Keen: Modding

I think Abiathar editor can be used change the levels in Commander Keen marooned on mars. I had all my notes on editing game levels stored on my (D) Hard Drive in the external USB HD case until the hard drive crashed. Can someone please tell me were I can find the instructions for Commander Keen.

Ouch, sorry about your hard drive crash :(

Abiathar is an editor designed primarily for Keen Galaxy (4-6) and Dreams. While it's really great for those games, it's not as well suited to editing Vorticons. You could conceivably set it up with Tharify, but for Keen 1-3 work I strongly recommend Mindbelt.

I downloaded Mindbelt and started reading the help file that came with Mindbelt. I opened the 1st level "level01.ck1" Then Mindbelt asks for the following "The first time you load or create a level for a particular episode, Mindbelt needs to load the tile and sprite images. If the appropriate xTIL0000.BMP file is found either in the same folder as the level file or in some subfolder, Mindbelt displays a box asking if you want to use those graphics. If you say no, or if Mindbelt cannot find xTIL0000.BMP, you will have to specify the location manually." I can't find the "xTIL0000.bmp" file anywhere. I did a file name search on both the (C) hard drive and the (D) hard drive and found a big fat nothing. Mindbelt won't move on without the "xTIL0000.bmp" file. Where and how do I find that file?

Fleexy wrote: ↑Wed Sep 20, 2017 3:22 am Ouch, sorry about your hard drive crash :(

Abiathar is an editor designed primarily for Keen Galaxy (4-6) and Dreams. While it's really great for those games, it's not as well suited to editing Vorticons. You could conceivably set it up with Tharify, but for Keen 1-3 work I strongly recommend Mindbelt.

You get that file from unpacking the game files. You may need to decompress the exe with KeenGraph or modkeen (which can be obtained with Abiathar's File Emiter).

Do we have a written tutorial on how to mod Vorticons (episodes 1-3)?

yes we do, but it might be a bit outdated... *checks the wiki*
EDIT:
ok, we've got a very nice How-To-Mod-Keen-Vorticons just upgraded with fresh info today:
http://www.shikadi.net/keenwiki/Keen_Vo ... _Xky_Rauh)


and you can find a bit of information about Mindbelt over there:
http://www.shikadi.net/keenwiki/Mindbelt


finally, to speed things up, I've extracted the needed file for you:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/be3p6ugh1my2t ... 0.zip?dl=1

I used the "finally, to speed things up, I've extracted the needed file for you: https://www.dropbox.com/s/be3p6ugh1my2t ... 0.zip?dl=1". And I tried to open "level01.ck1" > then a box pops up saying "Ok to use these tiles C:\games\dgames\cmd-keen\1til0000.bmp" > I tap yes and the following error popes up, "Error in script file: Expected 4 paragraphs, but found 0." I am stuck again.

Ah, there are a handful of text files that ship with Mindbelt; it relies on these for some episode-specific information. Make sure to copy the one appropriate to the episode you're modifying to the same folder as you do the Mindbelt executable.

AAAAA K. Now Mindbelt is working fine. Thanks

Fleexy wrote: ↑Thu Sep 21, 2017 1:30 pm Ah, there are a handful of text files that ship with Mindbelt; it relies on these for some episode-specific information. Make sure to copy the one appropriate to the episode you're modifying to the same folder as you do the Mindbelt executable.

BTW: don't hesitate to share your first modding results with the community. It's always exciting to see the work of a modding novice. people from around here can give tips along the way. and we can even learn from you!