Public Commander Keen Forum

For anyone interested there has been a lot of progress already. 5 full length levels are being ported over from the original Isis, and will feature in the soon to be released demo.

The new demo will essentially be 1/3 of the original planned length of Isis, and even has some makeshift cutscenes.

I'm also working on implementing a feature to give statistics at the end of each level, number of items/points collected, number of enemies killed, percentages, as well as some star rating out of 10 to indicate how well you did, which will also tell you if you reached every secret area since every secret area would contain at least one item.

It will hopefully also have music & sound effects but this is not guarenteed at this stage.

Awesome! Can't wait!

To this day, I still beat myself up for never finishing this. I vow it will be completed to a full working game.

If you haven't already guessed, this is Charles Byrd.

Quick recap:
After David Layne (DML1001) left the project as programmer, work on Isis stopped until, I came along and took over as lead programmer. I was there through all of Isis' life: watching at first, waiting with anticipation until the game was complete, then being part of the team with Ben Cruz (eK) driving the art and concepts, and finally saddened when I saw the projected cease to continue. The entire team got busy with school, work, and life outside of the computer and thus the project ended up being canceled when we could not longer dedicate the time needed to it. That was in 2003. We all hoped that it could be resurrected in a year or so but years came and gone with no work.
Between '02-'03, behind the scenes, I worked on converting it over to a DirectX compatible version and ditching the Allegro and DJGPP libraries. This proved a bit harder to do than I had originally thought due to the datafile being compiled with Allegro. The DirectX version didn't get past the menu screen.
Thus, code files were released hoping someone else would pick up the project, and fans were disappointed. Myself being one of them.
Which brings us to today...

A random though crossed my mind, and I decided to look for this game again. I can't really say why I thought of it, or why I felt I needed to look, but once again I have come across it and find it alive and well, despite being on life-support and in critical condition.
I cannot believe the following that surrounds this game.
Thus I take it as a sign that this game needs to be finished.

It was started over 10 years ago, and I think it has been long enough.

ckGeoff:
I PMed you with my email address, shoot me a line, I'd like to help.

YAY!
Seriously, I just started playing the game a little while ago, and already I'm a devoted fan. Great to have you back!

I cannot believe the following that surrounds this game.

Actually, there is not much of a following. Modding is all the hype these days, and modding threads seem to have 10s of replies every day. There are only a few people I know of that are interested in this, unless people are just being quiet.

In any case, I am sure people will find it fun when the demo is released with a number of full length levels and the storyline starts to be revealed.

...despite being on life-support and in critical condition

This is not true. The engine is 95% complete which I would not call life-support. 3 months ago that statement would have been correct I would say it is basically "done" (with a few exceptions) and exists now in a shell form - once the remaining art and levels are added, it would basically be a complete, full-length game.

Thought i'd stick my head out on this one too :D
I agree with the previous poster.. modding is overrated, although much simpler than creating a game mechanism from scratch.
I drew several of those isis foes, and some of the platform graphics, backgrounds etc before.. that was probably about 10 years ago. those trees need some trimming!

Hey Marky, good to hear from you. Sent you a PM.

I'd love to see a new Isis release, if anyone cares for my opinion.

I'm such a n00b, but I'm a little confused on what this mod is actually called...
Is it Mystery of Isis 2? Isis 2a? Isis II?

Also, someone should update the wiki:
http://www.shikadi.net/keenwiki/The_Mystery_of_Isis_II

I'm impatiently waiting for a final release of Isis II!
So you sure got fans out there.

GameBird wrote:I'm such a n00b, but I'm a little confused on what this mod is actually called...
Is it Mystery of Isis 2? Isis 2a? Isis II?

I'm not entirely sure myself, but I think this is Mystery of Isis IIa - a remake of the original Mystery of Isis II project that was never completed. Also, it's not a mod - it's a full-blown fan-game with SVGA graphics etc...

Hi guys - thanks.

Originally the game was "Mystery of Isis II".

I called this one "Mystery of Isis IIa" because essentially it is exactly the same thing (same story, graphics, game play, engine features, etc), but it has been completely re-written in a different programming language (was C++ with Allegro for DOS, now is Python with pyGame for Windows, and is potentially cross-platform).

This is because it was a PITA to run the original under Windows, and even more of a PITA to edit it. Particularly before one of the original programmers showed his face again! For the mod-freaks out there, Isis IIa could be potentially very mod-friendly too. After an official release, we could easily make a mod-able version where you can change the sprites, HUD, items, weapons, tiles, levels, etc.

I was planning on a mini release some time ago, but since a few extra people have come on board, it will be a little longer before the next release, but it will include more levels and features, and even some new, original music (thanks GameBird!).

One of the issues is the inability to have proper save-game functionality, which is really a restriction on pyGame, so I'm hoping to have a check point system as an alternative.

I'd totally forgotten that I gave Geoff everything I had on Isis. It's kinda sad we never got to finish it, because even now I feel like we had cool plans for the game, especially later on when it got more fleshed out.

eK - well, that's the exact reason why I tried to revive this to finish it, or at the very least, at least release what was done.

If you want to jump on board to help out with anything, just shoot me an email.