Keen's Night at the Improv (Part 1)

[Levellass]

Whoo... this will take some time to get through. I'll vote soon.

And just when I think I have the whole day, my wife is dragging me out of town... I'll try to get everything up tonight, probably around 8:00PM central.

Oh you need a night out now and then, yes, sometimes even when there is keening to be done.

I'm removing all potty-humor and vulgarity from my entry, which involves me to completely redraw some of the enemies. (Yeah, it was that bad)

I want to see the original now. Call it morbid curiosity.

And to those who disobeyed the rules and chose not to participate, well... I have nothing to say to you.

There were disqualifications?

[DHeadshot]

And to those who disobeyed the rules and chose not to participate, well... I have nothing to say to you.

There were disqualifications?

The rules were that you had to participate, therefore they are the same group...

[kuliwil]

And to those who disobeyed the rules and chose not to participate, well... I have nothing to say to you.

There were disqualifications?

The rules were that you had to participate, therefore they are the same group...

Damn, all that effort I put in just to be disqualified when I could have had glory!

[KeenRush]

Wow, nice catch! Have to check those out. And by the way, when releasing stuff, why can't you people take some screens? It'd be nice to see what's there's going to be and it would attract people to try it if they otherwise wouldn't. And if you don't want to "spoil" anything, just link the images instead of using the img tag.

[DHeadshot]

My thoughts:
Commander Bleen: I couldn't stop laughing. Tulip, this is awesome! Might possibly be considered slightly racist actually, but it's obviously only aimed to mock in the nicest possible way. As far as glitches go, a guy in Level 2 just ran offscreen at the beginning and there's no proper ending. Gameplay-wise it's easy enough for a terrible player like me if given enough practise at it. Overall fantastic!

Bloogs are at it again!: Lot of typos in this one, dunno whether that's intentional as part of Bonevelous's mocking of terrible fangames or just because 24 hours a rush-job doth make. I love the AAAAAAAAAA references and the "Nothing" button! Just the one level compared to Tulip's two (unless there's a secret one) but that isn't necessarily a bad thing... How did you get K4 controls on K1? Wait, what? That's a lot of points... Ummm.... OK, this is a troll, isn't it? And a parody of bad mods...

Marta's Moon Adventure: OK, VBB, another space-to-fire - I like that. Hmm: Rule 75 has been applied - We have Female Keen! Wait *reads "About"* this already exists? I like the "Previews" and message to Paramultart. Gameplay-wise, the jumps were really hard - reminded me of pre-mario platformers where if you aren't pixel-perfect you die. Rather unforgiving in that respect. In the end I had to resort to cheats to get anywhere! What you have to go through to do anything rates this as an incredibly difficult mod! At least you have an ending though...

A Matter of Minkcraft (at least, I think so - the title says "A natter of Minkcraft", there do appear to be a few typos in this): Oh Wow! Music, fantastic graphics, a dancing Mink - this has everything! On the other hand, I shouldn't have expected anything less from Levellass... I like the blank option leading to the dancing Mink! This looks like 256 colours! I love the tounge-in-cheek of the story and its relation to the contest. Wow! Layers on the Map in Keen 1! Everything's such high quality! Keen 4 controls - impossible pogo trick FTW! Wow - it seems 3d in some places! Definitely my favourite so far! It's so beautiful! Just a shame I'm too terrible to get very far... Background animations too! Game Over. The level's just a bit too big. Shame.

Oasiz's Mod: Very little changed pre-game. A few squares of invisible wall on the map - not sure where that's come from... Oh dear, I can walk off into space - there's no wall to the waterfall. Nice animation for it though... Wait, a bath? The stars are points? No creature mods it seems... Nice foreshadowing with the points though; guide the player through... Oh wow - appearing blocks! Bit deceptive in many ways but a nicely designed level in terms of gameplay. Game Over! OK, so it was quite difficult, but not so difficult it wasn't entertaining. Though Minkcraft remains my favourite overall, this has the nicest feel and I can see myself playing this again quite a bit.

Commander Keen in Shmaynoria: Music! W00t! The artwork in the titlescreen etc is incredible! Spacebar firing - good. I like the story... Heh, I like the previews replacement . Multiple Levels! Erm... I fell off the map and didn't die. Now I'm stuck... OK, restart game... Apart from that glitch, I like the gameplay on the first level! Tricky to tell the bricks apart in level 2. Aargh! Level 2 is Hard! Game Over! Pretty good, just a shame about that glitch...

Overall Winner: A Matter of Minkcraft

(If only there were [spoiler][/spoiler] tags on this bb...)

[kuliwil]

(If only there were [spoiler][/spoiler] tags on this bb...)

Funny - I suddenly see why you'd want one

Joking, and haha, I'm loving these!

[Ceilick]

These are neat.

Commander Bleen is awesome, the title screen rocks and the in-level graphics are awesome. Really like how the vorticon elder is used in level 2 and the boss guy exiting stage left. An ending sequence would add so much more, but its still great.

Vikingboybilly, really nice work with the marta sprite, the spring shoes were especially animated nicely. You should hook the CG crew up with the sprite frames as a multiplayer option. The graphics of the moon were neat, as with the mouse enemy, did not like the level though.

Not much to say about Bloogbrain, the ending was kind of funny

Really like the dark atmosphere and the slopes in Levellass' mod. The level was really confusing, but I managed to beat it!

Smaynoria is pretty neat so far, I only beat the first two levels and got my game over in the third (although I figured out how to beat it my second try, I wanted to go down again and get a better look Going to play more later.

Really like the check point system Oasiz set up and enjoyed the level so far, although new enemies would have been nice. Gave up after dying repeatedly shortly after what I think is the first (only? not sure how the system works) checkpoint. Going to play more later.

Thought about participating in this, drew about 8 tiles before deciding I didn't have anything worthwhile to make Maybe next time.

[Paramultart]

Working on getting a page up for this, which will have screenshots and reviews...

I was kind of hoping to find an artist on these forums who could draw a banner for these improv competitions, which would be Keen tugging his shirt collar and sweating nervously with a microphone on a stage, with a bunch of Keeniverse characters (Vorticons, shrooms, shikadi, etc.) in the audience looking critical. Anyone here care to draw that? Or know anyone who can?

[DHeadshot]

If you can pursuade him, David Bird - not on this forum but does art for other people's webcomics (usually free).

[Paramultart]

Threw this page together real fast:
http://www.paramultart.comyr.com/kimprov1.html
(Shows title+screenshot and a quick little review for each mod)

As you can see on the page, there is a broken image url at the top of the page... This is because I still have no banner for this competition. XD

Who is this David Bird dude, and how can I persuade him?



EDIT: I've found a bug in my mod... Whenever you collect the first ship part (berries), it disappears when you collect the second ship part (flower)... Thus, making the game unbeatable... Anybody know what's going on here?

[DHeadshot]

Threw this page together real fast:
http://www.paramultart.comyr.com/kimprov1.html
(Shows title+screenshot and a quick little review for each mod)

As you can see on the page, there is a broken image url at the top of the page... This is because I still have no banner for this competition. XD

Who is this David Bird dude, and how can I persuade him?



EDIT: I've found a bug in my mod... Whenever you collect the first ship part (berries), it disappears when you collect the second ship part (flower)... Thus, making the game unbeatable... Anybody know what's going on here?

Site
[url=mailto:dtb26@cantab.net]Email[/url]

Also, read my post - you have more than just that one bug...

[Fleexy]

Make sure that the ship part replacements are in the right levels:

Battery - 3
Joystick - 4
Vacuum - 8
Liquor - 16

[Paramultart]

Make sure that the ship part replacements are in the right levels:

Battery - 3
Joystick - 4
Vacuum - 8
Liquor - 16

Wait... Seriously???
This is necessary?

EDIT: Ah, you're right. Found the patch right here:

Code: Select all

#Parts levels (Part removed if you die in this level)
%patch $4F69 8  #Joystick
%patch $4F70 3  #Battery
%patch $4F75 4  #Vacum
%patch $4F7C 16 #Everclear

Thanks, Fleexy.

I guess I'll re-upload the mod pack with the fixes. Any more complaints? And anyone else want to make any changes to their mods real quick?

[Levellass]

Whooo! Good thing that I didn't die on that level huh?

Also, I have a secret level I could perhaps attach to my mod?



Right, managed to play all these through.


Commander Bleen: Oddly, couldn't complete this mod, just ended up at the map doing nothing.

This is a perfect, PERFECT example of a mod made in short time; it *looks* like a lot of effort went into it, but actually, surprisingly little was done. The sparse graphics are used and blended so well, especially in level design, that you don't notice just how little was actually replaced. (I hesitate to imagine what could have been, had the entire tileset been converted.) This is possibly the funniest entry there.

Bloogs: Burst out laughing a lot with the typos. Got some very odd looks in my household.

DJ: There's a patch for 'K4 controls' in Keen 1 for mods. This mod is the bottom of my voting pile, simply because it lacks the awesome everything else does. It's ok, but nothing about it really grabbed me.

Marta: I do so love that comic! I hated this level! The sheer number of game overs I had to get through was aggravating. The new enemies are nice, and the ground reminds me of Patchwork Mod II

Ending was beyond cute. I can see potential for this series.

Mink (Yep, it does indeed say 'natter', originally this was a tile typo, but I liked the reference to natter, so it stayed in.) This is obviously the best mod, and everyone should vote for it. Because.... because... uh, it has a dancing Mink in it!

The slopes were terribly buggy, never had time to test those dully. The music was a bit off, and there were ending bugs about for no reason I had time to track down. There was also only one level. Most of the tileset is pulled out of my scraps folder and hastily jammed together.

Oasiz: Whooo man! I mean wow. This is what my mod should have been like if I weren't so lazy. All original graphics, in a united theme and with an awesome atmosphere. The level play was brilliant too, plenty of curious and interesting gimmicks were used. My only complaint was that the level reminded me of Nintendo games, a bit large and hard for me. (I would have split the level in 3 or 4, one for each part.) Again, what could be done with a full tileset boggles the mind.

Shmaynoria: I LOL'd

Seriously, this is another example of something I could have done had I not been so lazy and, more importantly, been superhuman. This looks like a whole custom tileset, custom enemies, custom MUSIC, how, HOW did he manage this in 24 hours? HOW? I can't.... believe it!

This is literally an entire mod. No 1-level cop-out here, this would pass as a normally released project and I'd believe months of development could go into it. While playing it I also got two vibes from the game:

1.) The creator is old. Possibly the oldest person on this board.

2.) But not that old. Evidently young enough to hang around imageboards and/or watch south park.

Also, HOW do get that secret level? I can't find the key I need to play it.


In the end it came down to Oasiz and Shmaynoria, works that put me to shame. (Slink away LLa, slink away..) It took a lot of thinking to support one, and I finally decided to <s>go with what everyone else did.</s> I mean Shmaynoria, since it's actually complete. But it was close!

[Paramultart]

I already admitted to exceeding the 24 hour limit, as clearly displayed if you check the "created/modified" info on all the data files.

The tileset was almost entirely made within the first day, and most of the levels as well. The music wasn't made until the day before the end of the competition, after you sent me the program+patch to add music.
The music was made in a rather short amount of time. Most of it was just me jamming on my keyboard, but one of the songs (level 2) I took from one of my abandoned Monster Bash fan-games I was making.

I had to split up my development time a bit, since I apparently have a lot less spare time than I thought I did.

All in all, my project is probably closer to 32 hours of work, at least now that I've been tweaking it and whatnot.

The secret level is accessible only if you acquire the purple key, which is located in a hidden area on... shall we say... one of the tiny levels. (hint: the one with no trolls)
I thought it was kind of obvious, with the large gray area beneath the dirt and whatnot.


Thanks for voting for me, by the way. (or whoever did)

I'm re-uploading the mod pack in a few hours, so re-send your submissions now if any changes need to be made.



(Also, I'm not old! I don't know how my silly little mod makes me seem old... I just turned 20 last month. How old is everyone else on here? I had assumed everyone would be in their 20's or even 30's, since Keen came out in 1990.)