Aaron Freed’s Creative Portfolio

(Writing, Games, Music, Programming, & More)

Contents

  1. Contents
  2. A No-Longer-Brief Introductory Note
  3. Selected Bibliography
    1. Books
      1. On Moonlight: a film analysis, autobiography, & holistic societal critique
      2. Musical Modes and the Circle of Fifths
    2. Neurodivergence
      1. On Will Moore’s Suicide: A Collective Murder by Indifference
      2. Unspoken Barriers: Neurodivergent Communication
    3. Music
      1. Introductory Music Theory
      2. Music Reviews
    4. Miscellany
      1. English Is a Germanic-Romance Language
      2. The Most Helpful Creative Advice I’ve Ever Received
  4. Ludography
    1. Major Credits (Published)
      1. Eternal X
      2. Tempus Irae Redux
      3. Apotheosis X
      4. Dungeons Presents Hellpak: Vol. 1 – Not Recommended by Doctors
    2. Major Credits (Unpublished/Incomplete)
      1. Where Monsters Are in Dreams
      2. Marathon Chronicles
      3. Dungeons Presents Hellpak: Vol. 2 – An Exercise in Questionable Taste
    3. Other Credits (Published)
      1. Trojan Standalone Edition
      2. Marathon Phoenix SE
      3. Marathon Rubicon X
  5. Selected Discography
    1. General Overviews
      1. Iānuāriō Aprīlem MMXXV
      2. Selected Works, 2023–2024
      3. Selected Works, 2014–2023
    2. Selected Solo Works
      1. Τὸν ὦνον πᾰ́ντων καί τὴν ἀξῐ́ᾱν οὐδένων (Tòn ônon pắntōn kaí tḕn axĭ́ān oudénōn)
      2. Κᾰτηγορῐκή ᾰ̓πολογῐ́ᾱ (Kătēgorĭkḗ ăpologĭ́ā)
      3. Mūsica ex tempore malōrum
      4. Compositions 2023–2024
      5. See You Starside: The Marathon Soundtrack Reimagined
      6. Demos 2014
      7. Compositions 1993–1997
      8. Marathon Remixes (1997)
    3. Selected Collaborations
      1. Eternal X 1.3 OST
      2. Dungeons Presents Hellpak: Vol. 2 – An Exercise in Questionable Taste OST
  6. Other Marathon Projects
    1. VAF
    2. @MarathonVidmaster YouTube channel
    3. Aleph One Mapmaking Guide
    4. Marathon Remixes & Fan Soundtracks
    5. Remastered Pathways into Darkness & Marathon Trilogy Sounds
    6. Aleph Bet

A No-Longer-Brief Introductory Note

This is a selected (and far from exhaustive) portfolio of my creative work, either with others or solo. By and large, most of what I’ve collected here falls into one of four categories:

  1. Nonfiction writing
  2. Game mods and game modding guides
  3. Original music compositions
  4. Computer programs

Music and neurodivergence are the two main subjects of my writing. In fact, I’ve arguably written books on them:

  1. On Moonlight far outgrew its initial scope; its main topic is arguably neurodivergence
  2. Musical Modes and the Circle of Fifths is a lengthy treatise on music theory and the mathematics thereof

But I’m known to write about any other subject that catches my attention as well, including philosophy, ethics, psychology, political science, linguistics, statistics, and Latin and ancient Greek.

Major parts of this portfolio relate to Bungie’s Marathon trilogy, a series I’ve been modding for since 1997. Much also relates to sound in some way, as:

Most of this content requires the open-source Aleph One engine to play; a basic familiarity with the Marathon trilogy will also help. (For those unfamiliar with it, the Marathon trilogy, released from 1994 to 1996, was one of Bungie’s big series before Halo; I tell people that it was roughly the Doom (1993) to Halo’s Quake, down to the parallel of being one of Bungie’s big series before Halo.) Aleph One enables you to play the Marathon trilogy on Windows, Linux, and modern MacOS; here are links to self-contained releases of the trilogy and to a standalone version of the Aleph One app that enables you to play third-party content.

I’m probably one of the most prolific modders in Marathon’s history, with credits in five major published mods ranging from “remastered the music” (Phoenix) to “co-led the scenario & contributed to every aspect of its development” (Eternal). I’ve remastered the Marathon trilogy’s 400 sounds and hundreds of sounds from Pathways into Darkness & several major Marathon mods. Some of these were in especially rough shape (especially Pathways’) & improved miraculously, while others already sounded pretty good & experienced only minor improvements. I also have an ongoing project to locate the CD-quality sources of Marathon sounds & remix them from their sources.

I’m also the leader of a project that’s become Aleph One’s third main texturing utility, which I’ve renamed to VAF. I also have beginners’ and advanced Marathon mapmaking guides, a Marathon Vidmaster’s Challenge YouTube channel, a Marathon music repository, & a catalog of links to Marathon content (currently part of the beginners’ mapmaking guide, though I’m planning to split it off to its own page soon). You may also be interested in:

Please contact me if you have any questions/praise/constructive criticism/job offers.

N.B. I listed the dates when I worked on a project, not its entire development cycle (e.g., I remastered Phoenix’s music in 2020, but it’s been in development since no later than 2010). Partly this is because the latter didn’t seem as relevant for the purposes of this list, & partly it’s because I didn’t always know those dates. Also, “major credits” means that I consider my roles on those releases to have been major – I intend no commentary on which of those releases are more significant.

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Selected Bibliography

Books

On Moonlight: a film analysis, autobiography, & holistic societal critique ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/moonlight.html⟩

(2017, 2025, ≈75,000 words)

Topics: film criticism, autobiography, neurodivergence, philosophy, ethics, political science, media analysis, historiography, psychology, mental illness, statistics

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Musical Modes and the Circle of Fifths ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/musicalmodes.html⟩

(2024-2025, ≈46,000 words, with a ≈34,000-word appendix)

Topics: music theory, music history, geometry, mathematical analysis, ancient Greece, Pythagoreans

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Neurodivergence

On Will Moore’s Suicide: A Collective Murder by Indifference ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/willmoore.html⟩

A furious response to an autistic political science professor’s suicide, excerpted from On Moonlight (see above), a book I wrote in 2017. Content warning: suicide, mistreatment of marginalized groups

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Unspoken Barriers: Neurodivergent Communication ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/unspokenbarriers.html⟩

Outline for a speech I gave at Selby Public Library in Sarasota, FL, on 2025-04-26 concerning the double empathy problem, the reason neurodivergent people and neurotypical people have trouble communicating and empathizing with each other (and the reason the latter frequently don’t realize it). As of 2025-08-27, it includes a glossary of important terms (defined in my own words) to assist readers with recollection

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Music

Introductory Music Theory

What Is Time? – An Introduction to Rhythm ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/whatistime.html⟩

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Basic Musical Harmony – An Introduction to Pitches, Scales, and Chords ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/basicmusicalharmony.html⟩

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Music Reviews

Lengthy reviews (over a thousand words word each) of some of my favorite albums or anthologies that I originally wrote for websites like Rate Your Music; I’ve collected them here as the beginning of an effort to collect all my best long-form writing in one place. Currently hosted here:

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Miscellany

English Is a Germanic-Romance Language ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/germanic-romance.html⟩

My hot take on linguistics: Old English is effectively a foreign language, while Middle English is simply an archaic dialect of Modern English. English changed vastly more between 1000 CE and 1400 CE than it did from 1400 CE to the present day. After the Norman Conquest, the French influence on English transformed it into an unrecognizably different language that we still speak today. English should therefore be classified not as a Germanic language, but as Germanic-Romance. I back this up with excerpts of Beowulf and The Canterbury Tales and exhaustive lists of English words that are derived from either Latin or Greek; I also show readers that they know more Greek than they probably think they do and contend that, for this reason, the idiom “it’s all Greek to me” should use a different language. (WIP, may still be amended or expanded)

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The Most Helpful Creative Advice I’ve Ever Received ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/creativeadvice.html⟩

“When I was seventeen years old, George Lucas gave me the most helpful creative advice I’ve ever received.” I recount that advice here (as well as I can remember it some twenty-five years later), analyze why it’s valuable, and adapt it to other artistic media.

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Ludography

Major Credits (Published)

Eternal X (2018–)

Website: eternal.bungie.org
Reviews: simplici7y.com/items/eternal-x
Gameplay videos: YouTube playlist
1.3 OST (WIP, meant for music players): FLAC (sometimes upmastered) (download or stream)
1.3 in-game FLAC (WIP, meant for in-game use): FLAC (sometimes upmastered) (download or stream)
1.2 Soundtrack: FLAC (upmastered) (download or stream) YouTube (stream) Ogg Vorbis (download)

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Tempus Irae Redux (2020–2025)

Website: nardo.bungie.org/tir
Gameplay videos: YouTube playlist

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Apotheosis X (2020–2023)

Download: moddb.com/mods/apotheosis-x
Reviews & Screenshots: simplici7y.com/items/apotheosis-x-5
Gameplay videos: YouTube playlist

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Dungeons Presents Hellpak: Vol. 1 – Not Recommended by Doctors (2020–2024)

Download: simplici7y.com/items/dungeons-hellpak-vol-1-not-recommended-by-doctors
Gameplay & music videos: YouTube playlist (including soundtrack video & complete playthrough by thechunks)
The soundtrack in FLAC (with hi-res track artwork)

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Major Credits (Unpublished/Incomplete)

Where Monsters Are in Dreams (2019–2025)

Website: bighouse.bungie.org/wmaid
Gameplay videos: YouTube playlist

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Marathon Chronicles (1997–?)

Gameplay videos: YouTube playlist
Download: Latest public build (from 2020-04-10) ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/marathonchronicles2020.html⟩

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Dungeons Presents Hellpak: Vol. 2 – An Exercise in Questionable Taste (2023–?)

Discord server: discord.gg/DTMvjFqtTA
Soundtrack (WIP): FLAC (download or stream) ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/hellpakvol2ost.html⟩

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Other Credits (Published)

Trojan Standalone Edition (2021–2022)

Download: hhas01.itch.io/trojan-se
Soundtrack: FLAC (download or stream) ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/trojanost.html⟩ YouTube (stream) ⟨youtu.be/bKQnv8zg8rk⟩

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Marathon Phoenix SE (2020)

Download: moddb.com/mods/marathon-phoenix/downloads/marathon-phoenix-1-4-1
Reviews & screenshots: simplici7y.com/items/marathon-phoenix-2
Soundtrack: FLAC (download or stream) ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/music/phoenix1.4ost.html⟩ YouTube (stream) ⟨youtu.be/KczNQR_K5Qc⟩

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Marathon Rubicon X (2022)

Website: marathonrubicon.com

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Selected Discography

Complete Discography: aaronfreed.github.io/discography.html ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/discography.html⟩

General Overviews

Iānuāriō Aprīlem MMXXV

Webpage: aaronfreed.github.io/ianuarioaprilemmmxxv.html
Listen: FLAC (download or stream) ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/music/ianuarioaprilemmmxxv.html⟩

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Selected Works, 2023–2024

Webpage: aaronfreed.github.io/selectedworks2023-2024.html
Listen: FLAC (download or stream) ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/music/selectedworks2023-2024.html⟩

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Selected Works, 2014–2023

“1-CD” version: FLAC (download or stream) ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/music/selectedworks1disc.html⟩
2-CD version: FLAC (download or stream) ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/music/selectedworks2discs.html⟩

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Selected Solo Works

Τὸν ὦνον πᾰ́ντων καί τὴν ἀξῐ́ᾱν οὐδένων (Tòn ônon pắntōn kaí tḕn axĭ́ān oudénōn)

Webpage: aaronfreed.github.io/tonononpanton.html
Listen: FLAC (download or stream) ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/music/tonononpanton.html⟩

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Κᾰτηγορῐκή ᾰ̓πολογῐ́ᾱ (Kătēgorĭkḗ ăpologĭ́ā)

Webpage: aaronfreed.github.io/kategorikeapologia.html
Listen: FLAC (download or stream) ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/music/kategorikeapologia.html⟩

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Mūsica ex tempore malōrum

Webpage: aaronfreed.github.io/musicaextemporemalorum.html
Listen: FLAC (download or stream) ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/music/musicaextemporemalorum.html⟩

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Compositions 2023-2024

Webpage: aaronfreed.github.io/compositions2023-2024notes.html
Listen: FLAC (download or stream) ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/music/compositions2023-2024.html⟩

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See You Starside: The Marathon Soundtrack Reimagined (released February 4, 2023)

Listen: FLAC & Ogg Vorbis (download or stream) ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/music/seeyoustarside.html⟩ YouTube (stream) ⟨youtu.be/bRiDh4PziWU⟩

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Demos 2014 (released November 24, 2014)

Listen: FLAC (download or stream) ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/music/demos2014.html⟩

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Compositions 1993–1997 (released 2008)

Listen: FLAC (download or stream) ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/music/compositions1993-1997.html⟩

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Marathon Remixes (1997)

Listen: FLAC (download or stream) ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/music/marathon1997.html⟩ YouTube (stream) ⟨youtu.be/qVecMMHALOI⟩

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Selected Collaborations

Eternal X 1.3 Original Soundtrack (WIP)

by Trey J. Anderson, Aaron Freed, Dr Craig Hardgrove, Thomas Livingston, Cory King Tucker, Matrix_XV, Nicholas Singer, Solar-Tron, Eike Steffen, Dan Storm, Talashar, & wowbobwow
based on compositions by Alexander Seropian, Martin O’Donnell, Michael Salvatori, & Chris Christodoulou
Stand-alone mixes (for media players): FLAC (sometimes upmastered) (download or stream) ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/music/eternal1.3ost.html⟩
In-game mixes (for Aleph One): FLAC (sometimes upmastered) (download or stream) ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/music/eternal1.3ingame.html⟩

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Dungeons Presents Hellpak: Vol. 2 – An Exercise in Questionable Taste OST (WIP)

by Aaron Freed, Matrix_XV, NEFX, tbcr, & Cory King Tucker
Listen: FLAC (download or stream) ⟨aaronfreed.github.io/music/hellpakvol2ost.html⟩

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Other Marathon Projects

VAF (2023–)

GitHub: github.com/aaronfreed/vaf
Simplici7y: simplici7y.com/items/vasara-2

@MarathonVidmaster YouTube channel (2018–)

youtube.com/@MarathonVidmaster

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Aleph One Mapmaking Guide (2023–)

Beginners’ guide: aaronfreed.github.io/mapmaking101.html
Advanced guide: aaronfreed.github.io/mapmaking.html

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Marathon Remixes & Fan Soundtracks (2023–)

aaronfreed.github.io/soundtracks.html

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Remastered Pathways into Darkness & Marathon Trilogy Sounds (2020)

Pathways into Darkness: simplici7y.com/items/aleph-one-pathways-into-darkness-remastered-sounds
Marathon 1: simplici7y.com/items/marathon-1-remastered-sounds-2
Marathon 2 & Infinity: simplici7y.com/items/remastered-sounds-for-marathon-infinity

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Aleph Bet (2024–?)

GitHub: github.com/Aleph-Bet-Marathon/alephbet

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