Take a bad game...

[Deltamatic]

Doesn't. Fanon.
Edit: could the topic be split between the Dreams revamp talk and the series plot talk?

[Levellass]

I believe Ceilick is working on an improved Keen Dreams levelpack. Not sure what he's using, but TED5 was used for Keen Dreams, with an adaption program.

[TerminILL]

I heard tell there was some Dreams-compatible TOM floating around.
But it's a secret to everybody.

[Ceilick]

Keen GBC has poles

I guess it's clear that it has been awhile since I played Keen GBC At least for me, this indicates a problem already that Keen GBC just isn't very memorable in terms of level design. Anyway, I'd be willing to bet Keen GBC could have used MORE poles than it had

I like Keen GBC as a spinoff, it's not canon, but it doesn't have to be.

You can only 'spinoff' from the original content so much before a thing becomes unrelated. Keen GBC deviates enough from the original series in so many respects, some painfully glaring, that in my opinion it even fails as a spinoff.

I have to agree with Ceilick on Keen 6. It doesn't quite feel like a legit Keen game to me. The music is great and all that, but the lack of story just made it not feel right to me. I don't quite like the enemies as much as other Keen games, either. The mechanics for accessing different areas were cheap takeoffs on Keen4, too. Needing a rope, sandwich, and keycard just felt like ripoffs from Keen4 needing a swimsuit. It feels fine in Keen4 but not here. I don't know why.

Woah, just to clarify, you might agree with me in conclusion, but I actually like all these things you mention about keen 6: the story, the enemies, and the world map features are all awesome in my opinion. My problem is strictly with level design

I do agree that level design does seem a little odd is a few levels here and there, but for the most part, I believe it is still a good game.

One of the things that bugs me about keen 6 level design, although I'm hesitant to call it 'bad level design', is it's reliance on hallways rather than rooms. I think this is primarily due to the theme: the whacky, 'odd' architecture of the bloogs. But I feel like it's just...not as good as the predominant 'room design' in Keen 4 and 5 (although they have cases of 'hallway design' as well).

Concerning Keen 3:

It's often mentioned as a problem that only 3 levels are needed to win, but this is really only a problem in terms of replayability. For those who approached keen 3 for the first time without having spoiled themselves, Keen 3 is all about free exploration of the planet, finding out what there is to see. Things of importance could have been anywhere! Exploration was key. The problem is that in Keen 3 this can potentially only work once.

A similar situation is in Keen 4: once you play and figure out where the optional areas are, suddenly the world map loses a lot of it's initial magic. Luckily Keen 4 got around this with needing to rescue 8 council members.

Keen 3 could probably benefit by either having sub-quests (although this would probably detract from the theme of exploration and the grand goal of finding the Grand Intellect), or it could have had more blocking levels (although this would need to be done carefully: it there's an obvious path that is heavily guarded, this takes away from the theme of searching for the Grand Intellect).

It's easy to see the flaw in the original Keen 3 map, but a solution which preserves the original 'searching for the grand intellect' theme isn't obvious, I think.

The Anhks: As cool as they are they are used rather poorly and so scarcely in Keen 3. If you would like to see the Anhks used to their full potential download Mr. Black's Keen 3 Levelpack. It definitely puts most of Keen 3 to shame.

Good point on the Ankh. Really would be great to see it exploited in some levels better. I'm not familiar with how they work in Mr. Black's levelpack, but I think however they're used needs to be reflective of the original style: only ever as a 'shortcut' or a way to make the level easier, never as a necessity to the level (such that if you used the ankh wrong, the level becomes impossible).

Poor level design in two levels: Hal's Kitchen and Caves of Oblivion.

These are definitely the glaring cases. I'd be willing to say a lot more of the levels had pretty significant problems than just these though.

could the topic be split between the Dreams revamp talk and the series plot talk?

Good idea, but since several posts are divided between points relevant to this discussion and series plot, I'm not sure splitting is the best approach. I suggesting starting a new thread, possibly quoting from here to get us started.

I believe Ceilick is working on an improved Keen Dreams levelpack.

The cats out of the bag It's nearly done.

[Paramultart]

Personally, I think Keen Dreams is vastly superior to Keen 5.

Keen Dreams felt so unique and different, whereas Keen 5 felt like a terrible mod of sorts. Too many recurring tiles, and the science fiction theme got old extremely fast.

That's not to say that Keen Dreams was perfect, of course. It had its obvious flaws. That empty feeling of incompleteness and being rushed.

Nothing a little music and a few tweaks couldn't fix, though.

On a side note, while I enjoyed Ceilick's beta of Keen Dreams Plus, I don't think it sufficiently "replaces" Keen Dreams.

[Levellass]

You can only 'spinoff' from the original content so much before a thing becomes unrelated. Keen GBC deviates enough from the original series in so many respects, some painfully glaring, that in my opinion it even fails as a spinoff.

I'm not sure you can do that, a spinoff is a spinoff, no matter how unrelated it is, it's something like copyright, mired in legal stuff and intellectual property. KGBC was terrible and not really related to the source material... exactly like most spinoffs! *Looks at the new Spyro toy-game reboot*

[DHeadshot]

You can only 'spinoff' from the original content so much before a thing becomes unrelated. Keen GBC deviates enough from the original series in so many respects, some painfully glaring, that in my opinion it even fails as a spinoff.

I'm not sure you can do that, a spinoff is a spinoff, no matter how unrelated it is, it's something like copyright, mired in legal stuff and intellectual property. KGBC was terrible and not really related to the source material... exactly like most spinoffs! *Looks at the new Spyro toy-game reboot*

I disagree with the statement of it being terrible. Ignore the Keen aspect and just look at it as a GBC game and you'll realise it's actually rather good! It's basically like the Star Wars prequels - everyone thinks they suck because they compare them to the original films, but if you take them as a seperate series and ignore the Star Wars aspect, they're pretty good films!

[TerminILL]

But that's not what we're talking about here. It does fail miserably as a Keen game, which is what we are treating it as for our purposes. George W Bush might have been a pretty okay person (dubious), but he failed miserably as a president. What's he gonna be judged for?

[DHeadshot]

But that's not what we're talking about here. It does fail miserably as a Keen game, which is what we are treating it as for our purposes. George W Bush might have been a pretty okay person (dubious), but he failed miserably as a president. What's he gonna be judged for?

Your analogy fails in that this is the rating as a game. It would be more like comparing ability as president to ability as Republican president, which is the other way around in terms of success (like a lot of Keen mods)...

[TerminILL]

yeah my analogy is crappy. Still, we are rating GBC as a Keen game here, not as a mod or anything else, and as such we are treating it as a horrendous pile of crap.

[StupidBunny]

I think it's fair to look at it both ways. It's definitely important to examine its success as a Keen game, since that's what it's meant to be and that's the standard that the authors had to pursue in choosing to make it a Keen game, and in that regard it certainly fails. However, it isn't entirely fair to look at this alone, and I think that the game should also be considered on its own level before dismissing it completely.

[Stealthy71088]

Concerning Keen 3:

It's often mentioned as a problem that only 3 levels are needed to win, but this is really only a problem in terms of replayability. For those who approached keen 3 for the first time without having spoiled themselves, Keen 3 is all about free exploration of the planet, finding out what there is to see. Things of importance could have been anywhere! Exploration was key. The problem is that in Keen 3 this can potentially only work once.

This problem could be solved if random numbers could be used to decide which location was which level, or perhaps some sort of key or spark was randomly placed within one level where the exit would be, which would allow access to the boss. This use of randomness was used in the mountain level of Hiding from the Sky, so its not impossible. Another option would be to seal the boss level in such a way that the only way to activate it was to put in both cheats, both of which can be modded to only give ankh time perhaps, or give you a key that would normally be inaccessible to you. If a little piece of each cheat was hidden scattered among the levels, and every level was repeatable, this would make for an exploratory heavy mod. Especially if keycards were transferable between levels (only available in vorticon mods)

[DHeadshot]

I think it's fair to look at it both ways. It's definitely important to examine its success as a Keen game, since that's what it's meant to be and that's the standard that the authors had to pursue in choosing to make it a Keen game, and in that regard it certainly fails. However, it isn't entirely fair to look at this alone, and I think that the game should also be considered on its own level before dismissing it completely.

Thankyou.

[MOM4Evr]

Maybe I'm a little too much of an optomist, but I always really liked the Keen3 level design. Aside from the two inacessible areas, it always seemed really fun to me. After beating episodes 1 and 2 (Some of the levels in which were pretty hard), it almost seemed like the difficulty was a neat feature. Sure, the Ankhs could have been used more, but they also could have been overused, which would have been worse in my opinion. Compared to the previous two Keens, the graphics were great. My brother and I figured out early on which levels you had to do and which ones you didn't, and still played all the levels anyhow. After finding the secret level, we made a savegame with 20+ lives and I sat back and watched my brother die over and over in Fort Cavort and the other levels around it. It was great. We knew that we didn't actually have to play those levels, it was just fun. And the Keen3 levels are boatloads of fun. We never managed to beat "The Brig", though. That last building is really hard.

To clarify what I stated about Keen6: I do like the episode. A lot. It just doesn't have the same feel to me. Not enough love or something, I dunno. And Ceilick is right; the level design isn't quite as good as it could be.

[MrBlack]

One of the reasons I was so keen to make a complete, solid Keen3 levelpack was because the original level design seemed rushed and lacking. A guilty hope of mine is that one day people might refer to my levelpack as "the real Keen3" or something of the sort.

I agree with what people say about Keen2 having lots of potential and not using it. It definitely has the most interesting puzzle features with the red guys you can stand on, bridges and light switches to stop Vorticons jumping. I didn't like the pallete though, the colour scheme is just... dreary. Keen3 was bright and colourful, Keen1 maybe not as bright but still colourful.

Keen4 had boring, repetitive level design imo as well. Too much of the grass cave terrain (Slug Village, Lifewater Oasis, Isle of Tar) which was a drag, as well as some really boring levels (Cave of Descendants, Well of Wishes) and of course the Pyramids which got old pretty fast.

I can't explain why but Keen5 is my overall favourite. If I was forced to play through any Keen I'd choose Keen5 (unless my Keen3 levelpack was available :P) I do really like the enemies and terrain as well as the setup of the overworld. On that note, that's probably the main thing I liked about Keen6, the overworld set up with the various areas and special items you had to collect. Otherwise I can't really put my finger on why Keen6 isn't that great.