Keen: Modding

It's been a little while since I've been on these forums, but I still have all those little tools from back in the day, and I'm impressed that everything that used to piss me off about modding has been debugged.

Bravo.

The other night, I was playing Commander Keen (because that's always how it happens), and had an idea: projecting Keen through the maze (tastefully) using Ice shooters.

I also was drinking Pepsi...

This is a one level Mod made for my enjoyment. There's a bit of Tile Editing (That's a pain, by the way, without a template to start from). Not too much has been done to the graphics, but enough (for now) to give it the mystique to take it past the status of level pack.


This is pretty much: Commander Keen, Soda, and Post Beginner/Pre-Intermediate Level Death Trap/Maze. It's not that hard.

Advice, Comments, and whether this is best as a 1 level mod, or if you'd want more would be nice.

Feel free to do whatever you want to it yourself. Take my fizzy tiles, and my background. Consider that my GPL.

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The Link:
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/12906264/Keen%2 ... mo%201.zip

Seems to have a LOT of point items in it, but not bad for a few hours work.

What bugged you about modding anyway?

A little while? Years, man. Glad to see you're still into Keen. Planning to stick around?

As Lass mentioned, a lot of points, too much points. What made this level cool was the fair difficulty, the ice cannons, and the general soda scenery (the animating pools of it particularly. If you decide to work on this further, develop the soda theme: lets see some soda fountains and waterfalls (rip 'em from keen 3 if you're lazy :P ).

I was considering patching the game so that extra lives required quite a few more points, making them necessary. It's a soda factory... having extra soda seemed expected, though I can definitely tone it down.

Good Idea with the theme items. I've never been the world's greatest graphic designer (okay, I suck... give me Pro Tools over Photoshop any day), but even just modding a couple water falls and the like off of keen 3 wouldn't be a bad idea, allowing me to focus my limited creative powers to my own unique sprites. I have a LOT of unused space left in 1TIL0000.bmp, and I think I've figured out Tile Info enough to keep you from falling through the floor (and surviving??).

As far as sticking around, I would say probably. I've always checked in every month or too to see what was new.

As far as what was "bugging" about modding: I was running beta's, and modkeen 1, and just a lot of stuff that's been updated since then.

But yeah, this should be fun.

If it's a soda factory I suggest some crates, conveyor belts and stacks of soda in neat piles for items. (You can get all these graphics ripped from other games if you wish, ~10 minutes of cut n' paste.) You could even have empty bottles and some random machinery.

Also a 'coke sucks' poster\graffiti.

All wonderful suggestions. I'm trying to create levels that are interesting, and still puzzlish right now. I've noticed I prefer mods that make me think over mods that constantly almost kill me.

Let me know if I'm wrong. I can knock down a few walls, and put a 100 gargs in if that's the case :p

But yeah, excellent tile suggestions. Conveyors would make much more sense than ice.

I got stuck in the upwards shooting ice cannon (the first one).

Ah... an interesting problem, of which I'm still trying to figure out.

Not yours in particular, but rather: Why do some sprites not load occasionally. The ice shooters will work 9/10 times, and everything will run smoothly. Then, one time, a sprite refuses to load.

This is really pestering me. Do I need to free up space in my patching??

Use fewer sprites.

Definitely don't put in a hundred Gargs! Garg spam is a relic of ancient history, one I sadly used in what frustratingly remains my only mod!

Spam of any kind is a negative, be it points, enemies, hazards, jumps, hallways, etc. Even just spamming of challenging or puzzling situations is ad: levels don't need to be a constant obstacle course: there is a simple joy in just walking from point A to point B, to just sit back and enjoy the scenery before approaching the next obstacle or decision. 'No hallway syndrome' is just as bad as 'long hallway syndrome'! Diversity in how the path is navigated and balance between challenges and simple movement will keep players interested.

This is really pestering me. Do I need to free up space in my patching??

It means that your sprite memory is low, you'll also notice doors don't appear when they're opened and falling blocks may not work. The solution is to remove memory-intensive sprites like ice launchers. The sprite limit is about 80 Yorps worth.

Does anybody else have a problem with jumping? And no sound? The jump button doesn't work. What's the deal? Was this deliberate?

re-mapped controls have been striking with alarming frequency these days. Try hitting the whatever-the-reassign-controls button is and working that out.

Delete the settings file, it seems occasionally some patches cause nonsense data to be written to it, warping the settings.