Public Commander Keen Forum

Hej Folks!

Glad to see the PCKF is up again after it´s blackout 4 days ago.

Inspired by Dr. Colossus, who reinterpreted Marooned on Mars using the Keen 5 engine, I decided to reinterpret Keen 5 using the "Secret of the Oracle" engine.

You can have a short peek on my work on this link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/n12zhz18flqqa ... m.avi?dl=0

The story is yet incomplete, but I am sure it will be mostly about Billy Blaze discovering an ancient temple with the dormant power to destroy the universe and stuff.

I still have to do a lot of patching work, e.g. making the Council Members stompable with the Pogo and finding a way to end the game if the dopefish eats the friggin equivalent to the Q.E.D. and thus saves the whole galaxy from being blown into pieces. Which would be the most awesome moment in the whole keening history.

Hey, this is looking nice! I really like the aesthetic of how you transformed the first level of Keen 5 into a sort of floating stone temple. Though I can definitely see the similarities with the level layout, the different tiles and enemies make it look like an entirely unique experience. Good job!

I have a few small nitpicks if it helps. I noticed you're only using one solid tile for the walls. In some spots this looks pretty good, like the center platform that juts out at the bottom of the level. However, in other spots, like the leftmost wall of the level and the top section of tiles (the secret passageway), it looks a little too tiled and might benefit from some pattern variation. I might recommend reconfiguring the tile graphics to add three sets of all 8 wall tiles (solid, secret passage, and pole). Speaking from experience, that would make it easier to deal with Keen 4's tricky tile patterns.

Also, the ground torches are a nice reconfiguration of the tiles, but I think it would look better if you made custom tiles so that the base matches up with the rest of the torch.

I'm looking forward to seeing where you take this concept. The idea of Keen exploring a giant floating stone temple is a really cool story idea, and it'll be interesting to see how Keen 5's design translates to Keen 4. Good luck

*Slow clap*

Impressive, very impressive indeed. How closely will you be sticking to Keen 4? Just altering the levels? This is quite the project.

Oh my yes. I really like this. A lot.

Kewl

zzoopp...
yaus! I'm flutteringly curious what your next levels are going to look like! it is indeed a neat idea, transforming K5 into that K4 look and feel. I'm looking forward to see how you're gonna solve that Quantum Explosion Dynamo challenge

I'm looking forward to seeing how you're gonna make use of that giant foot.

Stone Age Omegamatic is a surprisingly interesting idea.

Wow I did not expect to get that many positive responses.

This level was mostly made to see if a conversion was possible - the ion vent system used to be one of my favourite levels.

Because of the very enjoyable gameplay I thought I might show some footage on april 1st just for fun. Unfortunately I could not access the forums on that date so it was published later.

Total conversions of keen are a lot of fun.
As far as I can remember a conversion of Keen 1 to Keen 2 kan be done with almost no effort.
Using some modding skills and some custom graphics may be also improve the gaming experience.

Talking about a conversion of Keen 5 to 4 (or even Keen 6 to 4) I am mostly dissapointed on the elevator mechanics of keen 4. Everything else should be possible in one way or another. (No teleporters, no exit doors, different enemies, but it should work).

However at the moment I am not planning to do a project like this.
I´ll probably do some other experiments on modding and upload them, but I don´t have the time to do a modding project at the moment.

Talking about conversions of Keen1 and 2:

I just swapped the files of the first levels (renaming CK1 to CK2 and vice versa).

Keen1: https://www.dropbox.com/s/stt8fqu9mxbv0 ... 1.avi?dl=0
Keen2: https://www.dropbox.com/s/3zo56jq819ci1 ... 2.avi?dl=0

Besides the nonsense tiles at some places, both levels were quite playable. And they may be even more fun if the misplaced tiles are removed.

Especially a conversion of Keen 1 to 2 provided a new twist to well known levels by transforming yorps in deadly vorticon grunts.

I am quite sure a total conversion of one game to the other would not take longer than an afternoon (modding new goal flags, removing misplaced tiles, generating a new world map etc.)

oh, that's neat!
a bit confusing at first, but with some extra work, this might give some briskly boiling refreshment to that good ol' Keeniverse (K1-K3).

concerning K4 vs K5 plans, it shouldn't be that much of a big deal to implement different enemies or exit doors.