Keen 1 mod: Mars Kingdoms

This is where you can post your Commander Keen related stories, artwork, or other stuff that is related to Commander Keen but otherwise doesn't belong in another forum.
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thehackercat
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Keen 1 mod: Mars Kingdoms

Post by thehackercat »

Hi y'all.

I'm working on becoming a modder, and I've decided to do a Keen 1 mod first. After all, what better way to start than with the first episode?

However, I'm not that good at modifying tilesets, and I've never been good at story-writing. I need some people to help me out here!

I guess I should give you an outline of what I want the story to be.
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thehackercat
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Post by thehackercat »

Ahh.. I've never been one for long first posts.
...Although this is kind of cheating.

This episode takes place between Keen 3 and Keen Dreams. (Which took place after Keen 3, I presume, hence the reference in the ASCII story to a Vorticon Hyperpistol.)

Keen travels back to Mars to spread some galactic justice, when he notices that a group of Gargs are terrorizing a baby Yorp. As his little buddy Spot is a Yorp, he feels righteously angry, (:x) and attacks the nearest Garg. The rest of the group stop pummeling the Yorp and turn their attention to Keen instead. They rush at our hero with malice in their eyes. The next thing Keen knows, he's locked in a dungeon of sorts.

Keen sees a guard come into his cell. It is a (insert creature name here), a Vorticon replacement in the game. After a brief silence, Keen pulls off his helmet and knocks him cold. Taking a key from the guard, Keen finds his hyperpistol and pogo stick just outside the door. Now the fun begins... OVERTHROWING THE GARG REGIME!

But a few questions bounce around in his 314-IQ mind:

Who the heck ARE the (insert creature name here)s?
Why are they on Mars?
Do they work with the Gargs?
WHERE IS SPOT?!?!?!?!?!

Yes, our favorite little Yorp is missing. Keen must find him and figure out just what the heck these (insert creature name here)s are doing with him!

Take complete artistic liberty with the above, story-gifted Keeners.

*cough* LEVELLASS *cough* *cough* :p
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DaVince
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Post by DaVince »

Could have edited your first post, but eh.
Keen travels back to Mars to spread some galactic justice, when he notices that a group of Gargs are terrorizing a baby Yorp. As his little buddy Spot is a Yorp, he feels righteously angry, () and attacks the nearest Garg. The rest of the group stop pummeling the Yorp and turn their attention to Keen instead. They rush at our hero with malice in their eyes. The next thing Keen knows, he's locked in a dungeon of sorts.
The concept is good, but there's something wrong here, mainly the fact that you're assuming the Gargs are intelligent beings.

So you'd have to expand here and say the Gargs actually did get some more intelligence by having this yet-unannounced group/race of creatures manipulate them, and maybe work as slaves or somesuch.
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Deltamatic
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Post by Deltamatic »

After defeating his archrival Mortimer McMire, Billy Blaze returned home and thought wistfully that space was safe one again. But as he was about to find out, it never was in the first place.
He found things missing. First it was only candy and toys. But then some philosophy books were lost, Billy's pogo stick was nowhere to be found--and as if that wasn't enough, Spot vanished! Spot, Billy's rambunctious little Yorp, gone forever?
"NO," he declared as he grit his teeth and threw the back door open. "I'm going to find whoever did this and give them some large helpings of INTERGALACTIC JUSTICE!" So he took up a vintage Vorticon HyperPistol, pulled on his big brother's football helmet, and transformed into...
COMMANDER KEEN - Defender of Earth!
While lifting off in his Bean-with-Bacon Megarocket, Keen contemplated the recent events. Candy, toys, philosophy books, his pogo, and Spot all being stolen. The only thing on that list the Martians didn't normally swipe was Martian itself. It wasn't very long before the megarocket's mighty ion engine thrust Keen into a familiar red landscape.
Some toothy-grinned, hulking Gargs were on a hill laughing as they pushed a confused Yorp around. "Hey!" Keen shouted. "You guys stop doing that!"
One by one, the Gargs turned and faced the earthling. Keen was uneasy beneath their blank stares. "Uh, it's good that you stopped, I guess." Then they all charged him.
The next thing he knew, Commander Keen was in a slimy dungeon cell. A three-legged robot lazily jangled some keys just out of his reach. "Hey, what sort of robot are you? Did the Gargs make a new type?" Keen asked.
"Old." Its voice was grating and metallic. "Very old. We were the pride of all Mars, but science marched on and before we knew it we were outdated. For more than a hundred years, we've been stuck hauling garbage and interviewing politicians. But now, since the Vorticons blew up the Gargs' armies, we've finally been let back into--"
Keen bashed it upside the head with his helmet, nabbed the keys, got out of his cell and faced the Martian wilderness. He'd want his pogo stick, wherever they'd put it. And somewhere out there, somewhere in those bare mountains and empty deserts, there was Spot.

Edit in response to DaVince: Why can't Gargs be intelligent? After all, they built UFOs and have been coming to Earth for our toys for some time, according to the Keen 1 story.
Last edited by Deltamatic on Tue Nov 03, 2009 1:57, edited 2 times in total.
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DaVince
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Post by DaVince »

Really? Huh, didn't know that. I always recalled them as "dumb" for some reason (the "GAAAAARGG!" from the statue and their overall dumb behaviour doesn't exactly help).
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thehackercat
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Post by thehackercat »

Deltamatic wrote:For more than a hundred years, we've been stuck hauling garbage and interviewing politicians.
Wow.. I LOL'd at that.

Delta.. you never fail to amaze me. That was quite the story there.
I think that idea for the robot character was pretty nifty. Maybe it was the robots who brought the toys back to Mars, flew around in UFOs, and all that jazz?

Although I've always thought the Gargs were intelligent, having an Emperor and such. (Although as the Election of 2008 showed, having a leader does not mean a society as a whole is very intelligent.) [/conservatism]
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Deltamatic
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Post by Deltamatic »

thehackercat wrote:Maybe it was the robots who brought the toys back to Mars, flew around in UFOs, and all that jazz?
Maybe so. The story didn't say it was Gargs specifically, just Martians. So it could've been anything from Yorps to tank robots who took the toys. But Yorps are animal-like from what we know of Spot, and I don't see the purpose of programming religious feeling into robots (Martians stole toys because earth toys have religious significance to them). So Gargs are our best bet.
I based the very old, three-legged mothballed military robots on H. G. Wells's The War of the Worlds by the way. I was thinking of how in the book they had heat rays, but Keen 1 Vorticons don't have any ranged weapons. Though they could be patched to, I guess. And the tank bots could still be special with the always-shoots-at-Keen patch.
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thehackercat
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Post by thehackercat »

Do you mind if I shamelessly copy your story up there word for word and stick it in the "story" part of the game? You'd get credit. Also for your graphic contribution earlier.

I ought to merge all my Mars Kingdoms stuff into one thread.

I vote we call ourselves Ego Software.
(Maybe we could get Perigee to help us publish :) )

Also.. I'm going to post some of the sprites for the Vorticon replacement.
Man oh man I wish the engine would support multiple collision rectangles for multiple frames of a sprite. I have so many ideas!!! :crazy

EDIT: Maybe I could patch Keen to not have ammo for a few levels, then be presented with his Hyperpistol (a ship part), which I would patch into giving him 10 shots. The tricky part would be eliminating the "out of ammo" click and keep him from using the shooting frame.
Last edited by thehackercat on Mon Nov 02, 2009 3:25, edited 1 time in total.
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TerminILL
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Post by TerminILL »

I'm thinking it does. The collision box is handled separately in every frame of a sprite. You can use it to phase through walls if you know how. It's pretty awesome.

EDIT: There's a patch for the out-of-ammo click.
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Post by Deltamatic »

thehackercat wrote:Do you mind if I shamelessly copy your story up there word for word and stick it in the "story" part of the game?
Go right ahead, I'd love seeing my story in an actual mod. :)
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Post by DoomJedi »

Hi :) Back to the forums after a long break.

Hei - I've posted here long time ago my new pickup/treasure art...if you need something fresh for your mod - you can use them :)

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Post by Commander Spleen »

I rather like those, DoomJedi. If they don't get used here, they could possibly fit in with the Keen Community Mod.

thehackercat, ripping graphics from other mods is an acceptable means of creating a tileset for your own. Though some look down on it, it gets the job done and leaves you free to take care of areas of the mod of which you feel more capable.

But honestly, any new graphics are enjoyable to see, even if you may not consider them great. Some very enjoyable mods contain graphics that are far from perfect, but that imperfection has a strong merit all of its own. Some of Ceilick's early work falls into this category, and he is now one of the most productive and respected modders in this community.
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Post by DoomJedi »

Commander Spleen wrote:I rather like those, DoomJedi. If they don't get used here, they could possibly fit in with the Keen Community Mod.
Wow...another Keen forum....how many are there?

Sure you can use them :) I posted them here a few years ago on some Keen forum....wait - I am registered in "Keen:Modding" forum as "doomjedi" from June 2007...cool...it's probably where I posted my art then, but people forgot...and I thought this forum lost it....I just posted it on different Keen forum :) That's it :)

I can make more art for you :) I'm one of the more known sprite Artists in both Wolf3D and Doom modding communities...also a member of Skulltag dev .team :)

What more are do you need?

What is this "community mod" anyway? :)
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Post by Deltamatic »

DoomJedi wrote:Wow...another Keen forum....how many are there?
Three. PCKF, K:M, and the German Keen forum.
DoomJedi wrote:What is this "community mod" anyway? :)
It's a project that's never really picked up, supposed to be done by everybody who's anybody at Keen:Modding. It has some great ideas, if you dig around in its threads for them. A recent sputter of activity could mean that it's actually gaining momentum *cough*unlikely*cough*.
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Post by DoomJedi »

Thank you :)

Here is the update of the spritesheet:

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