Public Commander Keen Forum

NY - many thanks for your comments. I'll look into all the bugs and level glitches in due time.

Thanks, as well, for your patience and understanding. Originally I had aimed to just release the material in some organised fashion (e.g., Wiki). This fast turned into an interactive experience, which then turned into a full on game.

Ignoring level glitches and gameplay bugs, the level DESIGN issues are obviously what contributes most to someone enjoying the game. Unfortunately, they weren't tweaked nearly as well as they could be. Partially, because it was considered that making levels was "easy" (at least technically) compared with programming an engine. With a good editor, it's easy to make any level, but VERY hard to make a good level!

So, as before - the offer is there, for anyone who would like to improve Isis, to try creating some custom maps (info on how to do this is included in the release). Anyone who is really serious would get the original maps to modify.

It's great to see this released finally... I remember when this game originally started development and seemed like the best thing ever. The controls are pretty close to the original games, although there are a few things I dislike:
1. I'm not sure if this was mentioned yet, but ledges are pretty hard to grab. I sometimes have to jump many times before Keen finally grabs a ledge. Especially if I slide into the ledge from the bottom (that is, I hit the ledge before I reach the highest point of Keen's jump). This makes some parts of the game much more frustrating than need be.
2. The impossible pogo trick seems to be possible here, but much harder than in the original games. Probably it's just a matter of practice. (or maybe it's just my shifty Shift key...)

Anyway, I'm only on level 2 at present. Loving the atmosphere, colour palette and the music. The levels are interesting and varied, but feel like they're almost too big sometimes for the screen resolution. Not in the sense of actual level size, but in the sense that a lot of jumps are to platforms that are on the edge of the screen or only visible if you look up/down. No blind leaps so far, but it's pushing it close.

I think that some of the tiles look like they don't have proper edges. The wall/earth tiles in the jungle, for example, there is no specific tile for the right/left/bottom edge of a wall (of course, if the levels are going to be changed, that's the last thing you'd want to put in, because it would be quite a hassle to add special tiles in for wall edges and then change them later...).

! this is taking forever!

Must be very big.

I have done all 9 levels

Hi all.

I'm trying to get 100% on each level. Now the first level was easy enough but already I'm stuck on level 2. There is a spider that I cannot kill. He paces back and forth between a wall and a rock, and - because I can't jump over him and shoot down - there seems to be no way to shoot him. (I tried a few shots to clear the rock but that doesn't work)

Also on level 3 Mountain - somebody mentioned previously that Keen will stop grabbing onto ledges after a while. This will happen when you try to grab a ledge with one of those yellow guys sucking you in. For some reason Keen loses the grab ability, meaning you'll miss all the points. Speaking of which, I'm having trouble getting that last chocolate yorp!!! Damn!

And ammo...
I think the 1st level can be beaten without killing yourself... just. You'll need to collect a lot of ammo and the die so you've got a little extra. The 2nd level I couldn't find enough harpoon shots to kill every critter so into the spikes I must jump.

Are their any videos or walkthroughs for Isis II?

This is a great game that's sucked me in like a big-mouthed yellow blob!!

Has anyone encountered the enemies:

Leafy
Urchin
Floppy
Other radioactive fish
Cyborg lemming
Caterpillar
Giant dragonfly
Snail
Froog warrior????????

Also that statue with the red gem third eye in level 1... nothing important right?

Ok I just realised you CAN jump and then shoot down (but not with the basic weapon.) Still missing a candy or two from level 2.... hmmm.....

BTW this game is rad. I've already completed the 9 levels and was shattered there weren't more. So now trying for all the goodies and secrets.

Hello everyone
I decided to do some videos of this game since nobody did it before. I'm at level 4 so far. Here's the playlist:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=P ... RIDCNkUxnl

That's a good idea! I'd like to see those levels again.

I've finally finished my gameplay and here's what I think for each level:

Jungle
Easy. It doesn't require a lot of time if you don't want to find all the items. A very nice first level!

Jungle Nights
Quite easy. It requires some time to win it because it's very large, but I liked it

Mountain
Easy. Same thing as level 2: it's large but nice

Cave
Not so hard. My only issue was the secret area above the lava. I didn't know how to escape from it

Minefield
Quite easy. You have to skip mines if you don't want to lose

Artillery Division
Quite hard. I hated the part at the start of this video because it was difficult for me: https://youtu.be/19ZVjAO2JGw

Hangar
An easier level than this?

Central Command
From the name you can think it will be so hard but it's easy

Dungeon
Okay, I don't like the fact that you lose 5/10 of life when you start the level, but I liked it

Anyway, I loved this game. Realistic backgrounds, incredible foreground graphics and beautiful tracks! Hope the other levels will be finished

Thanks DarkAle for documenting these levels on YouTube.

I thought it might be worthwhile to upload what I had on this project to GitHub, so here it is:
https://github.com/isonian314/commander ... is-iia-1.1

You'll fine the source code, and all the game assets. So you can edit graphics, edit levels, or even try and run/improve the engine.

Hopefully this is useful to some!

ckGeoff2 wrote: ↑Thu Oct 28, 2021 4:11 I thought it might be worthwhile to upload what I had on this project to GitHub, so here it is:
https://github.com/isonian314/commander ... is-iia-1.1

You'll fine the source code, and all the game assets. So you can edit graphics, edit levels, or even try and run/improve the engine.

Hopefully this is useful to some!

wow!
this just came out of the blue! what a nice surprise. thanks so much ckGeoff for sharing the resources and code with the community. that's super awesome.
I just took a quick look and discovered quite some interesting sprite sets like this one over here:


I think I'm gonna dive even deeper into the material.

Nisaba wrote: ↑Thu Oct 28, 2021 14:58

ckGeoff2 wrote: ↑Thu Oct 28, 2021 4:11 I thought it might be worthwhile to upload what I had on this project to GitHub, so here it is:
https://github.com/isonian314/commander ... is-iia-1.1

You'll fine the source code, and all the game assets. So you can edit graphics, edit levels, or even try and run/improve the engine.

Hopefully this is useful to some!

wow!
this just came out of the blue! what a nice surprise. thanks so much ckGeoff for sharing the resources and code with the community. that's super awesome.
I just took a quick look and discovered quite some interesting sprite sets like this one over here:


I think I'm gonna dive even deeper into the material.

me too
also, @ckGeoff it was a pleasure

DarkAle, you might particularly be interested in the /resources/maps - contains exported maps of the full levels, both with/without the ground information, so you can see all the hidden passages, enemy placement and items.

Last night, with a lot of enthusiasm, I saw most of the files and I tried the HR-32, the Pultezarp and various enemies not present in the nine levels.

Btw are you going to complete this game?