Version 1.1, released 2003Apr28

Java! Dramatic Workplace Fatalities! Blatant Contempt For Authority!* Dangerous Misuse Of Office Supplies!** NOT Approved By OSHA!!! Abusive Profanity As Heard In Real Offices! Child-Safe***: Absolutely NO S*x Or N*dity! Disturbing sound effects**** Now available in minty fresh version 1.1, 9% better than 1.01!!!

Download Halon Escape 1.1 (570K - lots of sounds and graphics)

Download the Java Runtime Environment from Sun

How to Install Halon Escape

1. Download it.
2. Unzip it - it will create a directory named "Halon"
3. cd Halon (or open the folder you created)
4. Run halon.bat (Windows), or halon.sh (Unix), or double-click on halon.jar (MacOS X).

Halon Escape will automatically connect to the server - this may take a moment, and then you can play!

Hit F1 at ANY time (playing, looking at a dialog box, whatever) to get some context-sensitive online help.

If you're having trouble, or want to comment on it, let me know!

The source code and the server are now included. To start the server, you can run server.bat WEBDIR or server.sh WEBDIR, where WEBDIR is the directory to publish web pages to. To reach another server, the client must be started with halon.bat URL or halon.sh URL, where URL is the URL of the web page directory. So if I'm running the server on my own Linux machine, just for myself, I could type:

mkdir web
./server.sh web &
./halon.sh file://localhost/home/kamikaze/Halon/web/

To let someone else reach my server, I'd also have to be running a web server, like Apache.

Some time ago, I was at the nameless ISP where some of my friends [0] work as tech support drones, and stared in awe at their maze of partitions [1]. Then it just slipped out... "If they had a halon system in here[2], nobody would get out alive!".

And me? I'm just a freelance hacker who's worked as a temp in some of these hellholes and been damned glad to leave at the end of the day with no reason to ever come back. Maybe I read too much Dilbert, maybe I've just seen my friends' spirits crushed by this brutal and merciless system and then put on the electronic leashes called "beepers" like sheep with radio ear-tags, but this is the way I see it.

From such humble beginnings and a bored evening do disturbing little games like this grow. Have fun. <cough> <cough>

There are many ways you can participate in this game:

• Just play it, laugh, look for the halon system at your place of work, and tell other people about this page.
  "It's better than _Cats_! I'm going to play it again and again, tell all your friends!"
• Design new deathtrap (but not TOTALLY fatal) offices and submit them. No office should require sucking halon to complete if you play perfectly, but a few lungfuls if the player isn't careful and fast, or gets blocked by morons, that's okay. Brain damage is inevitable, but put a few cola cans in at strategic points to help restore some grey matter. The techie will always start at the bottom-right-most entrance chair, or in the top-left-most corner if there's no chair.
    Remember to put a good password on your offices, and remember it if you ever want to modify it. If you have a poor password, someone else may modify it for you in ways you don't like or erase it, and I will not protect you.
• Give me suggestions for improving it.

Footnotes

*

"I always thought that when authority began inspiring contempt, it had stopped being authority." -H.Beam Piper, "Ministry of Disturbance"

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**

You could put your eye out! I learned this valuable lesson from the critically-reviewed movie I'm Gonna Git You Sucka.

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***

According to those mental cripples at RSAC, anyway.

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****

Only available on the Sun JDK at present. Some restrictions may apply.

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[0]

Try to determine which friends and what ISP it is! By the way, the ISP was pretty lousy. When I stopped my account I wrote them a haiku to express my feelings:

XXX is down
Your so-called service sucks rocks
Cancel my account

(note that I have politely changed the initials from FSI to XXX)

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[1]

Yes, it's really like that. And yes, the morons are real "people", but they're dumber than this simulation's versions - authentic ones provided no challenge.

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[2]

No, they don't. That's the point - this is what IF. Stop asking dumb questions before you turn green and start drooling.

Last modified: 2003Apr28
Updated for 1.1