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Posted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 0:19
by Paramultart
I never understood how Bloogs were such competent builders or designers to begin with. They seem so dumb. :/

Posted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 7:15
by XkyRauh
Levellass wrote:Oh I read that in the story, I just didn't know it affected their behavior at all! I don't expect that kind of subtlety from a game of that era. It took me long enough to figure out the Robo Red.
Eh, for all I know it was just confirmation bias. You're the one who can flip thru the code and reveal the truth. ;) Is there a subroutine for the Fleex involving Keen holding still?

Posted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 9:28
by Keening_Product
Paramultart wrote:I never understood how Bloogs were such competent builders or designers to begin with. They seem so dumb. :/
Could say the same about humans. I guess some are just better builders/engineers than others.

Posted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 11:11
by Nospike
Paramultart wrote:I never understood how Bloogs were such competent builders or designers to begin with. They seem so dumb. :/
Fleexes design all of the stuff, then Bloogs build it and ruin it. Take the slanted doors for example.

Posted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 18:54
by Captainkeen
I never understood how yorps or gargs build all those cities with no arms.

Posted: Sat Jan 04, 2014 21:48
by Levellass
Here's a fish building crop circles: http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/d-bri ... ry-solved/

Paramultart wrote:I never understood how Bloogs were such competent builders or designers to begin with. They seem so dumb. :/
The buildings were commissioned and constructed by the Bloog government with shoddy materials and cheap labor. That's ok however because they're only meant to house green Bloogs (The stupidest and most animalistic of the Bloog races.) who are just a bunch of parasites living off of the state. There had been recent calls for desegregation which would see higher quality accommodation for all, but after Keen blasted the budding green rights movement back to the stone age that looks unlikely.

XkyRauh wrote:Eh, for all I know it was just confirmation bias. You're the one who can flip thru the code and reveal the truth. ;) Is there a subroutine for the Fleex involving Keen holding still?
I never even thought to look. I do know however that the Nospike were designed to knock each other cold if they charged into each other.

Posted: Sun Jan 05, 2014 0:08
by XkyRauh
Levellass wrote:I do know however that the Nospike were designed to knock each other cold if they charged into each other.
There was never an opportunity for that to occur in the game, was there?

Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2014 3:22
by Levellass
I do not think so at all, but it's there in the collision code, lots of action checks looking out for other Nospikes.

Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2014 5:49
by chrissifniotis
XkyRauh wrote:
Levellass wrote:I do know however that the Nospike were designed to knock each other cold if they charged into each other.
There was never an opportunity for that to occur in the game, was there?
Okay, this is based on little more than an at least ten year old memory, but I do in fact remember seeing two Nospikes colliding and stunning each other, watching my brother own Keen in the heyday, but I completely forgot the level.

Posted: Mon Jan 06, 2014 13:06
by Grimson
I thought the tar in Keen 4 was oil. For me, the Isle of Tar was also rather spooky when I got to the point where the background changes to heavy tar sludge. That place at the bottom of the level was the worst.

Pyramid of the Forbidden was the casual Hand Pyramid or Forbidden Pyramid. Emerald City was a group of 3 cacti.

Image I still see a giant with an inflated belly lying down on his back. That piece on the top is his face.

As a kid, before I got my hands on Keen 6, I had only seen the previews in Keen 5. I thought the Bloogdome was a horrible new creature. I couldn't wait to try K6. How disappointed I was when it turned out to be just a level :(

Posted: Tue Jan 07, 2014 5:47
by Levellass
chrissifniotis wrote:
XkyRauh wrote:
Levellass wrote:I do know however that the Nospike were designed to knock each other cold if they charged into each other.
There was never an opportunity for that to occur in the game, was there?
Okay, this is based on little more than an at least ten year old memory, but I do in fact remember seeing two Nospikes colliding and stunning each other, watching my brother own Keen in the heyday, but I completely forgot the level.
From tweaking levels I can confirm this happens, but for some reason it's not just when they charge into each other, it seems slightly random.

Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2014 5:13
by Bubbatom
BOUMP!!

I saw this thread ages ago and planned on retelling my own accounts, but I was pretty held up.

When I was a kid the only Keen game we had on our old Windows 3.x was Keen 4, which I am very thankful for, by far the best Keen.
I began watching others play Keen when I was four years old and began playing for myself when I was five. Because of my age I had a very long list of misconceptions, half of which I probably don't remember.

I played a lot of Keen when I used to catch up with my cousins as well. My cousins where the kind of people who would make up stuff for sh*ts and giggles. So they injected a large pile of misconceptions into my head, that they either believed themselves, or said just to annoy me later when I tried these things out.

So here's my list;

1. I remember thinking that the Well of Wishes was a lot bigger, and the higher in the level the player went the more the background tiles would change. I can remember thinking and can almost remember actually seeing my cousin playing through the Well of Wishes with the Crystallus background tiles.

Because of this vivid picture in my head, I made a level dedicated to this memory for The Eight Accumulators, but the camera played up and so it was deleted.


2. I could never wrap my head around the story of Keen 4, mainly due to how Keen flies to the Oracle on Gnosticus IV and then flies to the Shadowlands. What I found hard about this was how there was that image of the BWB flying through space after he had visited the Oracle. So, I believed Keen went to the Oracle, which was on Earth. Adding to this was how the "Council" Members had been captured, I thought this was the Keen's home city council. :crazy


3. I could never grasp the depth on the Crystallus map icon. It always appeared to me as if the back section was above the entrance.


4. My brother, cousins and I always referred to the Pyramid of the Forbidden as the 'hand pyramid' and like many didn't discover the entrance to it until we searched it up on the internet years later.
Because of the fact that there was an inaccessible level from the world map this lead me to believe that there were more levels past the boundaries of the world map.


5. Much of the Pyramid of Moons was odd to me. The fact that there were two gem doors for one gem didn't add up, as well as the fact that the switch that activated that tiny bridge for no apparent reason. I always thought that these features allowed access to many of the secret areas in the level, as I had never managed to get to them myself. I never suspected the inchworms as being the way to the Pyramid of the Forbidden.


6. Like Gridlock, the Cave of Descendants always intrigued me. When I first started playing Keen, I was absolutely horrified of this level as well as the Chasm of Chills as they both had "flipping rocks" as I used to call them. I used to have nightmares about "flipping rocks" and can recall one very vividly, in which the rocks were multicolored and I couldn't turn off the computer, or leave the room where it was.
Once I got over all of this, I loved to explore the levels secret areas and as Gridlock said, I also always thought I was missing some of them.


7. Wormouths were impossible to kill when approached. To get around this I used to sit under the ledge where the first wormouth was and just jump up and shoot along the platform, hoping that the wormouth would stick it's tiny head up. This is still something I like to do today!


8. Berkeloids have mustaches! They do! I still can't how those two white things are eyes! And I also only recently worked out that the Blue Bird has pupils. I always saw it's eyes in the way the Berkeloids eyes are meant to be seen, without pupils!

Some of my shared misconceptions;

-The dart shooter being a snorkel

-The spear being a shovel

-The perilous pit not being a pit

-Trying to access the Pyramid of the Forbidden through gaps in trees and mountains

Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2014 16:07
by VikingBoyBilly
Woah, woah, woah. Are you telling me that Gnosticus IV and the Shadowlands are two different planets? :eek

Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2014 16:27
by Roobar
That's a big misconception, however I'm pretty sure Shadowlands is just a small part of the planet Gnosticus IV. But I'm not sure as to why Tom decided to call it Shadowlands though.

Posted: Sat Mar 29, 2014 21:53
by MoffD
wiivn wrote:That's a big misconception, however I'm pretty sure Shadowlands is just a small part of the planet Gnosticus IV. But I'm not sure as to why Tom decided to call it Shadowlands though.
Highlands, Lowlands, Shadowlands...

Oh you'll take the high road and I'll take the shadow.... nevermind