Public Commander Keen Forum

Posted: **Thu Apr 30, 2020 2:35**

Pretty much all of Keen 4.

The first Commander Keen creature I saw was the bounder. I was 6. I've liked happy faces and cute things ever since.

I loved the secret area in Border Village. It was such a weird place compared to the rest of the game.

I also really liked Crystalus. My late uncle, who introduced me to Commander Keen, had to show me how to get the blue key, I couldn't figure out how to get it. (at the age of 6)

Miragia was fun to play and explore in.

I liked seeing the scary monsters from a safe distance - the arachnoids, berkeloids, and rimrocks, and wondering how to get by them.

Trying to shoot wormmouths at point blank range as a self-dare....only to discover they were shootable.

Dropping stunned slugs down the trap door in the tar pits

Well of Wishes Dopefish....need I say more?

Posted: **Fri May 08, 2020 17:13**

Keen 4!
So many parts of this game are memorable! But i think my favorite moment was getting that "almost impossible" life water in pyramid of the gnosticene ancients up in the top left above the dead knife shooter without cheating... hint: use the platform with the switch, not the higher one, and use pogo trick (it's not easy but it can be done!) Grab the ledge, stand and quickly move to the right or it will drop u into the dead knife shooter... now if there was only a way to get the ones in lifewater oasis without cheating lol

Love this game!

Posted: **Sat May 09, 2020 2:59**

I'm gonna have to go with the Well of Wishes on this one. It's not my favorite level, but it was such an unexpected change from the usual gameplay, and introduced such a memorable enemy in the Dopefish that I typically save it for last whenever I replay Keen 4.

With Keen 5, it'd have to be the Neutrino Burst Injector. The first time I played the game, it was on easy, and that level was the first to introduce the Shikadi and bouncing Slicestars, which little me was not prepared for...

Keen 6 has Bloogton Manufacturing from the demo, mostly for its music. You could tell Bobby Prince was getting in touch with his inner Trent Reznor when he composed "Please Don't Metal with Me!"

Posted: **Sun Nov 08, 2020 19:57**

I think mine might have to be either Guard Post 1 or the Space Station Levels (which are all in Keen 6). As a kid I would rarely play it legitimately and would use Jump Cheat and God Mode almost everywhere. I suppose just exploring those areas with the music for myself stuck with me all these years.

Posted: **Fri Feb 12, 2021 15:16**

Hisymak wrote: ↑Mon Jan 28, 2019 18:32 For me, it is the Cave of the Descendents from Keen4, namely the secret area which contains two 1UPs hidden it it and which cannot be escaped in other way than dying.
As a kid, I had really plenty of time to spend playing computer games, and I was always very curious about some special corner cases in games, and wanting to see how the game would react in such case. One case would be getting more than 99 lives in Commander Keen - I was just curious how the game would react, when it can display only up to 99 lives on both the status bar and status screen.
So I figured out that the easiest way to collect infinite lives would be to go to the Cave of the Descendents, jump into the secret with two lives, kill myslef and restart level, and... repeat this process as many times in order to get more than 99 lives. And in order to speed up the process, I was playing through the level to get some Raindrops as well, which would give me some extra lives too. So I remember playing through big part of the level for many, many times, getting really familiar with each single place in that level.
In the end, I eventually collected 99 lives and even more, but the game did not react in any special way (as I probably expected, something like showing some message or animation or crashing, or this kind of thing). It just displayed 99 lives but internally was counting more lives. I remember being just a very little disappointed, but on the other hand also satisfied for managing such thing. That was before knowing about cheat codes, after knowing them, getting 99 lives was just a matter of using some cheats to get 99 lives within less than a minute. Ugh...
Still, the level Cave of the Descendents was one of my most favourite because of the mysterious feeling (I always thought it was very deep under ground) and lot of interesting secret areas in it.

The Dopefish level, by far. Also, the final level of Keen 6, with its bizarre landscape and even stranger music.

Posted: **Mon Jul 05, 2021 11:44**

That's a really hard one...Miragia stands out - a level unlike anything else, with a non-standard exit and multiple paths...that one really fascinated me as a kid. The Garg Shrine, again for taking me by surprise, and for some reason the pentultmate level of Marooned on Mars (with the fake exit right at the start) really stood out to me. In non-shareware related adventures, the start of Energy Flow Systems remains a firm favourite, with the Robo Red screen shouting at you before you go down the pole...only to discover the real thing, ready, waiting and more menacing than ever.

Posted: **Mon Jul 05, 2021 20:46**

This is a challenging one to answer, because I played all the Keen games as a kid and each ones holds a lot of nostalgia.

For me, I'm going to say the wooded stages of Keen 4, as those were the stages I've played the most in my 20+ years of being a Keen fan.
On top of that, I'm also going to say the Chasm of Chills, since that stage has one of my favorite enemies (the Thunderclouds), and it had a darker atmosphere than the other stages.

Also in Keen Dreams, Apple Acres was a favorite of mine since it looked so different from the other stages with its dark woods setting. It's also
one I played a lot, and it was also the only stage where you could encounter some of the more obscure creatures of the game like the Apels
and the Pea Pod.

Posted: **Tue Jul 06, 2021 3:20**

Funny how no one has mentioned anything from Keens 1-3

Posted: **Tue Jul 06, 2021 6:40**

Syllypryde wrote: ↑Tue Jul 06, 2021 3:20 Funny how no one has mentioned anything from Keens 1-3

That reminds me, Vorticon Commander's Castle is another favorite of mine. I'm not sure why, I think because it's good at setting the mood
of a castle in the middle of a cold, desolate landscape, and to me the lack of music enhances that feeling. There's also a feeling of suspense
if you've played through the other stages, since the yorp statues in the shrines hint at what to expect in the stage, and unless you're greedy for
points, you're navigating a nearly empty castle on your way to the Vorticon Commander, which ends in a more unusual way for a Keen game.

Posted: **Tue Jul 06, 2021 8:31**

My memorable level is the Pyramid of the Forbidden. It took me years to get there as before, I dreamt everything about it. It had vampires and mummies in it and such.

Posted: **Tue Jul 06, 2021 9:07**

szemi wrote: ↑Tue Jul 06, 2021 8:31 My memorable level is the Pyramid of the Forbidden. It took me years to get there as before, I dreamt everything about it. It had vampires and mummies in it and such.

What was your reaction when you finally got to play the stage and it wasn't anything like what you imagined?

Posted: **Tue Jul 06, 2021 9:34**

Seems like the Pyramid of the Forbidden would be a common mention for anyone who's played Keen 4 and found a way to get into the level, I guess. The very idea of it being "forbidden" and the sheer length and difficulty of it compared to the rest of the game seems exciting.

Since the only Keen games I had as a kid were the Keen 6 demo and Keen Dreams, I'd place Bloogton Manufacturing at the top of my list. The aesthetic of the level, its vertical orientation, the iconic music and the variety of environmental hazards all contributed to a very strong impression. Additionally it was very difficult for me, enough that I'm not sure I ever managed to complete the level on my own. I think I had to watch my older brother do it.
Darn I love Keen 6.

Posted: **Wed Jul 07, 2021 6:36**

I really loved the Keen6 Demo too. The music from both Guard Post One (which I managed to successfully suggest Scifidelity Orchestra to cover) and Bloogton Manufacturing carries such nostalgia for me. Prior to playing Keen6 Demo, I had no idea what a demo would entail and sort of imagined a recorded demo of the entire game that one could watch but not play. I think the reality was preferable to that.

I think that, no matter what point in ones childhood one first explored Keen games, that period of your life will be ringfenced by the brain as a "womderful and simpler time". For me I feel that effect with Keen perhaps even more strongly than with some of the other typical childhood obsesions e.g. Pokémon, Star Wars, Harry Potter. Which is despite those examples having far more in-depth and cinematic artistic content. But for me the lasting power sustaining attachment to Keen in the decades since has been fortified by what came afterwards with modding and this community.

Posted: **Wed Jul 07, 2021 7:10**

Benvolio wrote: ↑Wed Jul 07, 2021 6:36 I think that, no matter what point in ones childhood one first explored Keen games, that period of your life will be ringfenced by the brain as a "wonderful and simpler time". For me I feel that effect with Keen perhaps even more strongly than with some of the other typical childhood obsessions e.g. Pokémon, Star Wars, Harry Potter. Which is despite those examples having far more in-depth and cinematic artistic content. But for me the lasting power sustaining attachment to Keen in the decades since has been fortified by what came afterwards with modding and this community.

Well said, my friend. You summed it up perfectly, as so many members on here like myself were introduced to these games decades ago.
And I think that's what also makes the mods so special. They too have a way of connecting us to our childhoods, in that we get the opportunity to relive that sense of wonder when we all played Keen for the first time, by exploring new environments, discovering new creatures and expanding on the universe. And in turn, we're creating nostalgic memories all over again by playing these mods now.

Posted: **Wed Jul 07, 2021 9:21**

That is absolutely true. Keen is in a sense a very strong connection to my younger me, to a world full of surprises filled with wonder. Mods and fangames made by this fine community can actually bring me back to this state of curiosity and childish excitement. This might be the reason why I started modding in the first place. And it might also be the reason why my project takes so long, as I aim to bring back something which comes very close to this very feeling that I had when playing Keen games for the first time in my dad's office.

Public Commander Keen Forum

Your most memorable level or place in Keen?

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Re: Your most memorable level or place in Keen?

Re: Your most memorable level or place in Keen?

Re: Your most memorable level or place in Keen?

Re: Your most memorable level or place in Keen?

Re: Your most memorable level or place in Keen?

Re: Your most memorable level or place in Keen?

Re: Your most memorable level or place in Keen?

Re: Your most memorable level or place in Keen?