Commander Keen: Fall Up
Commander Keen: Fall Up
I thought that I might advertise my new Keen 1 mod here as well... Here's the PCKF topic: http://pckf.rigeltechnical.com/viewtopic.php?t=1668
It's essentially a mod that's all about movement/gameplay and not so much about graphics and such. (Although I did pay a lot attention to the new sounds, so use your speakers.)
The core is simple; the ship parts alter Keen's ammo, which in turn is added into a memory address instead of using a constant value ($03) as was the case in the original games.
Try it out... http://www.keeniverse.net/keen/must/die/fall_up.zip
It's essentially a mod that's all about movement/gameplay and not so much about graphics and such. (Although I did pay a lot attention to the new sounds, so use your speakers.)
The core is simple; the ship parts alter Keen's ammo, which in turn is added into a memory address instead of using a constant value ($03) as was the case in the original games.
Try it out... http://www.keeniverse.net/keen/must/die/fall_up.zip
You'll simply HAVE to release a patch file with the patched noted in it so others may use them.
Graphics: Surprisingly awesome, especially the previews screens. (How DID you do that?) Simple, but sufficient, this is the very exemplar of doing just as much as you need for the gameplay. (Also, you could have just deleted the uneeded sprite graphics instead of leaving them all blank, saves you a few minutes of modding work.) The graphics show this to be a very minimalist mod, one focused on the gameply as you said.
Story: Again minimalist, but curiously done, did you patch the story window? Not much to say on that. (Nice reference to the ice factory in-game though.)
Sounds: At last, someone willing t experiment with the sounds! Some interesting and very keenish new sounds you have there, a top job.
Gameplay: Whoo boy! Where to begin? This is a puzzle mod at heart, but one totally different from the original gameplay of Keen. This is one of those rare mods that manages a totally different feel to the game (Another being Xky Keen 3)
First we have the standard lack of enemies expected in a puzzle mod, as well as a scarcity of points, making them more like hungered-after extras than run of the mill colectables. This probably also stems from the altered lives\one up system. We also have no ammo, since that's been co-opted for the gravity control.
The levels ranged from 'Whoo! Beat it!' to 'Oh Dear LORD! How do I DO this?! A lot of it was trial and error, so opening the levels in an editor before playing them was a great help. (At least until you ran into something that was 'Ah... that didn't work as I thought it would.'
Also, lack of cheats! My kind of guy!
In the end this was a devilish project, one I wish I had thought of earlier. It's much like Mink's puzzle pack in that regard. Top quality work!
Graphics: Surprisingly awesome, especially the previews screens. (How DID you do that?) Simple, but sufficient, this is the very exemplar of doing just as much as you need for the gameplay. (Also, you could have just deleted the uneeded sprite graphics instead of leaving them all blank, saves you a few minutes of modding work.) The graphics show this to be a very minimalist mod, one focused on the gameply as you said.
Story: Again minimalist, but curiously done, did you patch the story window? Not much to say on that. (Nice reference to the ice factory in-game though.)
Sounds: At last, someone willing t experiment with the sounds! Some interesting and very keenish new sounds you have there, a top job.
Gameplay: Whoo boy! Where to begin? This is a puzzle mod at heart, but one totally different from the original gameplay of Keen. This is one of those rare mods that manages a totally different feel to the game (Another being Xky Keen 3)
First we have the standard lack of enemies expected in a puzzle mod, as well as a scarcity of points, making them more like hungered-after extras than run of the mill colectables. This probably also stems from the altered lives\one up system. We also have no ammo, since that's been co-opted for the gravity control.
The levels ranged from 'Whoo! Beat it!' to 'Oh Dear LORD! How do I DO this?! A lot of it was trial and error, so opening the levels in an editor before playing them was a great help. (At least until you ran into something that was 'Ah... that didn't work as I thought it would.'
Also, lack of cheats! My kind of guy!
In the end this was a devilish project, one I wish I had thought of earlier. It's much like Mink's puzzle pack in that regard. Top quality work!
Yeah, that doesn't seem right. :P Did you just unzip the folder (no need to replace any existing K1 stuff) somewhere and run play.bat? It should work that way...
Thanks, Xky and 'lass. Was hoping to see your comments and here they are...
ll: I didn't include comments in the patch file because I made all but a few very simple patches (such as the teleport destinations) from scratch and because I didn't feel like starting to explain all of them with proper commentary. For example, somewhere in K:M there's patching to remove Keens Left window -- but I didn't find it, and had no patience to search longer, so I opened a disassembler and soon had it made. Most of the non-simple (ie, not just changing texts) patching has to do with some aspect of the gravity system. The big ones (score view and ending) are written in assembler and compiled and the bytecode pasted in (not that it was an easy process to me, I had quite a few problems and spent even more hours solving them). Perhaps I'll post some of the patches later... [And I replaced ordering info with my story, and changed some jumps in main menu.]
Thanks, Xky and 'lass. Was hoping to see your comments and here they are...
ll: I didn't include comments in the patch file because I made all but a few very simple patches (such as the teleport destinations) from scratch and because I didn't feel like starting to explain all of them with proper commentary. For example, somewhere in K:M there's patching to remove Keens Left window -- but I didn't find it, and had no patience to search longer, so I opened a disassembler and soon had it made. Most of the non-simple (ie, not just changing texts) patching has to do with some aspect of the gravity system. The big ones (score view and ending) are written in assembler and compiled and the bytecode pasted in (not that it was an easy process to me, I had quite a few problems and spent even more hours solving them). Perhaps I'll post some of the patches later... [And I replaced ordering info with my story, and changed some jumps in main menu.]
*Sigh* I'll have to figure them out and post them myself then.
Also, you can find patches easier in the patch index (Now saved here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3940020/Index.zip ) than on K:M, (the patch you wanted was one byte long.) and the Keen wiki has a lot of patch pages up too.
Also, you can find patches easier in the patch index (Now saved here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3940020/Index.zip ) than on K:M, (the patch you wanted was one byte long.) and the Keen wiki has a lot of patch pages up too.
- VikingBoyBilly
- Posts: 54
- Joined: Tue Aug 10, 2010 10:57 pm
Admiration
I think this is the cleverest mod of all time, perhaps the cleverest thing ever to cross my old computer screen... less clever however are my attempts to play it... i make mistakes with 'just normal' never mind your new gravities.
One of the things i like best about this mod is that, not only do the game physics change unlike the original, but the player learns to control the change to suit their means... for example faced with a yellow gravity glider the player not only decided to use it or not, but also what angle and speed to approach it from... this is, to me, breathtaking.
Well done! You made a puzzle level that didnt rely on excess use bridges, doors, keys, platforms... stimulating as it is, i shudder to think of the complexity of a level exploiting all these elements!
enough waffle from me*presses ctrl-alt*
One of the things i like best about this mod is that, not only do the game physics change unlike the original, but the player learns to control the change to suit their means... for example faced with a yellow gravity glider the player not only decided to use it or not, but also what angle and speed to approach it from... this is, to me, breathtaking.
Well done! You made a puzzle level that didnt rely on excess use bridges, doors, keys, platforms... stimulating as it is, i shudder to think of the complexity of a level exploiting all these elements!
enough waffle from me*presses ctrl-alt*
- VikingBoyBilly
- Posts: 54
- Joined: Tue Aug 10, 2010 10:57 pm