Zafehouse Classic (full game)

Zafehouse (later known as Zafehouse Classic), is a freeware 2008 turn-based strategy game from indie developer Logan Booker and Screwfly Studios, released on the PC. After a long period of on-off development on a never-released direct sequel (originally titled “Deadshed”), the game was finally followed up with the studio’s first commercial game: Zafehouse: Diaries.

I’ve made mods for both games, and they’re both fantastic in their own ways, however while Zafehouse: Diaries can be easily bought on GOG, Steam and the developer’s own webstore, the original Zafehouse Classic is a lot harder to find as its original website was taken down and replaced with the current site for Zafehouse: Diaries. There are still download links for the original freeware game there, but they take some searching to find as they are buried in a short news post from 2012 on the official site.

Since I plan to post my Zafehouse Classic mods here very soon, I wanted to provide easy access to the original game so people can find and play it easily. It may seem a bit dated from its interface, but it’s a lot of fun as a zombie survival sandbox sim.

Download Links:

Zafehouse Classic (official download page)

AM2R – Unofficial 1.1.2 Patch

Following on from my first unofficial bugfix patch for AM2R, which fixed the Gravity Suit leg graphical glitch, I’ve responded to Reddit AM2R players who pointed out another bug in AM2R official v1.1: apparently, if you kill the Tester boss too quickly (before it finishes its initial “spin” move), the sound will glitch and repeat endlessly.

Thanks to Reddit posters John_Unfil and WTFever_, I’ve hopefully fixed this and have published the update in the patch below. I have NOT tested this, however, so not only should you use at your own risk (make a backup of your game first) but please post a comment if this actually fixes the problem or not!

Note: you only need one of the patches below, depending on if you’ve already applied my previous v1.1.1 patch or are patching the unmodified official v1.1 version.

Instructions on how to patch your game are included in the zips.

Download Links:

AM2R v1.1 (official) to v1.1.2 Patch

AM2R v1.1.1 to v1.1.2 Patch

Alien Assault – Assault Carbine Burst-Fire Sound Replacements

One of the few things I find a little unsatisfying in the game Alien Assault is the rather wimpy “pop” single shot sound effect heard when firing an Assault Carbine.

Personally, I wanted more of a “dakka-dakka-dakka” type feel myself, so did a quick ‘n’ dirty sound edit to make two variants of the default Assault Carbine firing sound, so that it now fires more than a single shot per attack.

To install, just unzip and put the new “ac_shoot.ogg” file into any or all of your squad’s folder(s), keeping the directory structure intact.

Alternately, you can just copy the file into your main “snd” folder and overwrite (or backup) the original if you want all your squads to use this new sound effect.

I’ve made two versions to choose from: the first is a “full auto” blaze of gunfire, while the second is a more controlled “3-round burst”. Choose whichever you prefer or use different ones with different squads. I personally use the “full auto” one myself, but IMO either is an improvement over the default sound that still fits with the feel/lore of the Alien Assault universe (as well as that of Space Hulk, should you be playing a mod that re-skins the game to that theme).

Download Links:
Download Assault Carbine 3-Round Burst
Download Assault Carbine Full Auto

Left 2 Die (full game)

Left 2 Die is a freeware action shooter from Teardown, the indie developers behind Alien Assault. It was released in 2012 in what was to have been the lead-up to Alien Assault 2, a sequel that has yet to be produced.

Left 2 Die uses the same top-down perspective of Alien Assault, but swaps its turn-based tactical gameplay for fast-paced action, using joint keyboard and mouse control.

Notably, although Left 2 Die is set in the same universe as Alien Assault and features the same enemies and characters, on release a Doom “mod” was also released by Teardown on their forums that allowed players to re-theme the entire game to recreate the iconic first episode of Doom (“Knee-Deep in the Dead”) in Left 2 Die’s engine.

Fans expanded on this official mod to add the “missing” enemies and weapons from other Doom episodes, such as Barons of Hell, Lost Souls, the Cyberdemon, etc. While these won’t appear in the Doom Episode 1 levels as included, these extra monsters and weapons are fully functional for those who wish to create new levels based on Doom.

In 2016, Teardown’s website was shut down, with the company citing lack of funding to pay for hosting as their reason. When the site was lost, so too was the primary source of Alien Assault and Left 2 Die mods. Indeed, unlike Alien Assault, Left 2 Die now has no official download mirror, as far as I know. Even more sadly, the names of those who created the expanded Doom mod linked to here were lost with the demise of Teardown’s forums; if the creators ever reads this, please let me know who you are so I can credit you appropriately.

Unlike like most other mods on this site, the ones linked to from this post are not my own. Instead, I am preserving them here for posterity, and in the hopes that someday I will figure out how to make new levels for Left 2 Die myself!

As far as I know, no other mods were made for Left 2 Die; if anyone knows of any, leave a comment so I can archive them for others to enjoy.

To install the game, simply download all three zip files linked below and unzip them in order to the same folder. Note that the third file is the unofficial fan-made Doom content which can be used to fully replace the “Doom” folder inside your Left 2 Die mod directory; it contains the original files used by the Doom1Episode1 mod as well as extra content too. You can change mods (i.e. between “Alien Assault” and “Doom Episode 1” from the main menu.

Download Links:
Download Left2Die v1.02 (full game)
Download the Doom Mod v1.01 (Official, Episode 1)
Download the Doom Mod Enhancement (Unofficial)

Note: the first link above is unofficial, but is the only working, valid download site for this game that I could find. Please use that one first. The mirror link below is my own personal archived copy that shares bandwidth with my other mods, so only use it if the other link is down.

Alternate Download Links:
Download the full game

Alien Assault (full game)

Alien Assault is a freeware squad-based tactical game for the PC released in 2009 by indie developer Teardown. With its top-down and turn-based style, it was heavily inspired by Games Workshop’s (then long out-of-print) boardgame Space Hulk… in fact, the original release was actually themed as a Warhammer 40,000 game until GW sent a C&D and forced Teardown to re-brand the game as an original IP, without any 40k references.

Of course, this didn’t stop fans producing 40k mods that changed things back.

While Alien Assault is a great game, its lasting legacy (like most PC games that stand the test of time) was that it was moddable. While some things are sadly hardcoded (such as weapons), it is fairly easy to create new missions and squads (the “team” a player uses, that can gain experience and upgrades during campaign play), as well as re-theming the whole game from the graphics to the sound effects. Indeed, one of the best ways IMO to play Alien Assault is with the Aliens (the James Cameron movie) mod that converts the entire game to that theme (I will try to post it here as soon as I can find my backup copy).

Teardown initially intended to update the game to make it even more moddable, but eventually decided that working on Alien Assault 2 was preferable. A lot of work was done but the sequel has yet to appear, however, and although the developers are still active on Facebook, Teardown’s entire website, along with their forum where most mods were posted, was shut down in 2016, with the company citing lack of funds to keep it running. Thankfully, the original game at least was hosted at Strategy Informer (now Gamewatcher), so the download itself is not lost.

Because I plan to post my own mods for it here, I am providing a link to the final official release of the game below.

I also plan to host some of my favorite mods for this game (by other talented people, not just my own) here too. If any of the modders who made these object, I will take them down, but I’d hate to see other people’s hard work just disappear into the mists of time.

For now, though, enjoy playing the superb Alien Assault!

Download Alien Assault (full game)

Die Hard (NES) Special Edition – Health Pickup Restoration

Die Hard, for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), is an awesome game. It’s probably the most faithful movie-to-game adaptation I can think of, and pretty much presents the player with a sandbox version of the movie and says “now, how would YOU handle this if you were John McClane?”.

The biggest issue with the game is that the graphics are not the best, even for the NES era. Also, health is very limited, and the timer – which is very similar to the one used in the first couple of Dead Rising games many years later – makes it a pretty tough games at times. Thankfully, awesome NES hacker Magnus Nilsson created an amazing patch in 2014 that fixes almost every issue one could have with Die Hard (NES). Found here at Romhacking.net, it is a must for any fan of the game or those who tried it long ago and didn’t like it. As with all NES patches, you will need a copy of the original game rom (don’t ask for it here!) and an IPS patcher program like Floating IPS.

However, there are two small things I don’t like about this “Special Edition” version of the game: the health pickups are changed from Coca-Cola cans to Marlboro cigarette packets, and the submachinegun HUD and pickup sprite are changed to a Beretta M93R machine pistol.

In the case of the latter, the game’s original sprite looked pretty bad by comparison, but was a much closer match to the H&K MP5 submachineguns used prominently in the movie itself. However, since the code to display the weapon HUD sprites has been changed, I have not been able to change the submachinegun pickup or HUD image yet, sadly.

I have, however, been able to restore the health pickup (cigarettes->coke can) sprites, reverting the game to use the original Coca-Cola can sprites instead of the “Special Edition” cigarette packets. That little change is what the patch below does.

To use this patch, you will need to first patch your Die Hard NES ROM (US version) file with Magnus Nilsson’s “Special Edition” IPS patch as linked to above. Only THEN should you apply my little patch (below) to the already-patched ROM. Trust me, if you’ve not patched NES roms before, it’s easier than it sounds!

Download the Patch

AM2R – Unofficial v1.1.1 Patch

AM2R is an amazing fangame based on the 1991 Metroid II for the Nintendo Gameboy. It was fully completed but shortly after its release in late 2016, the developer received a C&D from Nintendo. Despite this, the game has been widely regarded by fans and gamers as one of the best Metroid games ever made, unofficial or official.

Due to the legal stance of Nintendo, the original dev (DoctorM64) is unable to provide updates for the game, even to fix the few remaining glitches and bugs. However, dedicated fans have worked hard to disassemble the code (removing copyrighted content in the process) so that others may continue to update, patch, mod and add to the game.

In this spirit, with the help of comments from players on the AM2R Reddit forum, I have used this source code to create a small “hotfix” patch that fixes a minor graphical bug with the game, known among players as the “gravity suit leg glitch”. This bug caused a visually ugly issue when jumping while wearing the Gravity Suit, and is the result of a missing sprite in v1.1 (the final release) of the game.

I’ve dubbed this version v1.1.1, as a lot more talented modders than me are currently working on more elaborate unofficial v1.2 versions, but in the meantime I wanted to get this small but irritating glitch “fixed” and the patch out there for others to enjoy.

Note that due to the legal issues mentioned above, I will NOT post the game itself here, nor any copyrighted files relating to it. My patch requires that you have the official v1.1 AM2R, which I am not allowed to distribute (please don’t ask for it here).

Instructions on how to patch your copy of the game are included in the zipped archive, and are very simple, though you will need a BPS-compatible patcher program as well. A very easy to use one (and the one I used to make the patch) is Floating IPS, which can be found at Romhacking.net.

If you know of any other bugs in AM2R v1.1 that need urgent fixing, and have some idea of how to fix them, please feel free to let me know in a comment. While I don’t have the skills or time to hunt through the code myself, I am happy to fix and provide a patch for anything others can point me towards and share it for others to use.

Download Links:

AM2R v1.1 (official) to v1.1.1 Patch