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             Gemini Station 2.0
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A solo Marathon Infinity scenario.
First two original levels made with Phorte 2.0a14.
Subsequently retextured and expanded for Infinity using Forge 1.02, Anvil 1.02, Hex 1.02, Chisel 2.01, Shapes Juggler 1.0 and a large stick when Anvil crashed again.
 Graphics ©1996,7 Chthonic Ionic Software with exception of terminal logo and background of the Gemini promotional shot which were borrowed from Bungie Software. Apologies to them...

Contains 12 levels, and 2 endings. You may not see them all, and some are quite short :)
Final merge 3rd July 1997.




Background

Things have been quiet on Earth for decades after the original Pfhor attack on the Marathon, so much so that most of the UESC fleet has been disbanded. You have been in stasis for years with no real role to play in human affairs any more. And then a recently de-militarised scout ship Hermes announces that he has negotiated a peace treaty with the Pfhor...

This scenario has been in production since, oooh, June 96. It seems only yesterday I thought, well why not spend a few weeks indulging myself in making a groovy scenario that looks really nice. Gemini 1.0 was released to lots of interest in July 1996, and I had a deluge of email wanting more. Putting it off because of pressing PhD commitments, it was only when Infinity came out that I returned to work on the story. The original levels are still in there, so if you don't want to do them again command-option start at level 3. I put a few weapons at this point to give you a chance, but you'll have significantly less ammunition than if you play through from the start. At least watch the opening splash graphics :)



*** WARNING   This scenario uses a custom shapes file for which a Shapes Shuttle is provided.
                                    Make a copy of the original Infinity shapes file from your CD and then double click on Gemini Shapes.
                                    Select your copy and let the shuttle do its work, allowing it to optimise your shapes file if necessary.

¥ Be sure to select your new shapes file in the Environment section of Marathon Infinity's preferences before playing
¥  Using the original shapes file will make things look odd for the first few levels and then cause Marathon to crash hard
¥  If you ever see a S'pht'Kr anywhere, your shapes file is incorrect.



Memory usage

¥ The custom shapes used by some levels require Marathon to be assigned more memory than is possible on an 8Mb machine. Marathon will quit saying it has run out of memory as the level loads. I'm working on a fix for this, which involves the scary task of rebuilding the shapes file, but for the moment you will have to let M° get at least 5.5Mb to play this scenario in 256 colours, more for thousands of colours.


A few plugs

¥ Download Trojan NOW! This is a serious attempt to rethink the original Marathon engine. You can see the hours that were put into this in every frame. Some have objected to the platform puzzles, but I'm perverse that way.
¥ Oh, and Marathon Evil is pretty good as well. Some of the scariest sound effects I have heard. I wish I had some musical ability.
¥ The last must see scenario: Excalibur: Morgana's Revenge from all the lovely people at the MMMG. You want dinosaurs? You got em, big time.


Design feedback and Beta Testing

¥ Michael OÕBrien
¥ FM
¥ Claude Errara
¥ Tim Weigand
¥ James Campbell
¥ Hamish Sanderson


Chthonic Ionic Software

¥ Is the collective name for the occasional pieces of Mac software that I put out. Look for SoundShapes v1.2 at your local Info-Mac mirror under the screen savers section for an example of my work. I can be contacted for the rest of 1997 at address below, but it may well change after this, if indeed I do hand in my PhD on time. (an increasingly unlikely occurence)

Enjoy,
Mike Trinder
3rd July 1997Ê






bugs, crashes, comments, flames, proposals of marriage to mpbt100@cam.ac.uk
