Part 18: On the inside

Come on, guys, it's obvious: Satan didn't want this game finished. So he sent the magic incantation to Richard and Alan, they read it and found themselves in Hell. All to prevent the game from happening!


For a wacky game set in Hell, this kind of "meta" explanation is as good as any.

Another, alternative explanation provided by the manual and mentioned in the very first update: Richard (and presumably Alan as well) was a dirty pirate, copying too many floppies and bringing software companies to ruin, so he was punished by being sent alive straight to Hell.

Anyway, this isn't quite the bonus update I hoped for. What follows is rather a sad (and mildly boring) tale of taking the game apart and finding many promises unfulfilled.

Take Hitler, for example.



For one, even when he's in the party, he doesn't at all react to us freeing Guderian.



We can even recruit both Hitler and Guderian, and neither of them will take any notice.



I also tried ordering something from the Order Center with Hitler in our party, but to no avail.



When kicked out of the party, Hitler keeps on insisting we take him inside Satan's Fortress "and into his office".

But despite Charon's explicit warning things may go horribly wrong if we do that -- "Lucifer will utterly irrevocably obliterate every last of them, maybe even the entire circle of Hell! Lucifer CAN do that. Hitler doesn't believe it. I KNOW SATAN HAS THAT POWER!!!" --



--- well, how do I put it mildly?

Nothing happens. Nothing at all, no matter where in Satan's Fortress we take Hitler to.



Satan himself doesn't react to Hitler's presence either. Nor does Hitler comment on anything once we've defeated Satan and explored his office.



And here I thought the point of this game was to pit Hitler against Satan.

So what about Blonde, you ask?



It pains me to say this, but...



...no, we can't take Blonde out of Hell in Alison's stead. There go two alternative endings.

There are, however, a few other things I want to complain to you about. My desperate attempts to do some other things, that is.



We already tried ditching Alison, but we can also attempt escaping Hell without Alan.

That'd be ignoble, the game tells us. But at least it recognizes the attempt.



A funny thing happens if we approach Dr Jekyll after having given him the sack.



He changes into Mr Hyde.



BlakBeard, on the other hand, reacts to being fired rather light-heartedly.



The Hammurabi "puzzle" is probably the one I spent the most time on. I didn't manage to find any way of helping the poor guy, however. I even tried giving him a LapTopComputer so he could use it to write down his ideas and laws, but nope. He's basically the Sisyphus of the game.



I found out you really can't get inside Satan's Fortress without a Phreaker Box, by the way:



Phone companies are evil.

I also spent some time trying to figure out more ways to kill Satan.



The Magic Pyramid proved to be totally useless.



Then I attempted to pacify him with the Peace Symbol (normally you can use it to turn hostile enemies friendly).



But it didn't help. Satan just kept on attacking me.

I also dabbled with a hex editor. By editing the file called NPCS, you can easily change any character's skills and attributes. The hex addresses are 19-28 for active skills, 29-33 for passive skills, and 34-3D for attributes.



The full attribute list doesn't even fit on a single skill screen. Some of the attributes, such as Boatman, Pilot or Find Trap, had probably been in the design document initially but didn't make it into the final game. At least none of the NPCs have them. It would've, of course, been cool to pilot the River of Styx Ocean Liner all the way to Satan's Fortress.

Other skills, such as Mechanics or Flying, are there, but I haven't been able to discover any meaningful use for them.



The full list of passive skills doesn't contain anything unfamiliar.



The attributes are also well-known to us for the most part, except one. Aligment is a hidden attribute. Judging by its name, it is the karma attribute that is supposed to increase whenever you kill some friendlies (that is, whenever you get the "Your actions do not go unnoticed..." message). It doesn't, however, seem to influence anything no matter how high or low you set it.

Which also means---



--- that this is bullshit. The gates of Hell open no matter what. No need to be kind-hearted.

You can also use hex editing to add all kinds of items to our party's inventory. The party's current items are stored in the same NPCS file. Every item consists of two hex digits, the first one referencing the item's number as stored in the ITEMS file and the second one being one of the four kinds of arguments: FF (equipped, unlimited uses); 7F (non-equipped, unlimited uses); 09 (non-equipped, 9 uses); 8E (equipped, 14 uses).

Let's start with the weapons. The numbers provided here are decimal, not hex.


Of the above, the only new and unorthodox kind of weapon is SleepGrenader.



Apart from being edited in, it can also be found as random loot.



The SleepGrenader can do two things. First, it can choke enemies to death:



Secondly, it can put them to sleep:



When all the enemies are asleep, the battle is over. There is, however, no exp to be gained from that.



Note the Welding Visor and Welding Tools, as well as SurfBoard and SurfWax. They are, or were, probably supposed to be used in a puzzle, but none that I have been able to discover. Other items that have no apparent use include Thieves' Picks, SafeCrackTools, Infernal Card, Boom Box, AquaLung, SurfBoard, Towel, Intestines, Heart, Slime, Cigarettes, SunTan Lotion, Steroids, Stryker Tape, Surf Wax, Noodles, and RollingBoneMag.

Hollow Boulder is a really well-hidden item you can find in Death Alley:



I only stumbled on it by accident. I thought maybe I could use to cross the river of lava, but nope. Neither is a SurfBoard of any use there.

80986Processor is an item that looks like it could be used inside the Consultant's Room...



Code-Warrior says we need a microprocessor, but having one doesn't trigger anything. Nor can it be used manually. Another puzzle left unfinished.

Black Sphere has the entire party collapse dead:



We shouldn't fool around with a Razor Blade either:



And a Bugle only makes a loud noise:



We can also manually edit in the companions by making changes to the SAVEGAME file.


Yes, we can team up with Satan himself that way. Not much point in that, though, since the game doesn't react to him being in the party in any way.

To sum it up, the game holds much promise, but doesn't quite live up to all of it. For whatever reason, Escape from Hell was left unfinished. The "canon" main quest line was completed, true, but none of the (hinted at) alternative ones were. It may have been due to a rushed schedule or maybe, to some extent, due to some engine limitations Richard L. Seaborne wasn't able to overcome. I can't really say. Either way, the game only expects you to do things in a certain, and narrow, way. It is, however, perfectly enjoyable and even hilarious at that, as I hope this LP has shown.