New HD icon by thedoctor45.
• Readme converted to HTML format since many of you Yahoos seemed to want to read the old one in Notepad.

Version 1.0 (Feb 16, 2019):

• Initial release.

Credits

The original Pathways Into Darkness was created by Bungie. Although I'm not using any of their original files directly, all of the artwork, sounds, dialog, and map designs are theirs.

Credits for the original game (Pathways Into Darkness):

Written And Designed by Jason Jones

Graphics

• Colin Brent

Indispensable Help

• Alexander Seropian

Thanks To

• Dan Meltz
• John Dawson

Power Macintosh Version

• Alain Roy
• Jason Jones

Alpha Victims

• Greg "never stop firing" Kirkpatrick
• Nick DiCrescenzo
• Sean Nixon
• Ed Stelow
• Meredith Cohen

WWDC93

• John Burkey
• James "get me a grenade" Harris
• Howard Shere
• Eric Herrmann
• Ed Estes

Special Thanks To

• Laura Feddersen
• Julia Trice

Credits for the Aleph One port:

Port by Darren Watts

HD icon by thedoctor45

Special Thanks To

• Jeremiah Morris and Loren Petrich for extracting tons of useful information from the original game files. This port would not exist without the existing work they did over the years.
• Trajan's Row for helping me with the fog shaders.
• Everyone responsible for hosting and contributing useful information to pid.bungie.org.
• Everyone that provided feedback while testing or watching gameplay videos.
• Aleph One developers.