Aaron Freed

I’m a political science (bachelor, Florida Atlantic University, 2008) and cybersecurity (bachelor, University of South Florida, 2021) major who recently relocated to Tallahassee, FL. Amateur game development, music creation and (re)mastering, and writing consume much of my spare time.

An overall site map can be found below. If you’re here at my site’s top level, perhaps you’re just curious, or perhaps you’re looking for one of these pages:

• Beginners’ Marathon mapmaking guide ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/mapmaking101.html⟩
• Advanced Marathon mapmaking guide ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/mapmaking.html⟩
• Marathon soundtracks ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/soundtracks.html⟩
• My discography ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/discography.html⟩
  • My recent compositions ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/compositions2023-2024notes.html⟩
• My ludography ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/portfolio.html⟩
• My biography, or ways to contact me ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/aboutme.html⟩

Contents

1. Code Projects
   1. VAF
   2. Aleph Bet
2. Site Map
   1. Marathon
      1. Personal
      2. Marathon / Aleph One Content Creation Guides
      3. Marathon / Aleph One Content Creation References
      4. Marathon YouTube Channels
      5. Marathon GitHub Repositories
      6. Other Marathon References & Resources
   2. Music & Audio
      1. Music Downloads
      2. Music Resources & References
      3. Music Reviews
   3. Miscellany
3. Abbreviated Ludography
   1. Publicly Available Releases
   2. Works in Progress
4. But Wait, There’s More!

Code Projects

I’m currently heavily involved in developing the following code projects:

• VAF ⟨github.com/aaronfreedvaf⟩
  • A Lua texturing utility for Marathon Aleph One ⟨alephone.lhowon.org⟩, based on @Hopper262 ⟨github.com/Hopper262⟩ and Ares Ex Machina’s Va­sa­ra ⟨simplici7y.com/items/vasara⟩, which in turn is based on @jon­ir­ons ⟨github.com/jonirons⟩ and @tree­lla­ma’s ⟨github.com/treellama⟩ Visual Mode.lua ⟨github.com/treellama/visualmode⟩. (Visual Mode.lua is effectively the command line to Vasara’s GUI.)
  • When I began work on VAF, neither Vasara nor Visual Mode.lua had been substantially updated since 2016 (although both are now being updated again). As a result, I took it upon myself (with a bit of assistance from @Sol­ra­Biz­na ⟨github.com/SolraBizna⟩ and @mur­bruks­pro­dukt ⟨github.com/murbruksprodukt⟩) to fork Vasara to implement new Aleph One features, fix longstanding bugs, and add new features to make texturing easier.
  • This remains a work in progress; it requires Aleph One 1.7 or later and is best used with Weland ⟨github.com/treellama/weland/releases⟩. (See the readme for an abbreviated setup guide, or my beginners’ mapmaking guide ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/mapmaking101.html⟩ for a detailed one.)
  • Overall, VAF specifically caters to experienced mapmakers – Vasara’s UI is notably more minimalist (although this is partly because VAF is substantially more configurable and powerful). Beginning mapmakers may find it easier to start with Vasara and switch to VAF after getting a hang of the basics.
• Aleph Bet ⟨github.com/Aleph-Bet-Marathon/alephbet⟩
  • Fork of Aleph One with added features. Currently in the very early stages, but with very ambitious, detailed plans for the future. Several other people have done a massive amount of work on this already, especially @Sol­ra­Biz­na ⟨github.com/SolraBizna⟩ and @Prism019 ⟨github.com/Prism019⟩.
  • Our initial 0.9 release is all but certain to include:
    • a unified build system ⟨mesonbuild.com across Windows, Linux, and MacOS (probably about 95% implemented)
    • Solra and Nemo’s Second Music System (which is already completely coded and just needs to be implemented)
  • Additional goals for 0.9, if we can complete them within a reasonable timeframe, are:
    • yeet ffmpeg to an external binary, enabling hardware-accelerated rendering and more flexible encoding settings
    • add a way to edit controls in-game, without quitting to the menu
  • The issues page ⟨github.com/Aleph-Bet-Marathon/alephbet/issues⟩ includes many, though by no means all, of our longer-term plans

Contents · My portfolio · My discography · Marathon soundtracks · Contact me

Site Map

Marathon

Personal

• My portfolio
  • An overview of my creative output from the past several years, with a heavy focus on Marathon content I’ve worked on.

Contents · My portfolio · My discography · Marathon soundtracks · Contact me

Marathon / Aleph One Content Creation Guides

• Beginners’ guide
  • What editors to use, how to set them up, what guides to follow to get started making levels, what those guides get wrong or omit, and what to do after mastering the basics.
• Advanced guide
  • Several intractable problems that hadn’t been documented elsewhere and ways to fix them.
• The Annotated Forge Manual (WIP):
  • Detailed Table of Contents
  • Introduction
  • Tutorial 1 (WIP)
    • Contains numerous annotations correcting errata and filling in the gaps to apply to the modern map editor Weland. I’ve only annotated around 25% of it, and the annotations will need substantial amounts of editing before I consider it finished. But it’s a start.
      • Currently on hold; this approach felt increasingly impractical as I got further into it. I now plan to rewrite the Forge manual as a Weland manual when time permits.
• The Annotated Anvil Help Balloons (updated to work as a ShapeFusion reference)
  • Based on the help strings for Anvil, Bungie’s official physics, shapes, and sound file editor; with corrections and amendments for its modern replacement ShapeFusion.

Contents · My portfolio · My discography · Marathon soundtracks · Contact me

Marathon / Aleph One Content Creation References

• Circles and Marathon Mapmaking
  • Aleph One can’t exactly use circles, but it can create rough approximations. I’m kind of (in)famous for using them in my maps. I address a few ways to create them and provide some tips for using them effectively, including a table to produce regular polygons with several common side counts and side lengths of 1 World Units.
• Map Complexity: A Case Study
  • Wherein I examine Eternal’s “Where Giants Have Fallen”, Tempus Irae Redux’s “Il grande silenzio”, Phoenix’s “Stone Temple Pilates”, and Starlight’s “Monument to All Your Sins” as a demonstration of how much map detail is too much and how much is just enough.
• Reducing Map Index Use
  • What to do if you’ve made a map so complex it won’t load.
• Marathon Infinity Sounds & Sources
  • Invaluable information for anyone working with Marathon Infinity’s sound file – or anyone curious where many of its sounds came from.
• Example DefaultNames.txt for ShapeFusion
  • Customize almost every ShapeFusion string to match your own scenario’s data.
• Where Are Monsters in Marathon...Maps
  • A case study of the Marathon trilogy’s monster placement as a microcosm of how restricting variety within individual levels can, counterintuitively, increase variety across an entire game.
• The Marathon 1 Palette
  • Colors used in vanilla Marathon 1’s 256-color graphics.
• The Marathon 2 Palette
  • Colors used in vanilla Marathon 2 and Marathon Infinity’s 256-color graphics.
• Marathon: Looper
  • How to loop songs in Aleph One prior to 1.7. Split off to its own page because the process it describes isn’t necessary with releases targeting only Aleph One 1.7 or later.
• Tags Are Terrible (though sometimes inexorable)
  • A rant about all the problems with tags in Marathon/Aleph One. Split off to its own page because, even by my standards, it’s opinionated and long-winded. I continue to stand by everything I wrote in it, but I want the main part of my guides to be more neutral in tone.
• Don’t Start a New Scenario…
  • Deliberately provocatively-titled advice from someone who’s worked on too many unfinished Marathon scenarios to anyone that wants their projects to ever actually see release: “…before trying to fly, learn to crawl – and once you’ve mastered walking and driving, join a flight school.”

Contents · My portfolio · My discography · Marathon soundtracks · Contact me

Marathon YouTube Channels

(Obviously not hosted here, but I manage or co-manage both of these channels.)

• Marathon Vidmaster Challenge & Occasional Metal
  • @MarathonVidmaster for short. Very likely the largest Marathon gameplay repository on YouTube; it’s specifically devoted to the oldest form of Marathon challenge gameplay, the Vidmaster’s Challenge. As the title suggests, I occasionally branch out into posting other kinds of videos, which does in fact include metal (though I haven’t posted a metal video in a while).
• MarathonRuns.net YouTube channel
  • A sister site to the YouTube channel; this one specifically focuses on speedrunning, which can but often does not overlap with the Vidmaster’ Challenge. (This channel is updated less frequently.)

Contents · My portfolio · My discography · Marathon soundtracks · Contact me

Marathon GitHub Repositories

• Marathon Film Repository
  • Another sister site to my YouTube channel; it’s a repository for Marathon Vidmaster films that aren’t on Hamish Sinclair & Jim Mitchell’s Marathon Vidmasters’ Page (which is no longer being updated). I’m currently very far behind on posting new films, so tons of films here aren’t on my channel yet.
• Marathon Sound Repository
  • FLAC files of every sound from the Marathon trilogy. For sounds whose sources are known, I also include versions I’ve remixed directly from the CD-quality stereo sources; for the rest, I include remastered versions I made in iZotope RX using techniques I’ve described elsewhere on this website. I also plan to add sounds from Pathways into Darkness and select third-party scenarios eventually.

Contents · My portfolio · My discography · Marathon soundtracks · Contact me

Other Marathon References & Resources

• Hathor’s timeline in Eternal X 1.3 (major spoilers)
  • Unless you’ve completed a recent build of Eternal X 1.3, please don’t read this: it spoils several major plot twists, and you’ll lack the context to grasp their emotional significance. However, since Eternal’s story is highly nonlinear (Douglas Adams’ Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency is a major inspiration on our storytelling, and on our ending in particular), I wrote this chronology of one of its major characters for the sake of players who were blindsided by its ending. (I’ve been one of Eternal’s main developers since 2018, and have effectively managed its development solo since 2020.)
• Marathon Istoria: Conversations with the Dead (major spoilers)
  • Again, please don’t read this until you’ve finished Istoria at least once. This is a catalog of all Yellow Crystal messages in Istoria, the keywords used to display them, and the locations of all 28 bodies in the scenario. (I have nothing to do with Istoria’s development, but I didn’t see these catalogued anywhere else, so I took it upon myself to do so.)
• Tim Seufert’s Marathon Vidmaster Challenge Physics Model
  • Not a webpage, but instead an Aleph One-compatible version of a modified physics model required for Vidmaster films of Marathon (1994)’s levels “Cool Fusion” and “Ingue ferroque”. This physics model is the only gameplay change allowed for the challenge, and it’s only allowed on these two levels; the Marathon Vidmasters’ Page explains the quandary that requires it. To use it, put it in your Marathon game data folder and select it under Preferences → Environment → Physics.

Contents · My portfolio · My discography · Marathon soundtracks · Contact me

Music & Audio

Music Downloads

• Marathon soundtracks
  • Remixes and arrangements of Alexander Seropian’s soundtrack for Marathon (1994), plus several major Marathon scenario soundtracks, many of which I’ve personally remastered.
• My discography
  • Including Marathon content, covers, and original material alike.
• Compositions 2023-2024 liner notes
  • Detailed commentary on songs I’ve written since 2023 for hellpak vol. 2 and Tempus Irae Redux (plus credits for brief interpolations and a list of software used). Remains a work in progress (as do several of the compositions themselves).

Contents · My portfolio · My discography · Marathon soundtracks · Contact me

Music Resources & References

• My notes on remastering audio
  • An in-depth description of my cleanup process for music and sounds with poor mastering, lossy compression artifacts, or low sample rates, including an explanation of upmastering, a process I typically use in cases where generation loss is a possible concern. (It’s impossible to restore data stripped out by digital clipping, lossy compression, or low sample rates; it’s only possible to create approximations of what might have been there.) Written for iZotope RX, but its principles are usable in any sufficiently powerful audio cleanup software.
• What Is Time? (WIP)
  • Part one of a planned series aiming to make music theory accessible without assuming any prior musical experience on readers’ part. Explains basic rhythmic concepts, several symbols in written music, and even some advanced rhythmic concepts (the latter will eventually be split onto a separate page).
• Musical Modes and the Circle of Fifths
  • A lengthy and highly technical examination of how the major scale’s seven modes (Ionian, Dorian, Phrygian, Lydian, Mixolydian, Aeolian, and Locrian) relate to each other and the circle of fifths (a musical concept inextricably linked to chords and key signatures). Contains dozens of tables illustrating the principle. Also goes into great detail about the ancient Greek scales that gave several of our modes their names (spoiler alert: the ancient “Mixolydian”, “Phrygian”, “Dorian”, and “Lydian” scales are not the ones bearing those names today).
• Twelve-Tone Equal Temperament in Hertz
  • The frequency, to the nearest 0.01 Hz, of every note in the scale used in almost all Western music since the 18th century, from C0 (16.35 Hz) to B8 (7902.13 Hz). This information is easily available online, but I wanted a URL I’d easily remember. (Also, it was a programming exercise – I generated the tables and most of the surrounding HTML with a Lua script.)

Contents · My portfolio · My discography · Marathon soundtracks · Contact me

Music Reviews

I’ve recently begun collecting long-form reviews I’ve written of some of my favorite music. I’d previously posted older versions of these at websites such as Rate Your Music, but I’ve been wanting to collect all my best long-form writing in one place for a while.

• Ashenspire’s Hostile Architecture (≈2,550 words, with an additional ≈300-word intro)
• Deathspell Omega’s collected 2004-2012 output (≈3,500 words, with an additional ≈500-word intro and ≈1,500-word appendix on the band’s use of Latin and Greek)
• Chris Christodoulou’s “The Raindrop That Fell to the Sky” (Risk of Rain 2, 2020) (≈1,600 words)

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Miscellany

• “Fābāmur thematis fātī,” vel, qualiter didicī quiēscere sollicitārī et Latinum amāre
  • (“We Were Speaking of Fate”, or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Latin)
    

    A brief (≈220-word) explanation of a major cause of my Latin obsession.

• 人生ゲーム (Conway’s Game of Life)
  • A very rudimentary JavaScript implementation of Conway’s Game of Life, cowritten with @SolraBizna as a way to learn JavaScript. Includes a step counter, a way to export a grid state, a manual/automatic setting, and a pause button. Forthcoming additional features include a less hideous layout, X/Y position indicators, a way to re-import the grid exports, and settings for steps per second and grid size.
• Trigonometry Tables (Sine, Cosine, and Tangent)
  • Why? I got sick of throwing them into a calculator app or Google – this way I’ll have a URL for them that I’ll easily remember.

Contents · My portfolio · My discography · Marathon soundtracks · Contact me

Abbreviated Ludography

My portfolio contains a much more exhaustive accounting of my game work over the years, but here’s what, by my standards, qualifies as an abbreviated version.

Publicly Available Releases

I’ve contributed in varying degrees to the following (mostly) playable game mods. (Dates refer to my involvement with each project rather than its entire development cycle, though in a few cases these are identical.) See the Marathon soundtracks page above for links to soundtracks.

• Eternal X (2018–): maps, music, sound, writing, scripting, graphics, soundtrack (re)mastering, codirector (alongside pfhorrest, for versions 1.2.1 and later)
  • YouTube playlist
  • This scenario remains under active development; a final release of version 1.3 is still forthcoming. We’ve released six public previews of 1.3, most recently on 2024-03-07 (with a hotfix on 2024-03-29 for an omitted script in the level “Babylon X”), but further revisions to writing, music, and levels are still planned.
• Apotheosis X (2020-2023): sound, scripting, testing
  • Steam Workshop page
  • YouTube playlist
  • Featured in PC Gamer!
  • Further updates of Apotheosis X haven’t been ruled out but aren’t currently under active development.
• Dungeons Presents Hellpak Vol. 1: Not Recommended by Doctors (2020–2024): maps, scripting, soundtrack mastering, writing, graphics, documentation, bug fix releases
  • YouTube playlist
  • Discord server
  • This is an iteration of creator tbcr’s long-running Dungeons show, hence its full title. We released the (hopefully) final bug fix update for this scenario on 2024-06-24.
• Trojan (2020–2021): sound remastering, soundtrack remastering
  • There are multiple versions of this game for Aleph One:
    • The first is a direct conversion of the original game files to Aleph One format by Shappie, assisted by treellama and me. I didn’t directly create any content involved with this release.
    • The second is a more complicated conversion of the original game files by original creator Hamish Sanderson with some added extras, including my remastered music and sounds. This, unfortunately, does not run on current versions of Aleph One, but you can probably use the remastered music and sounds with Shappie’s conversion above.
• Marathon Phoenix (2020, tangentially): soundtrack remastering
  • Steam Workshop page
  • Creator RyokoTK’s gameplay and commentary
  • Additional gameplay by me and others

Contents · My portfolio · My discography · Marathon soundtracks · Contact me

Works in Progress

I’m also working on several forthcoming mods:

• Dungeons Presents Hellpak Vol. 2: An Exercise in Questionable Taste (2023–, forthcoming): maps, scripting, music, soundtrack mastering, writing
  • Discord server
  • Preview of music and levels (the first song and the first five levels of this video are my work)
  • Vol. 2 map and music submissions closed at the end of 2023; we hope to release it at the end of 2024.
    • Note that we already have more than seven hours of music, which is more than enough for both Vol. 2 and Vol. 3’s soundtracks while giving us a decent head start on Vol. 4. You’re welcome to get a head start on mapping for Vol. 3 now, though.
• Tempus Irae Redux (2020–, forthcoming): maps, music, sound, scripting, writing, soundtrack mastering
  • Get the original Tempus Irae here
  • YouTube playlist
  • I didn’t contribute to the original Tempus Irae but have been involved in Redux’s development since it started in roughly May 2020. Redux isn’t a straight remaster but more of a modern update; since it significantly changes several levels, players may find it interesting to play both. It also isn’t planned to supersede the original Tempus Irae; the latter’s original Aleph One release will continue to be available on Nardo’s website after we release Redux. We entered a limited beta test in October 2023 and presently aim to release the game in late 2024 (it might be out by now if I hadn’t had a sudden bout of madness and decided to compose two hours of original music for it).
• Where Monsters Are in Dreams (2019–, forthcoming): maps, music, sound, scripting, soundtrack mastering, writing, graphics, codirector (alongside CryoS and hypersleep)
  • Website
  • YouTube playlist
  • A perpetually in-development scenario (I believe its development stretches back at least as far as 2001). Hypersleep and CryoS are two of the main forces behind Apotheosis X; in 2023, the three of us recommitted to finally finishing this monster (pun intended) and have a detailed, step-by-step roadmap to do so. We hope to release it in 2025, but we’ve overshot so many estimates that it’s become a running gag, so take that with not just a grain or even a boulder of salt but in fact an entire salt mine.
• Return to Marathon Chapter 2 (2023–, forthcoming): maps, music, sound, scripting, graphics
  • Return to Marathon website
  • Return to Marathon Chapter 1
  • I didn’t contribute to Return to Marathon’s first chapter, but I’ll be helping to polish up its maps for the release of the full game. Development resumed in August 2023.
• Marathon Chronicles (1997–, in progress): maps, writing, sound, music, graphics, director
  • YouTube playlist
  • Most recent public release, which is now a few years old. I’ll release a current build after we release Tempus Irae Redux; Chronicles incorporates many of its textures, and out of respect for James’ phenomenal efforts on Tempus Irae and Redux, I won’t be releasing them in any form ahead of Redux itself.

  • Chronicles is planned to be a sort of grand finale to a loose arc between the fan games Rubicon, Eternal X, Phoenix, Where Monsters Are in Dreams (listed in original release order rather than in-universe chronological order). It is planned to resolve Hathor’s story, to address some ramifications of Rubicon’s story, and to resolve the ramifications of the conflict revealed towards the end of Eternal.

    However, despite its having technically been in development for nearly two-thirds of my life, it’s probably less than half complete. I plan for its second half to be fairly atypical for Marathon gameplay, with perhaps dozens of interconnected levels featuring nonlinear objectives and items that enable players to progress in several different ways; they’ll be able to obtain these in nearly any order, meaning its objectives will have several possible solutions.

    None of this is implemented yet, though, and Chronicles is currently on the backburner at least until Tempus Irae Redux is complete.

Contents · My portfolio · My discography · Marathon soundtracks · Contact me

But Wait, There’s More!

Contents · My portfolio · My discography · Marathon soundtracks · Contact me