Heres an odd level effect that comes from overloading Keens ability to handle sprites. Open a new level and put in 13 ice cannon sprites and at least 2 doors right next to each other (I use 4) When Keen gets all the keys and runs through the doors real quick, ALL sprites on the level will be destroyed.
This will work with fewer ice cannons and more other sprites, so long as the level contains just under the critical amount of sprites. It works by overloading and thus clearing the Keen engine's off the screen sprite memory.
With this small areas can be made impossible to get to (because an enemy blocks the way) until the end of the level.
In that case your version cannot handle quite that many sprites; remove 1 ice launcher and replace it with a yorp. If it still crashes, repeat. If the effect doesn't occur, add another yorp. For instance, when running DosBox I use 12 ice launchers and 3 other sprites.
If done right it will never crash to DOS. The door popping open effect is a good indicator of sprite capacity. Its not so much not a good idea as an unexpected idea; who would expect there would be away to remove those anoying gargs that stop you from getting all those points..
KeenRush--I don't really check my Hotmail account often... but I just did this morning, and ended up deleting everything. Please send whatever it was again, with "Keen" somewhere in the subject header, so I'll be sure to see it. Sorry :-(
It had Commander Keen on the subject line, but I know how Hotmail fills up with spam.. Ok, check your mail ASAP. :) - Oh, and I'm really sorry I had to post about this here..