Patches aka Who will supply them right now?

szemi · Post by **szemi** » Tue Oct 13, 2015 18:04

Since Levellass still isn't online, who will supply the patches? Because I requested Keen Dreams patch in September, moreover some people still probably need patches as well I think.

(I even sent Levellord a PM on deviantART, she said she will call Levellass, but I haven't received any answer from LLord yet.)

Sorry if I made this topic, but I'm very worried about her and I hope you understand why so much. :/

troublesomekeen · Post by **troublesomekeen** » Tue Oct 13, 2015 18:26

I hope she won't take offense at me worrying more about her patches than her herself.

We have no choice, szemi! This is a red alert! Man the pumps! We're taking on water! Ship's going down!
We'll just have to use the new Atroxian/Vool/Gridlock/Ceilick/Lemm engine. Otherwise, we've got hundreds and hundreds of old patches to choice from, which is what I'm doing for Canteloupe Quest.

szemi · Post by **szemi** » Tue Oct 13, 2015 18:28

I'm worried about either her or her patches. So I'm not ego.

Post by **Ceilick** » Wed Oct 14, 2015 4:54

Levellass has been unreachable before due to various circumstances, I'm sure we'll hear from her as soon as she has time

Regarding patches, it's always been a 'danger' in our modding community that relatively few are masters of the patching craft. Levellass has been an invaluable member in the field not just for her knowledge and ability to patch, but in willingly aiding nearly every modder in that capacity.

If the patch doesn't already exist or isn't easily made, really there's nothing to be done about it. Either wait for LL, hope someone else has the know-how and time to try it, or change your mod. These kind of limiting factors were the guiding forces of early Keen mods.

Post by **Keening_Product** » Wed Oct 14, 2015 10:58

Ceilick wrote:Either wait for LL, hope someone else has the know-how and time to try it, or change your mod.

Or, indeed, be that person and experiment yourself. Figure out what does what and have a play. It wouldn't be easy, but you are familiar with patching through your work with LL and it's the only way to expand the patch-creating community.

szemi · Post by **szemi** » Wed Oct 14, 2015 15:17

Actually, I want a Keen Dreams patch only: disable F1 button. (So if you press it, help menu won't appear.)

EDIT: I've managed to make it in the meantime.

Benvolio · Post by **Benvolio** » Wed Oct 14, 2015 18:42

In the early days, there was also an element of plundering patches from the mods of others. There's quite a large number of patches out there. Many of them were showcased in a particular blockbuster mod but in fact modify a fundamental aspect of the game and, as such, could re-appear in completely novel settings with a spot of creativity!

NY00123 · Post by **NY00123** » Wed Oct 14, 2015 20:38

With an emphasis that unfortunately, I don't think I have a lot of interest in patching various things at the moment:

It is the case, that I hoped to get some patching help for a Bio Menace level pack. As you've probably guessed, there wasn't a lot to offer for me back then, though. So not that long later, I released a snapshot of the pack, codenamed "Snake is back to the city".

However, there were already a few changes. Obviously edits of texts in the EXE (like level names) aren't that difficult, as long as you don't want them to be longer than the originals. Furthermore, based on the patches for Keen 4-6, I could recreate a new table of song assignments, by looking for a guessed sequence of numbers of the songs (using some IMF filenames as a base).

Eventually, I got to patching on my own, while reading the original EXE's content's in ASM form. Some patches were ever written in some kind ASM, before getting compiled to binary with NASM. For things like health points, I think that I looked for sequences of numbers like "8 4 4", representing the initial health count per difficulty (when a game is started). Mentions of a function getting a song assignment as the input were also useful for appropriately setting the secret levels song. One (somewhat) complicated example of getting a patch for this level pack is using the BM1 helicopter's "goplat" behaviors to creature a Keen 5/6 style platform that follows a path made of invisible arrows. It also turns out, as in Keen 5/6, such an arrow can be flipped with a switch! (There are good chances I originally check this with the helicopter, and/or some robotic hazard towards the end of BM3).

The level pack later was released under the name of "Mangle is back from the dead".

Admittedly, I knew to write code beforehand, along with other related things, so this may have a great effect. One thing is sure, which is that patching can take time.

==================

About Keen Dreams, as already hinted before, if nobody comes to work on patching for the mod, then the only viable remaining choice (although not necessarily Levellass' favorite) may be modifying the Keen Dreams sources. There is a lot of information given by the sources even if you still limit yourselves to patching, though.

szemi · Post by **szemi** » Mon Oct 19, 2015 10:54

GOOD NEWS:

Levellord has answered my message on deviantART and said the followings about Levellass:

"Lla has lost her computer, which is sort of all of the computers in the house. She had a cell shot here: dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/39Ã¢â‚¬Â¦

Apparently most of the stuff gave out, like the mouse and the memory cards.

She did say however she really would appreciate it if you could update the Keen community on this, just a topic or something saying she was out due to not being able to afford computer repair."

troublesomekeen · Post by **troublesomekeen** » Mon Oct 19, 2015 20:56

That was good news and a bit of bad news.
If lass can't afford computer repair, I know someone who can...