Commander Keen Rebuilt.

Tools, assembly, and file formats.
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Kazuhiro
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Commander Keen Rebuilt.

Post by Kazuhiro »

Well recently I began programming a commander keen game for windows XP. My goal is to make an exact duplicate of the 4th 5th and 6th episodes of commander keen in terms of graphics and gameplay. And then add new enemies, goodies, and artwork to the game. And then finnaly a full featured level/world editor so everyone can easily create their own worlds/levels with a very easy GUI editor. Currently I've got a perfect copy of the commander keen's overworld map working. And am beggining to create the in-level gameplay system. Fortunitly I'm finding this to be much easier than previous games I've programmed due to the simple game mechanics for commander keen.

So since I'm making such good progress I'd like to ask if anyone has any ideas for new enemies, goodies, and level designs. I'd appreciate it even more if you have artwork for them as I'm afraid art is FAR from my specilty.

Short term goals: Finish the in-level gameplay mechanics, Make a small world for the game, Come up with a good name for the engine.

Long term goals: Create a full length game world for the engine, create full featured and simple level/world editor, add new content.

Edit: Nearly forgot to add a screenshot. Though it doesn't have much to show. Also it lost a bit of color and clarity when converted to .jpg but at least it isn't 1mb now.

Image
Kdash
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Post by Kdash »

Good luck. Not many people actually complete any Keen fangames.

By the way, you should probably post this over at the PCKF. Its more of a general Keen forum, including fangames. This one is pretty much just for modding the original games.
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CommanderSpleen
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Post by CommanderSpleen »

Woot. Sounds excellent. Have you managed to study the in-level physics enough to understand how to replicate it? If so, care to post the info sometime?

As for graphics and levels, why not just use external files for them and create editing tools so we can create mods ourselves (and use existing mods)?
Kazuhiro
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Post by Kazuhiro »

genius314 wrote:Good luck. Not many people actually complete any Keen fangames.

By the way, you should probably post this over at the PCKF. Its more of a general Keen forum, including fangames. This one is pretty much just for modding the original games.
The irony. I asked someone over there and they said posting here would be best. :P

CommanderSpleen: Yes I have. And I have it "near" perfect. Still needs some tweeking. Although its not really physics. Its a simple matter of jumping as high as the length the button is pressed down for. As for posting info... Well I could post the code, but the formula is rather simple.
And you can expect this to get finished. As I'm already about 40% done and I've only been working on this for 4 days. Its not really fan made game. Its more of a conversion to the XP os. It will be "completely" indistinguishable from the dos commander keen except for new world/levels. (Although it will eventually get new enemies, artwork, etc.)
If I ever decide to stop supporting it I'll release the source code.

Now as for the modding, The editor will indeed be an external program. But my goal is to make a super simple (yet full featured) editor. With a GUI interface so its easier to use than all current ones. When you complete a level/world it will write the level/world design to a single file which can in turn be read by the game itself. You simply click mods on the main menu and select the file. In the far future I'll include the ability to add custom artwork to user made levels/worlds.
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shikadi
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Post by shikadi »

do you also made this for keen dream , there is currently no "real" editor for it
Kazuhiro
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Post by Kazuhiro »

shikadi wrote:do you also made this for keen dream , there is currently no "real" editor for it
Are you asking if I intend to do this for keen's dreams as well? Well seeing as it has completely different game mechanics from 4, 5 and 6, I don't plan to. However far in the future I may modify the current engine and create a seperate program for it. But I'm afraid thats far off at the momment. Sorry.
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levellord
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Post by levellord »

This looks to be promising; Keen needs a rebuild.

Asking for new graphics and/or level ideas is complicated by the fact that at present anyone who wants these can do so for the original Keen games by using modkeen and Ted5, so that unless gameplay itself is altered, all you will be doing is a 'simple' conversion of Keen.

I must ask, does your engine use the original Keen files (EGAGRAPH, GAMEMAPS...) or must you build everything from scratch? (If the former then your engine would automatically have an editor &c.)

The mechanics call for comment, since many fangames have terrible mechanics and gameplay. You say that it is a simple matter of jumping and button pressing, but Keen has complexities built in, such as minimum and maximum jump heights slope climbing and descending speeds, collisions with walls and ceilings and pogoing as well (Is it possible to impossible pogo with your engine?) I am interested in how you've handled these.

I have some 'leftover' graphics for tiles and enemies and such if you want to look at them. Should I email them or something?

In summary, this looks like a very promising project, I shall watch it closely.
Kazuhiro
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Post by Kazuhiro »

levellord wrote:This looks to be promising; Keen needs a rebuild.

Asking for new graphics and/or level ideas is complicated by the fact that at present anyone who wants these can do so for the original Keen games by using modkeen and Ted5, so that unless gameplay itself is altered, all you will be doing is a 'simple' conversion of Keen.

I must ask, does your engine use the original Keen files (EGAGRAPH, GAMEMAPS...) or must you build everything from scratch? (If the former then your engine would automatically have an editor &c.)

The mechanics call for comment, since many fangames have terrible mechanics and gameplay. You say that it is a simple matter of jumping and button pressing, but Keen has complexities built in, such as minimum and maximum jump heights slope climbing and descending speeds, collisions with walls and ceilings and pogoing as well (Is it possible to impossible pogo with your engine?) I am interested in how you've handled these.

I have some 'leftover' graphics for tiles and enemies and such if you want to look at them. Should I email them or something?

In summary, this looks like a very promising project, I shall watch it closely.
Ok first off its being done completely from scratch with a custom platform engine of mine so I can do pretty much anything I want. Down side is that it is more complex and will take longer to finish.

As for the mechanics. It will be indistinguishable from the ordinary commander keen. The jump looks the same with variating heights, (I finshed that last night) Climbing slopes was a bit tricky in getting it work identically but after some head banging on the keyboard I got it just right. Pogoing is easy to do. But challenging to get it "exactly" like the original. (I'm working on this now).

Sure, I'll have a look. Though I still have quite a way to go in importing ALL the original artwork. So don't expect it to show up for a while if I do add it.

Thanks for the support. I needed it while working on those slopes. (Fond memories and large bruises on my forhead.) Doing this I've discovered that making a game like commander keen is very easy. But making a game "indentical" to commander keen is very challenging.
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ckguy
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Post by ckguy »

Good to hear this is coming along well! I'm really looking forward to the first release of this project!
Page 1 of [i]Big Book of Programming Axioms[/i] wrote:Programming = Fond memories and large bruises on the forehead
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Tulip
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Post by Tulip »

I hope this project isn't dead yet.
I sounded like a pretty big thing to do for a single person, so it is likely to somehow get swamped while in progress and the stopping the whole thing a year afterwards.

But I'd really like to see that one finished, especially with its ability to add new things to keen. I can provide some new graphics ideas for monsters.
levellass
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Post by levellass »

Sadly, I should think it has passed away, as so many things often do. (Does anyone remember the Keen movie?)

As Homer Simpson once said, 'There's a moral in this, never love anyone.' ('Yes, especially me.')
pizza2004
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Post by pizza2004 »

I sent Kazuhiro an email asking about this. Let us hope that there is an answer, and that that answer is good!
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