Back around 1999, I used to visit a website known as ElectricGames.com, who were part of the UGO network. Used to go there for game cheats, demos, etc. It's where I first downloaded the trial of Fury3 back in the day, after seeing it preinstalled on the PCs at a local shop, realizing how similar it was to Hellbender. (Having already played the shit out of the copy of Hellbender given to me by my uncle and wanting more.)
My long-term memory has served me well, since about 2 months ago, I remembered that there was a copy of the Hellbender level editor on that site. Probably the only one that ever existed. I had made an earlier attempt to find it years ago (around 2014), but The Wayback Machine only had a page, and no functional downloads at the time, so I kind of just forgot about it until I decided to take another look. Lo and behold, The Wayback Machine finally has functional download links! See:
https://web.archive....om/gamelev.html
That said, it was a bastard to get working in its normal state. It'd just crash immediately with garbage text and no indication what went on. (And the included readme.txt is useless) So, I used my knowledge of the source code to figure out what was happening, and got things set up properly. Helledit originally lacked sound as well, since there was no sound driver included whatsoever, so I've also gone and included a copy of the Terminal Velocity sound drivers, which seem to work perfectly with it.
What you essentially get, is a DOS version of Hellbender, with a built-in level editor and debug keys. I don't have a documentation of all of the controls right now, but I'll try to edit this post later with my discoveries when I get around to it. If there's anyone willing to learn and document the editor as they go, they're more than welcome to do so, and I'll try my best to contribute what I can.
Some of the keys I've been able to find, however are as follows:
CTRL-D (on main menu) - Open Demented Shape Editor (Model Editor)
CTRL-L (on main menu) - Open Level Editor
CTRL (in-game) - Stop in place (zeroes throttle).
F4 (in-game) - Screenshot
Z (in-game) - Toggle Debug Mode / Status Bar.
Hold ?/Forward Slash (in-game) - Flight Course tool/weapon. (Used for flying around and setting up flight paths for enemies, escorts, etc)
Enter (in-game, debug mode on) - Skip Level
T (in-game, debug mode on) - Skip to next pattern in MOD music.
CTRL-H (in-game, debug mode on) - Show flight course pathing lines.
CTRL-L (in-game, debug mode on) - Return to spawn point.
CTRL-C (in-game, debug mode on) - Take severe damage. (lethal without shields)
CTRL-V (in-game, debug mode on) - Same as above. (damage)
CTRL-N (in-game, debug mode on) - Teleport to next objective.
Plus/Minus +/- (in-game, debug mode on) - Change zoom (FOV).
In Texture Editor:
Arrows - Move.
Left Shift - Move Faster.
E - Adjust Eye Pitch/Heading (using arrow keys).
R - Rotate Eye Heading 90 Degrees.
T - Browse Textures.
I - Hide/Show Top Bar.
D - Cycle Grid Line Types.
G - Teleport to Nav Point (brings up a selection).
J - Jump to Sector (X/Y coord on heightmap).
N - Normalize Layer (Replaces ALL ground texture on a layer).
L - Generate new terrain. (Replaces level terrain!)
A - Increase Ambient Light.
SHIFT-A - Decrease Ambient Light.
[ and ] - Cycle Texture
Space - Apply Texture
Download:
https://shadowmaveri..._configured.zip
To get it running, all you need is DOSBox, configured with 64mb RAM (memsize = 64 in dosbox.conf), and a copy of your Hellbender's GAME.POD and STARTUP.POD files put in the "SYSTEM" folder. Once ready, run "Helledit.exe" in DOSBox. If you're missing sound, try running setup.exe.
To make a new level, you're going to need to make a copy of an existing level, and edit that for now. From what I can tell in the sources, there's no way to make a new level from scratch.
