The Lost Age of Keen Fangames

DoomJedi · Post by **DoomJedi** » Sun Feb 15, 2015 8:32

Updated the download with blue McMeyer version...somehow old green one found its way into the download before.

GoldenRishi · Post by **GoldenRishi** » Thu Apr 16, 2015 18:07

This is cool, I was just thinking about fan games when I decided to log into here for the first time in probably three or four years. Yes, I loved fan games, too! But I'm not at all surprised to see that they are almost entirely not attempted anymore. If you make a fan game, you're committing yourself to making a complete, full game. I don't think most people realize how hard that is. Beyond the energy, it literally means some level of moderate programming skill, some level of artistic ability with pixel art, acquiring or making your own music and sounds, and finally you need intelligence and creativity to make interesting and engaging level designs. That's a lot of different skill sets! Then there's the time and frustation: There's a lot of bug testing and beta-testing the game to make it fun, which is extremely time consuming and frustrating when you can't figure out how to accomplish what it is that you want done in the game.

So some people might or might not remember, I tried to make a Commander Keen fan game based on the Vorticons (who remain my favorite characters in the Keen games). I had a large number of ideas (including a more or less full story, almost all of the tiles and sprites, and a complete Newtonian particle physics engine programmed in GameMaker), but I never got into level design, animated sequences for story, etc.

For me personally, although I suspect most people, it is shockingly easy to get stuck in development hell, which is what happened to each of the five times I tried to make my game over the course of some 6 years (2002 to 2007). I kept on re-doing the graphics because I felt like I kept on getting better and better at pixel art and developing a style for the game, which ate up most of my five attempts. The last two times I tried, I made two different physics engines and on the last attempt I did make an essentially fully bug-tested Newtonian particle physics engine. I also had a complete library of the original Keen sounds and music from the games, which I ripped off of DOSBox recording. I think that I actually would have completed my fan game if I hadn't started university and lost all of my time to complete the project. University really killed all of my time for this kind of stuff, which is sad, and now I'm in grad school, so I especially don't have time to work on a game.

Roobar · Post by **Roobar** » Thu Apr 16, 2015 19:20

I hope you'll continue on working on your project after you graduate. It sounds really cool and promising. Though that would be impossible. I already know what will happen - you'll find a job and you'll not be able to work on it again because you'll not have time again.

Post by **Keening_Product** » Fri Apr 17, 2015 1:02

I agree with wiivn - that does sound really neat.

It seems a lot of fan games are put together in lone-developer environments which adds to the pressure. Could a group effort help make the game work out?

Lava89 · Post by **Lava89** » Fri Apr 17, 2015 5:34

Hey GoldenRishi! It's good to see you back on the boards!

GoldenRishi · Post by **GoldenRishi** » Fri Apr 17, 2015 20:35

wiivn, Keening Product: Thanks, I appreciate the support, but there's really no way I could make it again, however fun it would be to try. I bought a professional version of GameMaker (since I can't/am not interested in programming DirectX or OpenGL) a few years ago, but I never really got back into making games. Indeed, after I get done with grad school, I think my life will only get more complicated.

lava89 -- Hey man, long, long time no see! I noticed that the Keen 64 project is still alive and kicking, lol, although I guess you haven't updated it for a while. What have you been up to?

GoldenRishi · Post by **GoldenRishi** » Thu Apr 30, 2015 1:50

Keening_Product wrote:Could a group effort help make the game work out?

Sorry, I missed this question. Yes, I think that in certain cases it might, but it's not guaranteed to work. I think The Mystery of Isis II is a good example of this. It had a rather good set of developers, and it was in the works for 5 years (1998-2003; it started 5 years after Keen was cancelled... gosh Keen has been around for a while now), but failed. There have been a few times people have tried to complete it, I guess Geoffck five years ago re-programmed a bit and people have since seen it, but it was never actually completed. So even if you have a team, you still need at least two hardcore people who really, really want to see the game completed in order for the game to stand a good chance of happening (A great example is Team Meat who made Super Meat Boy).

In terms of my own fan game, I had considered joining another fan game (I can't remember it now, that's sad, I had all of the source files though and I was going to be the graphic artist, but the main author stopped working on it after a short bit), and I had considered getting help from people. For instance, I seem to recall that Lava89 and I had considered having him help me with the art for my games (I think at the time I was calling them "The Tantalus Wars") and I could help him with programming (for Keen 64), but in the end I seem to recall that we both agreed that these games were our creations and so nothing ever came of it. I'm really proud of Lava89 for actually continuing to work on Keen 64 for all of this time, it's really respectable.

PS: My very first animations, when I had just started to seriously attempt to use MS Paint in order to create pixel art, would have been before Isis II was canceled back in early 2003. I was playing around with Game Maker for the first time and I'd done a little bit of art by that time. That was my first attempt, first rendition of the art. But it wasn't until summer of 2006 when I got serious. In three months I had a huge amount of artwork and programming done over the course of that time. lol, I was a lot more industrious during this time. LevelLass had a display of my pixel artwork on her DeviantArt account many years ago. I have no idea what happened with that, but I still have them. I have no idea where to put them if anyone wanted to see them. I also assembled a complete library of Keen sounds and music that I ripped using DOSBox. I know someone downloaded them from me years ago, no idea if they were ever used for anything though.

VikingBoyBilly · Post by **VikingBoyBilly** » Thu Apr 30, 2015 12:28

Isis II was amazing. It blended the fun elements of Commander Keen and Jazz Jackrabbit perfectly. I thought it was more recent than 2003 (I wasn't even aware of canon keen back then!).

[quote=goldenrishi]something about teams not mattering if there aren't at least two intense designers dedicated to seeing it finished.[/quote]
This is true. Things like Keen Rescue and Bleen 2: How Bleen Saved Kwanzaa wouldn't have happened if not for paramultart roping me in with him for an obsessive, unemployed modding marathon.

Now look at stuff like coopkeen that have entire teams, and it's still sitting in limbo, not being worked on...

I've still got the Bomberkeen folder in dropbox and I haven't looked at the files or even tried the game at all, even once! Aren't I a good team member?

I still wish I hadn't abandoned Keen 2.5D: The Quest for Spot's Collar. I could still get arsed to work on it again... someday.

Roobar · Post by **Roobar** » Thu Apr 30, 2015 16:38

So...

ckGeoff wrote:NY - many thanks for your comments. I'll look into all the bugs and level glitches in due time.

Thanks, as well, for your patience and understanding. Originally I had aimed to just release the material in some organised fashion (e.g., Wiki). This fast turned into an interactive experience, which then turned into a full on game.

So, as before - the offer is there, for anyone who would like to improve Isis, to try creating some custom maps (info on how to do this is included in the release). Anyone who is really serious would get the original maps to modify.

I guess no one really was serious in helping ckGeoff with making new maps for Keen Isis 2. Sadly, neither we heard from him anymore since Mar 15, 2012.

2012 was really great year for keening, with a lot of production and many promising projects in the works on the horizon...

GoldenRishi · Post by **GoldenRishi** » Thu Apr 30, 2015 19:38

Yeah, it really is a shame that Isis II never got finished, it really united the Keen fangame movement. My favorite Keen fangames, however, have to be two unfiinished games, Rule of a Yorp's Dinner Table and Keen 3000. The former is well known to be a very fun, very clever game with very fun pixel art, and the latter was one of the very few attempts to make an RPG Keen game, which I think was a really fresh and interesting idea. Unfortunately, the guy who made Keen 2000 (the first fan game), whose name escapes me, disappeared shortly after releasing his demo of Keen 3000. I think he returned for a day or two on PCKF and said he thought it was really cool all of the homages to Keen that have done through mods and fan games a while back.

BTW: I honestly don't think that I like the artistic style as much anymore, but I really did love it a while back then. I thought it looked very 3-D and cool, but I've actually switched to Isloap's position.

Years and years ago (probably 2007 or so), Ilsoap and I got into a discussion over the graphics that I was making (I was trying to get his opinion on art styles that I was creating, one which looked very NES/SNES style, like LOZ or a more detailed Keen 4, and the other was the highly shaded PC-style which looked more like Isis II or, say, Halloween Harry style of graphics). He told me that he much preferred the pixel art style of the NES/SNES/Game Boy graphics, but in the end I disagreed with him and decided to re-do my graphics style with more shading. But years later, I've looked at the art again, and I think that my SNES-style graphics were much better looking and pretty. I've long since lost Ilsoap's IM address, but it'd be interesting to see what he's up to. Between his work on Mystery of Isis II, Rule of a Yorp's Dinner Table, and the Commander Keen animated series, he was a really, really talented guy. I think that he was working for a web game company as an animator, if memory serves.

DoomJedi · Post by **DoomJedi** » Fri May 01, 2015 17:02

VikingBoyBilly wrote: I've still got the Bomberkeen folder in dropbox and I haven't looked at the files or even tried the game at all, even once! Aren't I a good team member?

You can redeem yourself

MoffD · Post by **MoffD** » Fri May 01, 2015 20:49

DoomJedi wrote:
VikingBoyBilly wrote: I've still got the Bomberkeen folder in dropbox and I haven't looked at the files or even tried the game at all, even once! Aren't I a good team member?
You can redeem yourself

Maybe I should join back in... naah not untill I finish my 2 projects

DoomJedi · Post by **DoomJedi** » Sat May 02, 2015 16:20

Well...I'll wait.

Have enough Wolf3D projects to work on meantime

Post by **Keening_Product** » Thu May 07, 2015 22:33

Posting here so as not to derail the other thread.

Dr.Colossus wrote:In Game Maker you can make a Platform Game with 3d Objects. If you know how it works it's quite easy.
I have once tried to make a 2.5D Keen Game about 2years ago. The ground is a 3d Object with a EGA texture.
Unfortunatelly I abandoned it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHiCSaGdRK8

1) I would never have guessed that was Game Maker.

2) That is AMAZING! The enemy behaviour is complex and gameplay is exciting even just to watch. The ability to hide from creatures underwater, where there are other enemies to watch out, adds a whole new dimension.

3) Is that your own music? Reminds me of a mix of something from Xargon, God of Thunder, some of Game Bird's work and a few other things. Neat as.

I hope this is continued some day.

troublesomekeen · Post by **troublesomekeen** » Fri May 08, 2015 2:45

Keening_Product wrote:3) Is that your own music? Reminds me of a mix of something from Xargon, God of Thunder, some of Game Bird's work and a few other things. Neat as.

The music track seems to be named "Please Don't Metal With Me!" from Keen 6. Check this out:
http://vgmrips.net/packs/pack/commander ... -ibm-pc-at

But yeah. Wholly shelleys, it's blooming fantastic. Ducking underwater remind me of Contra NES. It's great to see Keen has overcome his fear of large bodies of water.