Storyline and Level Theme Consolidation

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CommanderSpleen
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Storyline and Level Theme Consolidation

Post by CommanderSpleen »

Alright, so we've got a basic story and a few ideas for levels. And now a patch allowing the potential for a unique set of tiles for each level has found its way into the mix. We need to make some decisions about the basic storyline (setting, goals, obstacles, etc) and themes for the individual levels therein.

All the existing story and level stuff needs to be dredged up, summarised, and truncated into an official sequence. I'll get onto this laterish, but hopefully someone else feels like putting some work into it as well.

We also need to find the currently decided level ideas. From there we can figure out how they will fit together, and come up with some new ones to fill the rest of the slots. Only after that shall we start trying to fit them into a map structure.

Feel free to throw in random thoughts on the subject. I'll start a separate thread for each as we collapse everything into officiality.
levellass
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Post by levellass »

Righto.


BASIC STORY:

It's some time between Vorticons and Galaxy, like Mr M's mod it seeks to explain while the Gnosticene council 'owes him one'. It takes place, at least initially on Gnosticus IV, but away from the badlands so we have flexibility.

A strange (And totally non-Mort related) race has captured the council, taken over the planet and locked the capital in some sort of field. They are threatening to destroy the entire planet with a laser bomb and/or orbiting satellite of death if the council do not use the oracle to tell said race how to take over the galaxy.

However a gnosticene (Lindsey maybe? Or a page? Or a random citizen?) has managed to contact Keen, sending a message to him through his very buggy Phototachyon transciever (Which he just invented maybe, using Vorticon tech or BECAUSE of the whole 1-3 trilogy.). This may or may not be part of the evil race's plan. Either way, Keen heads off to Gnosticus to battle the evil menace.

Due to said death satellite however, Keen is forced to land on the other side of the planet, far from the city, and make his way towards it to avoid having his BWB shot from the sky.


Episode 1: Slug Village (Possibly titled 'Turbulence'?)

Having landed near the badlands, Keen must navigate through a mineshaft to get past a mountain range between him and the city (Alternate suggestion: Trail through a forest? Bridge across a lake/ocean?) that is guarded by a slug village. However the slugs won't let Keen pass until he retrieves a stolen artifact (Crystal? Statue? computer thingy?) to them. (Possibly it also powers/opens said pass to let Keen through?) It may have ben stolen/guarded by the Licks, the Slug's rivals.

Keen must thus journey around this location (Most likely to be foresty and grassy.) to activate/collect a number of items (Patch away from 'collect 4 items, possibly to make it so Keen must visit x statues/levels, with current patching this should be easy enough, say, collecting 10 pogo to win.)

Keen has no idea what's going on, there was talk of the statues telling him things about what's up. (Statues? Information terminals? Trapped slugs like the Council were in Keen 4?) He finds out that the mystery field is caused by a special crystal/rock that forms only on this planet. Through a bit of research, the Gnosticines discovered that it could be used to A. Make stuff float, and B. Fiddle with time. The first discovery of this element was when the Lifewater Oasis first appeared: A mineral spring bubbling up from the depths of the planet (Possibly gave the council immortality?) Mining operations later found more of it, although under incredible pressure and uncomfortably close to large pockets of magma. Unfortunately, a few foolhardy miners blasted through to some magma, which resulted in the entire operation being shut down. The Chasm of Chills and Cave of Descendants can be seen as the remnants of the earlier mining. Later operations were further east, preferably as far from the Shadowlands as possible, say Sand Yego. What was finally mined of the material was transported to the city and mostly used to make it float, thus defending it from most of the monsters on the planet. The rest of the material was kept in storage in the city until needed. Unfortunately, the the invaders found the combination of the rock and the power of the Oracle to be a potent force. Although they can't directly use the Oracle, they can use the rocks to create the time field. It seems like Miragia is an abandoned test site for the ore. Some really funky stuff occurs there with no real reason why, and the scenery there is found no where else in the Shadowlands. Perhaps the Wetsuit was once used to explore the Oasis? (There's more story, but I'm not sure we can fit it into the limited space available.)

After being allowed into the mine and earthquake (explosion?, blast from space?) causes it to collapse, trapping him. And he can't get to the city because of the mysterious filed protecting the transport he needs.



Episode 2: Keen goes underground

Keen is now under Gnosticus, while he entered a mining tunnel, there are also buried temples here, like under Slug Village in Keen 4, as well as natural caves.

Keen cannot enter the city because of the field (Suggested to stop time, so anything in it doesn't move, except light. This could be used to make walls, etc out of the field, or to freeze things like water and air and use them as shields. Possibly the field is created by crystals, maybe natural ones found on the planet.) and he must find some way to deactivate it to proceed. Or he could just sneak in the back door to the city.

Since this is Keen 2, Keen must destroy(Activate, switch off) 8 or so (We can patch) things. These could be crystals, or machines or computers. There's also the two Vorticon Elders to talk to. (More slugs? Lindsey? Citizens?) Possibly Keen may be collecting ore to use against the field or protect himself and such.

After succeeding Keen can use the transport (A ship, possibly one he snuck onto? A teleporter? A really big escalator?) to get to the floating city where the Council is being held.



Episode 3: Floating city (Alt title Capitoll, with two ls)

Keen is now in a giant floating city, taken over (Or built by?) the evil race, whoa re well aware he has arrived and are swarming to meet him. (Maybe also threatening to blow up the city too.) The city is like Miragia, lots of bubbles and glass, possibly also underwater levels or floating parks. Keen needs to use a lot of elevators and stairs, tall jumps and so on.

The city is important to the galaxy, maybe the location of the galactic senate or what have you, since it has the immortal ancients and the oracle. It may be the only 'true' city on the planet. Either way it's important to the future of the galaxy.

It is possible Keen spends time on the killer satellite to disable/destroy it. Maybe he has to destroy x generators/laser/whatever (Using the heart sprite in many levels, which destroys a segment of tiles and exits the level when shot.)

Keen makes his way to where the council is being held and a showdown with the Big Boss, destroys said boss and frees the council. (Maybe the city then falls out of the sky, or is destroyed or something.) Possibly he learns a terrible secret or surprise or what have you. The alien race flees or is captured or so on and everyone goes home for tea.

Which is broccoli, giving Keen bad dreams...



What is needed is to narrow down and settle on the details of our story, voting on what sounds best and building our story and levels around it. If things aren't commented/agreed on, so help me we will force the first option on everyone.
levellass
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Post by levellass »

Now, for Episode 1 we have the following structure so far:


MAP: Similar to the badlands in Keen 4, forest-y tiles, mountains, fields, villages, lakes maybe, deserts?

We have 3 teleporters that can thus be used to make 3 totally separate areas (Make the map large.) These could be different environments (Even so far as to make on the arctic) such as mountains vs swamp vs forest, or times of day (Morning, mid and evening.). if we use this option we'll need to divide the mod and levels roughly into three segments.


VILLAGE LEVELS: We will need house tiles, possibly similar to those of Keen 4's slug village. (We now have enough space to copy the tiles verbatim.) We're probably looking for a cheerful, nice atmosphere, since the slugs are the 'good' guys here. Picket fences, maybe gardens and flowers and such.


LICK LEVELS: A possibility, sort of a 'darker and edgier' version of the Slug's levels. Possibly this is where a lot of the statues are (And guarded.) Adaptions of Slug tiles might be useful here. (Bracken for gardens, spiky knife fences, crumbling, broken houses.)


FOREST LEVELS: Trees and rocks, maybe tree houses. Lakes or puddles, waterfalls, nature kind of stuff.




We need to give each separate level its own them and thus start designing tiles around it. We can copy tiles from one level to another or even use the same tileset for several levels. Our main concern at present is probably the map, which will define all the other levels, we should consider all the possibilities for it and start building a tileset for it as we add levels. I suggest looking for a Keen 4-ish look, since we have space to customize level entrances.
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CommanderSpleen
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Post by CommanderSpleen »

Yep, all that sounds about right.

I only remember a couple of level themes from the first episode:

River Crossing - Similar concept to Bloogwater Crossing in Keen 6, this level grants access to the other side of a river. But the idea is that Keen needs to recover an item for the slugs that another group stole before they'll allow access to the bridge.

Waterfall - Set atop a cliff, or perhaps starting at the bottom and requiring Keen to climb up to the top for one reason or another?

These two would basically be slug village style levels.

I don't think copying the village tiles directly from Keen 4 would be too interesting. The wooden stuff we currently have is much classier.
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World Map So Far

Post by lemm »

Based on everything in the thread, this is what people seem to be saying.

BWB --> Villages/Forest Area --> Cross a Bridge ---> ???? ---> ???? --> ???? ---> Mineshaft ---> End Episode 1

where ????? = a mix badland/deserts, mountains, lakes, other stuff?

I get the feeling that this would be more of a "segmented" episode like Keen 6, where there is the "sandwich/grapling hook" segment, the rocket ship passcard segment, and finally the space station segment. As opposed to a "beat a couple levels and go anywhere" style like keen 4.

Well maybe we could have a "get past the forest/villages" segment at the beginning, then something in the middle (could be 2 or 3 somethings), and then a "mountains/mineshaft" bit at the end, since we have those great mountain tiles, (and because mountains are often where you find minerals).

I don't know where teleporters would go though...
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Post by CommanderSpleen »

It's not like crossing that river is going to instantly unlock every other level on the map. There will be a couple of other obstacles and missions, similar to Keen 6 as you say. We just need to figure out what they'll be.
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Deltamatic
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Post by Deltamatic »

Here's a first episode plot proposition, hope it's possible.



Commander Keen
-in-
MATTER OF TIME
Episode One: Interstellar Echo

Keen's just finished his Neural Stunner and he dumps a Vorticon Hyperpistol into the trash. He's tucked in by his mom and drifts off to sleep. Then in his dreams he sees a sea of faces in a beautiful city begging for help. Keen wakes up in a cold sweat. It's an hour after he went to bed and there's a voice in his mind asking him to come to Gnosticus IV. Knowing a call to adventure when he sees one, he blasts off in his megarocket and arrives thirty-one and two fifths terrific games of Paddle War later at this distant planet.
Keen detects a city on the planet's surface and recognizes it as the one from his dreams. He flies down to it but, just as his spaceship is approaching, it stops midair with a sickening crunch. Keen realizes that it must be surrounded with some type of force field and he backs away--leaving the nose of his megarocket behind! He goes into a spin and manages to pull out by pushing the engine into overdrive. This only sends him across the sky like an ingenious eight-year-old meteor and before he knows it he's sprawled on the ground next to bits of flaming wreckage.
(How this would work in-game: it would be in the story file.)
Keen wanders through the chilly autumn woods of Firstfrost Plateau in his pajamas until he finds a cozy village of sluglike aliens built at a river. He knows that he's far west of the city and asks villagers about going east over their bridge and they say he needs to ask their king about that. He finds the palace and addresses the slug king. This monarch informs the Commander that he might make himself useful by fetching a potent pepper so the Slugs can have sweet revenge on their prankster rivals, the Licks, since they poisoned the Slug well with some really bad soda. The only problem is that the pepper is in a reputedly haunted mansion deep in the woods.
(How this would work in-game: Keys patched to stay in inventory after exit, key acquired in level blocking Keen's path before Slug village level and never used, that key unlocks the first Slug king door. Behind Slug king door is patched Yorp statue which: tells Keen their rival Licks have poisoned their well with really bad soda, asks Keen to get pepper from haunted mansion for revenge. Slug village patched to not be flagged DONE after exit.)
Keen returns with the pepper only to be told that his braving of the mansion makes him the ideal candidate for personally delivering the pepper to a Lick banquet within fortress walls. After gaining entry to the Lick stronghold, peppering their meal, and escaping unsinged, Keen enters the Slug village triumphant.
(How this would work in-game: Pepper acts as a key, door in Slug village opens to pepper and has another pepper hidden just behind it so player gets another pepper, patched Yorp statue as Slug king tells Keen that he should go pepper the Lick banquet at their fortress, Keen goes to Lick fortress and passes another door that opens to a pepper key, but this time it looks like normal background. That removes the pepper. Keen falls one tile and hits an invisible key for the next Slug village door. Then he falls another tile and hits a patched Yorp statue, again looking like background, which says that he peppers the meal. Then he falls another tile into a background-looking exit.)
The king is in a jolly mood when our hero comes to him, finding satisfaction in his vengeance. He asks Keen how he did it and Keen mentions using Gnosticene Ancient technology. The Slug king is very interested in this because the Slugs had never been able to understand the operation of those long-lost relics. A deal is made: Keen will retrieve a gallon of some immortality-bestowing "lifewater" from an Ancient archaeological site riddled with forgotten technologies and in return he will be allowed across the river.
(How this would work in-game: Keen goes to the Slug village again, goes through the door responding to the peppered-the-meal key, goes to patched Yorp statue of Slug king that tells him to get lifewater in exchange for passing the bridge.)
Keen arrives back at the Slug village, lifewater in hand. His return is warmly welcomed by the Slug king and finally he is banned from the bridge on a cruel whim, but just uses a nearby Gnosticene Ancient teleporter book to get across. He comes to the plateau's edge and watches as a cairrage drawn by geese descends from the sky. Out of it stepts a dark-skinned girl wearing a blue dress who introduces herself as Princess Lindsey.
(How this would work in-game: Keen gets lifewater key, goes through Slug village lifewater door, passes by Slug king Yorp statue, goes through in-level teleporter to across the bridge. Keen is kept from getting the lifewater too early via another door responding to the peppered-the-meal key at the begining of the getting-lifewater levels. Keen gets another peppered-the-meal key easily, since they're invisible and all, so one could be placed right in front of the first peppered-the-meal door that leads to the lifewater quest commission. Once across the bridge, there's either a mine shaft level or multiple levels including a mine shaft level. Then at the start of the end sequence it cuts to Keen next to the mine shaft tile at the edge of the plateau and it gives a message about Keen seeing the carriage come down. Then it would cut straight to what in the original end sequence was Keen's house but in this one is Keen and Lindsey, and give the introduction messages.)
She acts in a pouting and begrudging manner, complains that princesses shouldn't need to walk about without servants, and tells her woes to Keen without him asking. She was sent to Gnosticus IV by her fairy godmother who had decided she was in need of character befitting a princess, and as such would need to develop it at opportune moments other than being waited on hand and foot by innumberable court staff. Almost at the moment when her pedantic tirade would have reached its climax, Keen and Lindsey plummet down a collapsed mine shaft.
(How this would work in-game: It gives more messages, Keen and Lindsey conversation. Then the window flashes, or rather, the ground they're standing on cracks. It cuts to what in the original sequence was the BwB going along, but in this one is Keen and Lindsey falling down the mine shaft.)



In my idea of the map, Keen starts to the left in a forest area with a sunset theme. Since it's autumn that would be pretty sweet, having dramatic warm colors of the sunset reflected in the leaves. Then he goes through a Gnosticene Ancient teleporter book (inspired by the original CKCM topic) to the main area with the slug village, which has a dusk theme. (More purples in the sky, curling smoke, less brightly lit autumn leaves, some inviting yellow lights in the Slug village. Like something out of a Kinkade.) This area has a waterfall at the top with the river running down. Keen has to pogo up the waterfall to get to the foreboding Lick fortress. Towards the bottom of the screen, the river spreads out into a delta with (a) swamp level(s) in it, leading to the "haunted" (could just be superstition, but of course we'd want that level to be decently spooky) mansion. There's also at least one beach level on the river and towards the bottom-left there's the Gnosticene Ancient archaeological site. Once across the bridge no matter what the Slug king says, Keen's in a misty/dawn themed area with shafts of light filtering through mostly bare branches, hollow tree trunks with holes in them that you can jump through, natural bridges over sparkling water, that sort of stuff. Here's my propostion in Lemm's format:

crashed BWB --> Sunset forest --> Slug village "get me a pepper!" --> decaying swamp --> "haunted" mansion --> Slug village "now pepper Lick food!" --> waterfall --> Lick fortress --> Slug village "now get me some lifewater!" --> archaeological site --> Slug village "thanks, you can't cross haha!" --> across the bridge

So how many levels would that be? Let's say the crashed BwB is a world map only-thing. Sunset forest, three levels. Slug village, a fourth level. Swamp and mansion, that makes seven levels. (First level of swamp could have more emphasis on islets and sandbars than the bog and cypress tree stuff.) Waterfall and Lick fortress, nine levels. Archaeological site, let's go ahead and say twelve levels. Across the bridge area, fifteen. Haha! Still room for a secret level. (Reached via pressing the enter button on a non-obvious part of the world map? Or would we just add another level some place and have an elaborate secret area somewhere? My, with this whole multiple tilesets thing, we could have multiple elaborate secret areas.)
levellass
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Post by levellass »

I like your style, most of the patches should be doable in theory. (For example, if we use the 32 level patch we can set the 4 items to put done markers on the map.) At the very least this is a good start.
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Post by Deltamatic »

Ah, I think I see where you're going with that--there could be four Slug village levels in a line, each one flagged "Done" when Keen gets an item. Since these would be spaceship parts, it would free up keys for use in levels.
I noticed that there were normal slugs telling Keen something in my proposition, since that's both unnecessary and impossible it can be ignored.
I had an idea about the preview screens: they could be illustrations of things that happened in the story file, like Keen waking up or wrestling with the BwB.
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Post by levellass »

We can make the story play before the game starts, maybe we should as Lemm if we can make the game read the previews before people play? Or when people read the story?
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Post by Deltamatic »

I think before the story would be best. There's more potential for good use of the images if they're put directly before photogenic material than if they're put before normal gameplay.
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Post by CommanderSpleen »

Or I could just code up a little utility that displays a Keen4ish help/story screen with all that stuff in it...
(For example, if we use the 32 level patch we can set the 4 items to put done markers on the map.)
I don't follow what this means...

Do remember that we can (and IMKO should) use the flags patch, which will allow remote locations to be unblocked by completing a level...
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Post by lemm »

Maybe it would be possible to make a patch fade out/in to a full screen bitmap during gameplay? I'm thinking if you hit a message tile in a certain level, it could call the preview screen procedure and display a unique image based upon the current level.
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Post by CommanderSpleen »

Why do we need images for those messages?
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Post by Fleexy »

To be cool.
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