Where Are Monsters in Marathon…Maps

The Marathon trilogy only includes a few monster collections per level: Marathon 2: Durandal never exceeds three (except in the Windows 95 release, where one level contains four), while Marathon (1994) and Marathon Infinity only exceed four per level once apiece. There was a very practical reason for this: computers of the day had only a limited amount of RAM, and limiting the number of collections used meant the game required less memory to run. This had the added side effect of making each level feel unique. A sortable list of every monster collection used in all three games follows. Some general notes:

For each table, clicking a column title sorts the table by that column’s values, though due to the arbitrariness of the monster order (I ordered them by their positions in the game physics), only the first two column sorts are especially useful. Clicking a column a second time reverses the ordering.
“Collection” refers to how the shapes files for each game are organized. In lieu of a lengthy, potentially confusing explanation, I’ll simply link to Lochnits.com’s archives of all three games’ shapes by collection:
- Marathon
- Marathon 2: Durandal
- Marathon Infinity
“Flappyboi”, for those of you not familiar with Marathon community memes, is given the more boring name of “Tick” in the game’s code and editors, but we know better.
Levels in each game use varying numbers of monster collections (although Marathon 2 is remarkably consistent, using three collections in every level except “For Carnage, Apply Within”, which uses two). If a column is blank, the level didn’t have that many collections.
If you’re confused about aspects of mapmaking described here and desire further clarification, I have beginner’s and advanced guides that you may consult for more information and links to additional resources.
Please contact me if you notice any errors or omissions.

Intro
Table of Contents (you’re looking at it)
Marathon (1994)
Marathon 2: Durandal (1995)
Marathon Infinity (1996)
…why put this together?
Acknowledgements
Endnotes

Marathon (1994)

Caveat lēctor: I do not have a fast way to verify the accuracy of the Marathon 1 data at the moment; once I get a stable emulator setup working, I’ll double-check it.

#	Level Name	Class 1	Class 2	Class 3	Class 4	Class 5
1	Arrival	Fighter	Compiler
2	Bigger Guns Nearby	Fighter	Compiler
3	Never Burn Money	Fighter	Compiler	Wasp
4	Defend THIS!	MADD	Fighter	Compiler
5	Couch Fishing	Fighter	Compiler	Trooper
6	The Rose	Bob	MADD	Fighter	Hulk
7	Smells Like Napalm, Tastes Like Chicken!	Fighter	Compiler	Wasp
8	Cool Fusion	Fighter	Compiler	Trooper
9	G4 Sunbathing	MADD	Compiler	Hunter	Trooper
10	Blaspheme Quarantine	Fighter	Compiler	Hulk
11	Bob-B-Q	Bob	Fighter	Hunter
12	Shake Before Using…	Fighter	Compiler	Looker	Trooper
13	Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire! Fire!	Compiler	Looker	Trooper	Wasp
14	Colony Ship for Sale, Cheap	Fighter	Looker	Wasp
15	Habe quiddam	Bob	Fighter	Looker	Wasp
16	Neither High Nor Low	Hunter	Looker	Wasp
17	Pfhor Your Eyes Only…	Fighter	Enforcer	Hunter
18	No Artificial Colors⁽¹⁾	Bob	Fighter	Trooper	Wasp
19	Unpfhorgiven	Bob	Fighter	Hunter	Looker	Wasp
20	Two Times Two Equals…	Fighter	Enforcer	Trooper
21	Beware of Low-Flying Defense Drones…	MADD	Enforcer	Trooper
22	Eupfhoria	Enforcer	Hunter	Wasp
23	Pfhoraphobia	Fighter	Enforcer	Compiler	Cyborg
24	Ain’t Got Time Pfhor This…	Compiler	Trooper	Wasp
25	Welcome to the Revolution…	Compiler	Hunter	Trooper
26	Try Again	Enforcer	Hunter	Juggernaut
27	Ingue ferroque	Compiler	Fighter	Trooper

Marathon 2: Durandal (1995)

In most versions of the map, all levels use three monster collections except for “For Carnage, Apply Within”, which only uses Compilers and Enforcers. The third column is hence left blank for that level.
The Windows 95 version adds one additional exception, “Waterloo Waterpark”, as explained in the endnotes (you can also just hover over the level name, or click the link after the level name).

#	Level Name	Class 1	Class 2	Class 3
1	Waterloo Waterpark⁽²⁾	Fighter	Bob	Drone
2	The Slings & Arrows of Outrageous Fortune	Fighter	Drone	F’lickta
3	Charon Doesn’t Make Change	Flappyboi	Fighter	F’lickta
4	What About Bob?	Fighter	Bob	Cyborg
5	Come and Take Your Medicine	Compiler	Drone	Trooper
6	We’re Everywhere	Compiler	Bob	Hunter
7	Ex Cathedra	Drone	Trooper	F’lickta
8	Nuke and Pave	Drone	Cyborg	Trooper
9	Curiouser and Curiouser…	Cyborg	Trooper	F’lickta
10	Eat It, Vid Boi!	Compiler	Fighter	Cyborg
11	The Hard Stuff Rules…	Flappyboi	Cyborg	F’lickta
12	Bob’s Big Date	Hunter	Trooper	F’lickta
13	Six Thousand Feet Under	Flappyboi	Cyborg	F’lickta
14	If I Had a Rocket Launcher, I’d Make Somebody Pay	Bob	Hunter	Trooper
15	Sorry Don’t Make It So	Fighter	Cyborg	Enforcer
16	For Carnage, Apply Within	Compiler	Enforcer
17	Begging for Mercy Makes Me Angry!	Enforcer	Hunter	Trooper
18	The Big House	Fighter	Bob	Enforcer
19	This Side Toward Enemy	Compiler	Trooper	F’lickta
20	God Will Sort the Dead…	Bob	Hunter	Trooper
21	My Own Private Thermopylae	Bob	Cyborg	Trooper
22	Kill Your Television	Flappyboi	Cyborg	F’lickta
23	Where the Twist Flops	Compiler	Bob	Hunter
24	Beware of Abandoned Rental Trucks	Cyborg	Enforcer	F’lickta
25	Requiem for a Cyborg	Compiler	Fighter	Trooper
26	Fatum iustum stultorum	Bob	Trooper	Defender
27	Feel the Noise	Cyborg	Hunter	Defender
28	All Roads Lead to Sol…	Fighter	Hunter	Juggernaut

Marathon Infinity (1996)

Owing to custom monster physics, the monster placements in Marathon Infinity’s levels often don’t match the expected shapes collections. Barring potential errors, this list takes that into account.
Infinity levels range from using no monster collections at all (“Two for the Price of One”) to using five (“One Thousand Thousand Slimy Things”). Blank columns signify that a level used fewer collections than that.
I’m also not counting the Items collection, which always loads for every level; Infinity’s Items collection contains the “ambient wildlife” that the shapes file names Grendel (small creatures seen hopping about on the ground), Potato Anus (blue and orange spherical creatures seen wandering in all kinds of liquids), and Mothrid (translucent flying octopodes). Names of levels that use any of these monsters are italicized.
Since most of Marathon Infinity’s levels actually have Marathon 2-formatted physics models merged in, the physics for monsters in the VacBob slots aren’t set in stone (nor are the behaviours of the SMG and its projectiles). This is rarely consequential in the former case (most “VacBobs” you see in Marathon Infinity levels actually use the “Bob” slots), but there’s a spawn for a Security VacBob in the northwest corner of “A Converted Church in Venice, Italy” that could be something completely different if you’d loaded a physics model that reassigned the Security VacBob before loading “A Converted Church”. This list assumes the default physics for such cases.

#	Level Name	Class 1	Class 2	Class 3	Class 4	Class 5
1	Ne cede malis	Compiler	Fighter
2	Rise Robot Rise	Fighter	Enforcer	Hunter
3	Poor Yorick	Drone	Hunter	Trooper	F’lickta
4	Confound Delivery	Bob	Hunter	Juggernaut	F’lickta
5	Electric Sheep One	Flappyboi	Enforcer
6	Where Are Monsters in Dreams	Defender
7	Acme Station	Compiler	Fighter	Cyborg
8	Post Naval Trauma	Fighter	Enforcer	Hunter	Juggernaut
9	Where Some Rarely Go	Compiler	Fighter	F’lickta
10	Thing What Kicks…	Fighter	Drone	Juggernaut
11	Electric Sheep Two	Flappyboi	Enforcer
12	Whatever You Please	Compiler	Enforcer
13	Naw Man He’s Close	Compiler	VacBob	Trooper
14	Foe Hammer	Compiler	VacBob	Cyborg	Hunter
15	Hang Brain	Compiler	Bob	Hunter	Trooper
16	Electric Sheep Three	Flappyboi	Enforcer
17	Eat the Path	Flappyboi	Compiler	Enforcer
18	By Committee	Fighter	Bob	Drone	Cyborg
19	One Thousand Thousand Slimy Things	Compiler	Bob	Fighter	Trooper	Hunter
20	A Converted Church in Venice, Italy	Flappyboi	Bob	VacBob
21	Son of Grendel	Fighter	Drone	Trooper
22	Strange Aeons	F’lickta
23	Bagged Again	Fighter	Trooper	Defender
24	You Think You’re Big Time? You’re Gonna Die Big Time! (Campaign)	Fighter	Hunter	Trooper	Juggernaut
25	Aye Mak Sicur	Hunter	Defender	Juggernaut
26	Robot World Arena	Fighter
27	Two for the Price of One
28	Aie Mak Sicur	Hunter	Defender	Juggernaut
29	Carroll Street Station	Hunter	Defender	Juggernaut
30	You’re Wormfood, Dude	Hunter	Trooper	Defender	Juggernaut
31	Try Again⁽³⁾	Cyborg	Enforcer	Hunter	Juggernaut
32	If I Had a Rocket Launcher, I’d Make Somebody Pay	Hunter	Trooper	VacBob
33	You Think You’re Big Time? You’re Gonna Die Big Time! (Secret)	Fighter	Hunter	Trooper	Juggernaut

…why put this together?

Two primary reasons:

I think the techniques developers used to conserve memory in the ’80s and ’90s deserve much more attention than they’ve received. Frankly, modern developers could learn a lot from the efficiency of ’80s and early ’90s games. This is just a small microcosm of that tendency.
I’ve long held that most third-party scenarios place monsters too indiscriminately. If every level uses every monster type, then the combat throughout the game becomes effectively interchangeable. Restricting monsters to a few types per level results in each level’s combat feeling far more unique. Seeing everything laid out like this may help drive home how restricted the monster placement in the original trilogy was.

Acknowledgements

Paul S. on Stack Overflow for his table sort script, and Fla for a revision that enabled it to sort numeric values. (My knowledge of JavaScript is effectively nonexistent.)
Jason Karns and Davide Cannizzo on Stack Overflow for the CSS table of contents, which is beyond my relatively competent level of CSS ability.
Solra Bizna for an incomprehensible amount of programming help, including the CSS that makes this exact page follow your computer’s dark mode settings.
fracai, whose utterly invaluable maps saved me from having to open Pfhorte even once.
Bungie, for obvious reasons.

Endnotes

#	Note
1	This level has spawn positions for a Juggernaut and a Compiler, but the level’s “Monster Parameters” specify starting values of 0 and never provide means for them to spawn. This would still force the game to load the Juggernaut and Compiler collections, but I’m only noting these in an endnote because I suspect it to have been an oversight.
2	The Windows 95 version of this level features a fourth enemy class: Compiler, found in the “Arrival” secret. All other official versions feature only three.
3	This level’s “Monster Parameters” tell the game to spawn nine Bobs and twenty Possessed Drones at the start of the level, but they have no spawn points, so they will never appear. This would still force the game to load the Bob and Drone collections, but I’m only noting these in an endnote because I suspect it to have been an oversight.