Keen: Modding

Posted: **Thu Jan 27, 2005 4:35 pm**

Some time ago, in this topic, I was talking about the different ways the light switch button can be used. Adurdin made me a patch to change what colours change when the light is switched off.

One of the important levels in my mod uses this patch, and I am very pleased with the way it works.

Unfortunately, when the screen fades in and out like whenever you enter a level, this set of colours is used as well. This looks very strange. I need a patch that stops the fade in/out sequence from using the second row of colours as they are in this patch:

Code: Select all

%ext ck2 
%version 1.31 

# The four palettes used when fading, from darkest to lightest. 
# The second one is also used when the light switch is off 
%patch $19BE8  $00 $00 $00 $00 $00 $00 $00 $00  $00 $00 $00 $00 $00 $00 $00 $00 
%patch $19BF9  $00 $00 $00 $00 $00 $00 $00 $00  $00 $01 $02 $03 $04 $05 $06 $07 
%patch $19C0A  $00 $00 $00 $00 $00 $00 $00 $00  $18 $19 $1A $1B $1C $1D $1E $1F 
%patch $19C1B  $00 $01 $02 $03 $04 $05 $06 $07  $18 $19 $1A $1B $1C $1D $1E $1F 

%end

I really hope this is possible, as I see no way to fix this problem without this patch...

Posted: **Fri Jan 28, 2005 6:01 am**

*looks*

Damn! No luck [not surprising]

Whilst looking at the palette setup, all I found was this:

#Make all tiles and bitmas black and white
%patch $6EAA $90

#palette blue tinge
%patch $6F02 $04

#palette green tinge
%patch $6E9E $02

Posted: **Fri Jan 28, 2005 8:43 am**

I can even do better than you want. This patch will leave the four fading palettes as normal, but will add another separate palette that's used when the lights are turned off (set to all black and white for the sake of example):

Code: Select all

%ext ck2
%version 1.31

# New palette for lights off
%patch $17784  $1F $1F $1F $1F $1F $1F $1F $1F  $00 $00 $00 $00 $00 $00 $00 $00  $00

# Make Lights off use the new palette
%patch $640B  $04 $00

%end

Posted: **Fri Jan 28, 2005 10:48 am**

Thanks, just what I needed! Even better!

I really like your black and white example too, I might even do something with that.

Very neat things are to be created with this. All of my examples would work now.

Edit: Strange, the border always changes to black when the lights are off, even when none of the values are $00. Any info on this?

Posted: **Fri Jan 28, 2005 12:56 pm**

^ Don't ask me..
But anyways, this patch sounds great! :) Can't wait for the cool effects that can be done..

Posted: **Sat Jan 29, 2005 7:57 am**

Do you realize what you could do with this? You could make the "light turns off" palette the exact same colors as the original... except for one.

Just go with me here. Instead of using all 16 colors in your game, you only use 15. The 16th color is the exact same as your default background color (which, in the original Keen1, was light grey). Then, in your "light turns off" palette, you make that 16th color something very noticeable, like bright magenta or neon green.

Then, the light switch becomes something other than a light switch, it becomes something that reveals hidden messages!

Wait... wait a second, that might be a problem. If someone were to do this, a patch would have to be made that, at default, starts the lights in dark mode. Then, when you find the light switch, it changes to light mode to reveal everything. You couldn't do it the other way around, because it wouldn't work when you drew the tiles in Paint.

Posted: **Sat Jan 29, 2005 10:59 am**

Exactly that (and more) is what my level is about.

But it's a waste to use only 15 colours troughout the rest of the game, that's why i first force the player to switch off the lights...

Posted: **Sat Jan 29, 2005 11:50 am**

Great ideas, I've though the exact same about hidden messages! :) Can't wait to see your mod Ezjay.

Keen: Modding

PATCH: 'Lights off' in Keen 2 uses another palette

PATCH: 'Lights off' in Keen 2 uses another palette