Once again I display my Keen noobishness for all to see!

You can discuss anything about fan-made Commander Keen games here.
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Deltamatic
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Once again I display my Keen noobishness for all to see!

Post by Deltamatic »

I know that you're supposed to download mods.
After that do you have to do anything fancy, or do you just run an executable provided, or do mods come with their own .txt tutorials on how to run them, or what?
I've just finished Keen 6, because for a while all I had was Keen 1 and then all of a sudden I had them all. So I played through them all. But now I'm hungry for more so naturally I'm turning to Ceilick's stuff, but I'm intimidated by all the jargon thrown about like so many vegetables by the folks at K:M and wondering if I have to be some sort of Keen wizard to run the thing.
Thanks in advance for the slightly amused but nonetheless helpful replies.
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VikingBoyBilly
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Post by VikingBoyBilly »

You just have to drop the original executable the game was modded for and run the program to get it started. Sometimes theres a patcher-like thingy you have to run first before you can play the game. I strongly recommend dopefish forever :dopefish
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Ceilick
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Post by Ceilick »

You'll usually be fine to just run whatever file has the .bat extension. Sometimes, when the Keen executable isn't included (usually with keen 2 and 3 mods), you'll need to first copy and paste a keen2.exe or keen3.exe into the mod folder. Then you'll need to unlzexe the executable (unlzexe is sometimes included with a mod and can be downloaded otherwise, probably on keen:modding). To do this easily, just drag the keenx.exe onto the unlzexe.exe. After that, you should be good to go to run the .bat file.
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Deltamatic
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Post by Deltamatic »

So I have to either delete or add on the .exe and download a program and do something with it. :confused To be specific, I'm wanting to play KoK and DitD.
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Post by Ceilick »

You haven't played either yet!! :O :)

Both TKoK and DitD include the original Keen exe, so all you have to do for those is drag the keen7.bat or keen8.bat onto the dosbox icon and they'll start up :)

You can get dosbox here: http://www.dosbox.com/download.php?main=1
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Deltamatic
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Post by Deltamatic »

Wait a second... would I do this on Windows Explorer, or from my desktop? I've been going

mount c c:\commander

c:

cd keen#

keen#.bat

all this time. :dead
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Post by shikadi »

you don't need the .bat
you can change commander into com

but yes, you have to.
nothing usefull here
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Post by tulip »

I'm running dosbox with this: http://www.turboirc.com/tdb/

Now when I want to play any mod, I right-click on the .bat file and choose "simulate with TurboDosBox", thats all.

Ceilick explained the rest very well.
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Deltamatic
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Post by Deltamatic »

OK, so...

Step 1: download the mod.
Step 2: if there isn't the actual game in the mod, copy-paste it into the mod's folder
Step 3: just run it on DOSBox like normal

Have I got it right?
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Post by tulip »

Yes, well, that's it, if you still can't play a particular mod, then it's the unlzexe thing ceilick explained, and you have to have the right version of your KeenX.exe. I'd say roughly all Keen 1-3 mod need version 1.31, and all Keen4-6 mods need 1.4
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Deltamatic
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Post by Deltamatic »

OK.
Thanks guys, I'll try it out.
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Post by Ceilick »

I've never gone through all the trouble of mounting drive and what not. I just drag the icon onto the dosbox icon and dosbox starts up with Keen loaded.
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Post by Deltamatic »

Never tried it.
I've started KoK, and it's definitely impressive.
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Post by shikadi »

*just learned something*
nothing usefull here
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Post by Grimson »

DOSShell - saves the day.
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