Endless Pits?

Post by **tulip** » Wed Oct 15, 2008 11:51

I just remembered how one complained that the monsters didn't drop off the screen in one of my mods.

Generally Platformers have lots of endless pits where the player dies as soon as he reaches the bottom of the level, but in Keen I didn't remember a single one. I checked on the level maps and there seems to be only a single occasion of an endless pit in Level 1 of Keen 3. Non of the other Keens has one. There are always hazards below that let you die, and so you can always know whether you can jump down or not.
We all know that Keen 3 was a bit buggy and rushed, my question is now:
Are enless pits even supposed to be in Keen. I think that single endless pit might have supposed to be filled with water, which was just forgotten.
What do you think?

Post by **KeenRush** » Wed Oct 15, 2008 15:18

Another thing I have never noticed... Wow. It seems likely the sole instance is just because they forgot deadly tiles, especially as it's in Keen 3. But other sprites than Keen are still falling, as they go through the danger tiles.

MortimerInBlack · Post by **MortimerInBlack** » Wed Oct 15, 2008 19:22

Odd how I never realized that. If asked, I would have said that sure there are plenty of bottomless pits in K1-3.

But other sprites than Keen are still falling, as they go through the danger tiles.

You mean some of the "hazards" let keen fall to the bottom? Yeah I kinda remember that too. I seem to remember falling through the "plasma" of Keen 2, but I just checked and they indeed kill you on contact.

I am curious tho, wouldn't it take extra code so that keen will die if he goes off the map? If the water was forgotten, some bug should occur, maybe even crash the game. As I recall, falling down that pit in level 1, K3, the game sort of pauses for a moment before the death sequence occurs. Interesting.

Post by **KeenRush** » Wed Oct 15, 2008 20:45

MortimerInBlack wrote:Odd how I never realized that. If asked, I would have said that sure there are plenty of bottomless pits in K1-3.

Indeed, I would have said the same.

MortimerInBlack wrote:You mean some of the "hazards" let keen fall to the bottom?

No, I meant that all the enemies will fall through hazards and out of levels if there are no blocking tiles on their way down.

MortimerInBlack wrote:I am curious tho, wouldn't it take extra code so that keen will die if he goes off the map? If the water was forgotten, some bug should occur, maybe even crash the game. As I recall, falling down that pit in level 1, K3, the game sort of pauses for a moment before the death sequence occurs. Interesting.

Well, it all depends how things are coded, but in most cases it'd take extra code. And to say, there indeed is such functionality -- in fan-made levels it's a very common thing. In fact, so many of them use bottomless pits that I had become to think the original levels used them too.

Keens are very bug-resistant and their code well written, I think. They made the engine handle falling sprites right from the beginning (I guess) as it's a situation that may happen, and likely happened many times when they were building the levels. As the engine fully supports it, I don't count it as anything that shouldn't be used in one's own levels. The game "stops" because Keen falls a certain distance, then changes to a dead sprite (as usually) but this isn't seen, and it takes some time for it to rise, as normally, to be visible.

DaVince · Post by **DaVince** » Wed Oct 15, 2008 21:06

I definitely remember a bunch of bottomless pits in the first few levels of Keen 1, people...

ckguy · Post by **ckguy** » Wed Oct 15, 2008 21:19

DaVince wrote:I definitely remember a bunch of bottomless pits in the first few levels of Keen 1, people...

All of them have hazards that would kill you anyway whether or not the pit is bottomless. The bottomless pits tulip's talking about have no hazard at the bottom, Keen just drops off the bottom of the level and dies out of sight. And apparently there's only one of these.

And I agree with the people above me - I definitely would have said that there are tons of bottomless pits in Keen, I'm not sure where that impression came from...

Edit: Hmm, there are several bottomless pits in Keen Dreams....

Post by **tulip** » Wed Oct 15, 2008 22:18

Indeed there are!
I forgot to check Keen Dreams levels. Still the Vorticons Trilogy seems to be supposedly pit-free. And there is no pits in Keen 5 & 6. There is only one point where seems to be a pit in Keen 4 Level 12 (It's one of the Pyramids) I didn't check if you die there, though.

Commander Spleen · Post by **Commander Spleen** » Wed Oct 15, 2008 23:43

This is quite strange, I'd also have said there are a lot of bottomless pits. Maybe we've all done a lot of cheating and fallen into a lot of pits in God Mode...

memsys · Post by **memsys** » Thu Oct 16, 2008 2:00

bottomless pits in keen games

keen 3
vort ville

keen dreams
squash swamp
spud city
apple acres
horse radish hill

keen 4
pyramid of shadows

keen 5
energy flow system [possibly blocked by hazard]

keen 6
guard post two [blocked by hazard]

non bottomless bit but weird
bloog control centre weird off screen space in first room

MortimerInBlack · Post by **MortimerInBlack** » Thu Oct 16, 2008 2:53

There is also a strange pit in Lifewater oasis (K4) near the Guardian. Since u see nothing below it, you assume it is a bottomless pit, but if u happen to fall in, u discover that there is a floor there, and even a lot of points! If the mimrock gets in there you could still die tho.

And I thought that pit in the Pyramid of Shadows was the same way. Dont u walk around in there too?

LJH · Post by **LJH** » Thu Oct 16, 2008 7:19

The one in Keen 5 is blocked off by a hazard, but the hazard is quite far above the pit. You could easily god mode through the hazard, turn god mode off, and hit the pit and die from it.

entropicdecay · Post by **entropicdecay** » Thu Oct 16, 2008 11:04

I would've also thought there were more bottomless pits. Perhaps it's like KeenRush said, because they're often used in level packs (and maybe mods too).

ckguy · Post by **ckguy** » Thu Oct 16, 2008 13:31

LJH wrote:The one in Keen 5 is blocked off by a hazard, but the hazard is quite far above the pit. You could easily god mode through the hazard, turn god mode off, and hit the pit and die from it.

You wouldn't even have to turn god mode off. If you have it on when you fall down a bottomless pit, you die and god mode gets turned off.

Post by **tulip** » Thu Oct 16, 2008 13:57

I just checked, and KeenRush didn't even use bottomless pits in Yorphius II. And there are only two pits in Keen X.
And I couldn't find any in some mods like Vanished to Venus or Search for the Sentinel.
Maybe they aren't as often as we believe they are. I also had a feeling that there were more...

Post by **KeenRush** » Thu Oct 16, 2008 18:25

But that's only four mods... Although, I already thought I probably used a thousand of them in Yorphius II.

This is the biggest hoax ever.