Public Commander Keen Forum

NetKeen is a reverse-engineering project of Keen:Galaxy that I've been working on for the last few months. I started messing around by reversing the Keen 5 smooth scrolling engine just to see if I could get something compilable and the whole thing eventually evolved into a multiplayer arena stunmatch that makes use of the Doom IPX network code. Using the IPX tunneling power of DOSBox, you can stage 2-4 player battles over LAN and even over the internet. It might even run on a 386 hooked up to an IPX network (if indeed such a thing still exists).

I've uploaded a few .zip files. The first contains everything you need to play the game (including a readme that contains the commands - read it first!). The second contains the source for those interested in building the game themselves (you will need to obtain a copy of Borland C++ builder... I used v 5.0, but earlier versions may work too. Version 5.5 will not work).

The extra player sprites (over 300 of them!) and most of the maps were created by Ceilick. He also did lots of bug testing in 4-player games over LAN with his friends. I probably would have left the project as an unfinished demo if he hadn't supplied all of the game data. Big thanks, Ceilick!
The PCKF IRC Channel (Mink, Genius314, CKeen, TerminILL, Spleen, PandoricaShark, Tulip, and others...) helped out by making maps, testing the game and being supportive of its development (the latter for which I am most appreciative ). Thanks to all involved. Also thanks to the Id team for making the source code for Wolf and Doom available.

The game's foundation is built on the code present in the original keen (and Wolf3D) games, so the engine and the game mechanics are near 100% authentic. Most of what I created was just glue and polish to make it playable. I made extensive use of Andy Durdin's Keen 4 reverse engineering project (which was very well-formatted and extremely precise) as well as the modkeen program for importing the data.

There may still be a few issues with the game. First of all, the game is designed for LAN play (it is peer-to-peer, not server-client), and it performs pretty decently (very little to no lag, maybe 5% of the games fail to start for some reason). You CAN play it over the internet using DOSBox IPX tunneling, but the game will probably not be playable for 4 players if they are scattered all over the globe. Three players in two continents might be alright. There was also an issue some time ago where the game would stop all the traffic on a home network; I think that's been sorted out. There might also be other little bugs here and there. If you see them, let me know, and I'll try and sort it out for a later release in a month or so.

Enjoy !

Update (2011-07-04): A few bug fixes. Demos and config not compatible with older versions. YANG works with netkeen.

Update (2011-05-15): 4 more player sprites, a bunch more maps, some extra options. Not compatible with older version.

Download Game

Download Modding Package

First!

This looks pretty cool, I'm looking forward to playing once I figure out this IPX tunneling business and get my mate to play.

Great to see this finally released.
I'll admit I snatched a beta off dropbox, but couldn't get it to work with VBB.

The new player sprites look absolutely fantastic.

Netkeen is an absolute blast to play and it was a privilege to contribute to your project, Lemm. This is possibly the best thing since modkeen

Let the dueling commence!

Hell yeah, glad to see it's finally been released.

For whoever is wondering how the game plays:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WimXqZUWBgo

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_zeKZeHMy8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRf1x2tyyys

When I recorded these however we were still testing earlier versions. The game is much more stable and has more features now.

this is awesome. the only thing i don't like, is how you lose a point when you die. this means, that every time someone kills you, there is a point margin of 2 instead of 1, maybe don't reduce points from deaths?

anyway, this game seems awesome and it plays a little like Gang Garrison 2.



also, why are they flashing sometimes?

EDIT: i can't change the options of how many players. that means i can only fight myself!

When flashing, that means he's probably temporarily invincible (it prevents spawnkilling)

orite, forgot the demos:

Here's Spleen, TerminILL and Mink battling it out: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I-uGUj82CXQ

Ceilick crushing his friends: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bJcFV7jKj5k

lawl, this is epic. is there a cast list?

one way to make this game epic is CTF games in full-length keen levels.

I pretty much give up on trying to set this IPX network garg up, and I bet I'm not the only one. Despite that some of you are geniuses with setting DosBox up for this, not everyone understands this. The Dosbox readme on IPX makes no sense, and none of the commands work. If you really want more people to play, you're going to need to make it more clear how to set this internet stuff up.

This............. made my day!!!!!

Now what we need is areas from Fribulus Xax, the Shadowlands, Krodacia, and Calidune.

Eros wrote:you lose a point when you die.

Unless I am completely mistaken (and as one of the testers for this, I shouldn't be), you only lose points when you get killed by a hazard (spikes, turrets, etc). So you only lose points for being a bad player

oh wait, that was in beta. phew!

now, anyone in canada want a match?

This is indeed an awesome project. The replacement of Keen engine is so accurate. The multiplayer looks exactly what people have been dreaming of. And Ceilick has done amazing sprite work. My only complaint is the difficultness (:dopekeen) of setting up the net game. I didn't get it working when I tried to play with Ceilick. So I'm asking: why not use something more modern for that? I have absolutely no idea about network playing but one'd think there were some modern libraries or layers or whatever that allowed doing multiplayer more easily. Or was the point making this DOS-playable? Anyway, I hope there'll be a more modern version one day so that I might try it too (and perhaps that'd allow more than 4 players at the same time, too?). But as said already, it's cool.

And yeah, capture the flag in Keen multiplayer would be so cool.