Ah ha! I'm not forgetting my job! I think I've found something.
Last thing I noticed was that in the second level, when you try to pick up the ammo to the very right that's hidden behind the foreground tiles, there's a platform edge next to it. Climbing up that platform makes Keen exit the level because it's too close to the level edge.
Thanks for catching this. I actually designed that entire underground area for Murky Marsh about a week ago to beef up the demo a little bit, so I guess I didn't test it as thoroughly.
It's nice to see my black frog enemy made the cut, but looking back at it, I'm not entirely content with its design. It doesn't look nearly as intimidating as the other enemies. Maybe I should've added some claws and made the arms more meaty. I wonder if there's any other enemies left I can do.
I know Ceilick did some small changes to the sprite, but I'm always open to improvements. I do like the quirky look of the frog, but maybe it could be more intimidating since it does kill Keen.
Men, I so wish to play this demo, but also I want to not spoil anything and play the whole thing. What should I do, what should i doo... Tough decision...
Well, this is your choice, but let me say this. This demo contains only 2 of the game's 21 levels, and it only shows off some of the swamp level stuff. I designed this demo to spoil as little as possible, so you won't be seeing any of the secretive stuff in the later levels.
But, I have one critism that some wouldn't critise and that is the platforms above the second level. They're just floating. You'll find that all of the keen galaxy games (but not Vorticons) that have platforms high above the main level either have thrusters of some sort attached, or they'll have a piece of wall in the background layer holding them up.
Yeah, I know it's a little weird having platforms floating up there. If I want to keep the secret stuff up there though, I'm not sure what else I could do (there's some secret platforms to the left you may not have found). Plus, when you look at the original Keens 4-6, you'll notice plenty of stuff that seems a little out of place. Even though these swamp levels are going for a more realistic feel, I'm not sure if it's a big enough deal to change.
There should probably be more ammo, at least on the lower difficulties. I always had to conserve ammo. I (accidentally) got around this in the second level by picking up the ammo pack underground, taking the 1up and dying.
This is good to know. Balancing ammo is Keen is incredibly difficult, and I had assumed there was enough. Any details you can give me about where it would help to have more ammo would help me decide where to add more.
Some of your dirt tile patterns don't match. I don't know if you're going to fix this as the tiles could be placeholders, just letting you know.
This is unfortunately a result of using the Keen 4 pyramid style platform set as the basis for this swamp one. If it wasn't so much work now, I might consider entirely changing what the blue tile patterns look like. But since things are so far along, I'd rather keep it. I did the best I could to match up the tiles, but it's not perfect everywhere. If you point out any places that look really bad, I can try to change them.
Thanks for the feedback so far! I'm guessing no one has found the super secret located in level 1 yet
