Commander Keen: Fall Up

Showcase your completed mod here!
Post Reply
KeenRush
Patch Maker
Posts: 1988
Joined: Sun Aug 31, 2003 2:52 pm
Location: Sand Yego
Contact:

Commander Keen: Fall Up

Post by KeenRush »

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

Image
KeenRush
Patch Maker
Posts: 1988
Joined: Sun Aug 31, 2003 2:52 pm
Location: Sand Yego
Contact:

Post by KeenRush »

Attention: If you downloaded the file before this post, please download it again; a small bug had slipped in the patch file but it's all correct now...
User avatar
XkyRauh
Posts: 1114
Joined: Sun Aug 31, 2003 9:14 pm
Location: San Diego, California

Post by XkyRauh »

Oh man, this is AWESOME! :) A puzzle game after my own heart. KeenRush, you rock!!

Edit: It's a little creepy, what the traditional Ctrl+Alt does, but I've used it pretty frequently. :)
levellass
Posts: 3001
Joined: Wed Oct 11, 2006 12:03 pm
Location: Ngaruawahia New Zealand

Post by levellass »

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!
kuliwil
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Aug 18, 2009 12:49 am
Contact:

Post by kuliwil »

I think I must've done something wrong - I could only get in to one of the levels and I died instantly upon entry.
KeenRush
Patch Maker
Posts: 1988
Joined: Sun Aug 31, 2003 2:52 pm
Location: Sand Yego
Contact:

Post by KeenRush »

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.]
levellass
Posts: 3001
Joined: Wed Oct 11, 2006 12:03 pm
Location: Ngaruawahia New Zealand

Post by levellass »

*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.
User avatar
VikingBoyBilly
Posts: 54
Joined: Tue Aug 10, 2010 10:57 pm

Post by VikingBoyBilly »

XkyRauh wrote:Edit: It's a little creepy, what the traditional Ctrl+Alt does, but I've used it pretty frequently. :)
Eh? I'll have to check that out.
kuliwil
Posts: 2
Joined: Tue Aug 18, 2009 12:49 am
Contact:

Post by kuliwil »

Ah. I did the unzip but I didn't run the batch. That was stupid, I usually know to do that! haha
Benvolio
Posts: 228
Joined: Sun Aug 29, 2004 4:44 pm
Location: Ireland
Contact:

Admiration

Post by Benvolio »

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*
User avatar
VikingBoyBilly
Posts: 54
Joined: Tue Aug 10, 2010 10:57 pm

Post by VikingBoyBilly »

Mink will be hard pressed to top this in his second puzzle pack.
User avatar
Grimson
Posts: 63
Joined: Mon Mar 22, 2010 3:45 pm

Post by Grimson »

I sure hope he doesn't top the difficulty :<
levellass
Posts: 3001
Joined: Wed Oct 11, 2006 12:03 pm
Location: Ngaruawahia New Zealand

Post by levellass »

We can now (For Keen 5 anyway) have difficulty specific patches. He may well do so on the Hard difficulty.
Post Reply