Postal

The Earth is hungry. Its heart throbs and demands cleansing. The Earth is also thirsty. Thirsty for TCRF articles.

This game was made open-source at the end of 2016, and was made free (except for the Android port) at the end of 2019. This source code allows other people to make custom ports and mods of the game, including a port to the Dreamcast in 2022.

To do: Check the animation files since there are unused animations. Document the early Postal demo. Document the prerelease videos and stuff. Document the source code release since the game files and source code mentions a remote mine. Everything else.

Unused Weapons#

These weapons are hidden in the source code, and function when coded back into the game.

Death Wad#

By using the DAWHOLEENCHILADA cheat, the Postal Dude will highlight every weapon in the inventory. When shooting, he will shoot a rocket that penetrates and burns through NPCs for a while before exploding. This costs 5 grenades, 2 normal rockets, 1 napalm canister, and 20 fuel.

Remote Mine#

There is no cheat code for this particular mine. It was going to be a mine that can be detonated at any time by pressing a certain key.

Unused Animations#

Postal Dude#

The Postal Dude has animations of him jumping and falling while standing or walking. A feature removed from the final release. He also has animations of him "taunting" and picking up an item from the ground. The latter still works in the final release when coded in.

Test Level#

Please elaborate. Having more detail is always a good thing. Specifically: Where is this located and what is the level called?

There's a test level that can only be accessed in the level editor. It seems to be for testing out level backgrounds; there is random collision scattered throughout, like on the house, the shed, and the fence near the advertisement.

TSCHOOL.RLM#

In the original CD release, Load Level can load any .RLM file. This map is tucked at the very bottom of the HARD sub folder in the SINGLE folder. TSCHOOL.RLM predates HSCHOOL.RLM by a day and is also the only level with the 'T' prefix. Most notably, TSCHOOL.RLM has this unique 'follow' behavior, a few extra kids that make said behavior happen, and coding strings that normally go unseen.

If you walk The Dude to the top right corner of the map, there's a lone kid labeled State_Guard/Guard. He doesn't move and seems to exist solely to change the group's AI string. If he sees The Dude, it changes the other kids' behavior. There's one kid at the playground who is unaffected by the behavior, stuck in a looping WalkBegin-Next-Continue/Walk loop. He also can't move. Once all the other kids start lining up, he goes into 'State_HuntHold/Advance-Hold' and freezes.

The Guard kid and Loop kid are both absent in HSCHOOL.RLM, so the following AI behavior doesn't happen there.

All of the other kids are labeled WalkNext/Walk, until The Dude gets close enough in range to the Guard kid, then their behavior strings change to State_HuntNext/Advance (and State_HuntHold/Advance-Hold to stop). They have no idle animation set so they just stop mid run (unless fire is present on the map, then the 'AvoidFire/Walk' string causes them to stand still). The kids actively move in an overlapping line to The Dude's position and then go into Hold State until you move him away from them. After a bit of time, they will go into Advance State, walk to where The Dude is, then Hold State again.

These behaviors also occur on their own if The Dude enters his death state, which is possible by pressing Q or by placing down any mine, as there's no hostiles. Oddly, fire and mines are instant kills here. The kids will scatter into specific places rather than towards The Dude's position after he dies; typing 'hesstillgood' to revive him will make them gather around him.

TSCHOOL.RLM is also present in the Steam release as tschool.rlm, found in the same set of folders (browse local files > res > levels > single > hard). Due to Load Level's functionality being changed to a level select and the editor being removed, it's rendered inaccessible in-game through normal means.

However, by editing the file name of a hard single level in the postal plus realms configuration settings file in the levels folder (for example, by replacing hhome.rlm in RealmHard = res/levels/single/hard/hhome.rlm with tschool.rlm), tschool.rlm can still be accessed and even completed with F1. If placed over any other hlevel besides hhome, skipping the preceding level with 'theresnoplacelikeoz' will make The Dude's hp skyrocket to 50000, where it shows that mines do far more damage here than his normal 200 hp cap can take, and that fire chips it down by the thousands. Completing the preceding level normally changes the hp amount, depending on how much hp you had upon exiting it.

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Demo Leftovers#

Pre-rel#

Cutnew#

Regional Differences#

Released later in 1997, Super POSTAL (also known as POSTAL Power-Up Kit) was a Japanese-localized version of the game with the following changes:

• All character voices were re-dubbed in Japanese.
• All blood was removed.
• The final "level" (the Elementary School cutscene) was removed.
• Two new levels, Tokyo and Osaka, were added.

The Japanese dub and the exclusive levels were later added in the 20th Anniversary Community Update.

The game was also censored in Germany and Netherlands in the same year with the following changes:

• You cannot execute anyone in-game, though the controls settings still mention the ability to.
• The "Parade of Disasters", the most infamous/iconic level, lacks the parade.
• The Elementary School cutscene was also removed like in the Japanese version.

After a while, RWS released the violence patch that restores the three censored features. It was also rereleased on GOG, referred to as the "Classic and Uncut" version, being completely uncensored.

Anti-Piracy#

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In the initial release, if the game detects that it's running without the CD inserted or if the game is played past a specified expiration date, everyone, including the Postal Dude, is set on fire if the player gets shot, blown up, or set on fire. This check is done by running a function called Cheater in the player object whenever any of the three actions occur. The Cheater function checks if it the current system date is older than the installation date, later than the expiration date, and if a checksum value from a file that is read is not automatically set to a certain value; if any of these conditions are true, the anti-piracy measure occurs. This measure was primarily used in the prototype releases of this game to function as a timebomb.