This is a quick little guide on how to hack a map so that it shows up nowhere in any map list in Aleph One. This means it won't be in the Level Select cheat, nor will it be in the Gather Network Game level select dialog.

This is useful for two kinds of people. The first kind is the scenario developer who doesn't want people to be able to jump to his secret levels using the select cheat. The only way in will be through another level. The other kind of person is a weird, paranoid spin off of the scenario mapper: someone who (like me) wants to put secret network levels into a pack so that they are still there when you want them, but not obvious to everyone (and therefore open to criticism).

HOW?!

Only a few easy steps, and this magical power is all yours:

1. Finish everything up and merge your map pack (if using Forge).
2. Open up our own program, JUICE
3. Open the merged map file JUICE. Save a backup copy in case you really mess up.
4. Select the level you wish to hide in the level select pull-down menu.
5. Uncheck all game type boxes.
6. Save and quit.

Here are pictures of before and after the operation:

It's not too hard, and it can be useful. One of the many cool things you can find out about in the Aleph One source code, and one of the neat triks available using JUICE.

Caveats

While the engine works perfectly fine when you do this, there are a few things to remember.

First, if you want the player to have no clue at all that the level exists, put it at the end of the level list. For example, before you merge it, you have two files: "L00.First Level" and "L01.Secret Level." If the secret level were L00 and the first level were L01, the level select dialog would show the game starting on level 2. So, make sure you hide it. However, it would be a cool clue to the people who might look for a secret level. They won't be able to access it with level select, but they might know to look through the map before the missing one to find the secret.

On a similar note, further testing of this trick has revealed that any maps listed after the hidden level (for example, level 3: The Wildfire in the above pictures) are thrown out of order. If you click on any map after the hidden map, you will play the map before it, as will happen if you select one of the maps in the Gather Network Game dialogs. So you should really use this trick only for levels hidden at the end of a map file.

JUICE lets you change both the overhead map name and the level select name of any map you want.

The most interesting use of this ability is that you can use different names for both the overhead map and the level select, so that you could use the Gather Network Game dialog to pick "Chapter One" and, while in the map, you could see "First Chapter." I first thought of this a few minutes ago, when I told Ryoko I had the preliminary design for a new arena. I want to put it into Underworld, so I wanted to give it an Underworld-themed name, but I also wanted to call it "Unoriginal Dub," because it is based on an old map I made called "Original Dub." I quickly realized that there were two name fields per map in a merged map file (as shown in the previous hack), so I wondered if each name represented the two fields I wanted to change. Sure enough, they do.

Finally, and perhaps the most useful, you can change map names in the unregistered version of Obed from "Please Register" to the name you want.

No Way!

So, to do it,

1. Open up JUICE).
2. Open the (merged) map file that contains your map
3. Choose Edit:Change Map Name
4. Enter the names you want for level select name and overhead map name.
5. Save and quit, then enjoy the effects in Aleph One.

Some pictures:

One limit

JUICE, in accordance with the map name format, limits the level select name and the overhead name to 64 characters. If you type anything longer, it will be cut off at the 64th character.