Public Commander Keen Forum

Your pixelling abilities are sick. This game is more beautiful than the EGA edition of Loom, and I am insane with jealousy.

Did you borrow/convert any graphics, or is this all by hand?

all mine, by hand. but ive been doing pixel graphics ever since i was around 8 or so, so i hope i'd become pretty good at it.

Bernie wrote:uhh... are you referring to my mod's level?

An anticipated 'bad level design' yes.


(Oddly in my current mod I could actually do that, maybe I will...)

the level design in 'Ruin of Roib' wasn't that bad though was it? I think i did an okay job. the only real issue is that someone mentioned i made the player go back and forth throughout the level too much which i agree with. I think ive always been better at spectacle with design, but maybe not so great at playability.
then again its hard to judge something you yourself made.

Bernie wrote:the level design in 'Ruin of Roib' wasn't that bad though was it? I think i did an okay job. the only real issue is that someone mentioned i made the player go back and forth throughout the level too much which i agree with. I think ive always been better at spectacle with design, but maybe not so great at playability.
then again its hard to judge something you yourself made.

I don't understand what anyone else is complaining about, I thought the levels were superb.

Bernie wrote:...the only real issue is that someone mentioned i made the player go back and forth throughout the level too much which i agree with. I think ive always been better at spectacle with design, but maybe not so great at playability.

This is pretty accurate, imo, although tedious is probably the nicest word I would use in reference to the level design. I haven't finished the mod for this reason, I quit around the purple forest area because it became such a slog. I'd like to finish though, because the graphics and tile useage really are a thing to behold.

well the reason i did it like that was cause i was afraid the level would be too short otherwise. since you gotta keep that level size as small as you can for saving memory (well i had to, anyway).

i do think you're pretty good at level design Ceilick. Who was the guy who made that 8 Accumulators mod? I liked the level design in that one too.

K9,5 was made by Bubbatom.

Bernie wrote:the only real issue is that someone mentioned i made the player go back and forth throughout the level too much which i agree with.

That was me, eheheh.

I think for the tower, you needed to make about 4 trips looking around for newly unlocked items, while the forest made me get lost several times.

If we look at things like DITD and BOTB, the most "tedious" levels may be Hydro Palace, Defense Tower Surth, and the Krodacian Overlabs, where they made the player travel around in a way that made the levels "twice as large" at maximum.

I can see why level length can be a concern when running low on memory, but trading content for frustration is something that should be avoided.

In the case of Keen 9, and if I'm understanding Bernie correctly, the Ruin of Roib as well, it comes from a mentality of wanting to keep the player in a level for as long as possible to experience all the effort put into it. When constrained by level size, that means they either end up really hard, every step of the way a challenge, or require the player to go over the same areas a number of times.

Obviously instances of difficulty or having to repeat areas aren't always bad and can be fun and rewarding, but as I've come to realize, it just isn't fun when level after level feels like that. Giving the player a break with an easier and/or shorter level may detract from how long a mod is played, how long a player experiences a certain graphic or something else, but I think ultimately it yields a better experience.

Thinking about the official games, I wonder if they'd have had the same appeal if every level was as hard as the Pyramid of the Forbidden, or Sand Yego. Those are great levels, but without Keen 4's easier levels to compliment them, I don't think the game as a whole would be as appreciated.

All this just to say, please include acouple easier or more straightforward levels in the next episode

I would like to see a mod of this mod with the regular keen instead of this fat guy...

Bah... I like my Galaxy mods to be a "challenge every step of the way".
You have to remember, there's in-level saving in Galaxy, so even a KeenRush-style level would be possible.

I do have a tendency to space out sometimes during gaming, so I'm not a big fan of mazes and backpedaling when it comes to sidescrollers.

Personally, I PREFER small levels with big challenges. The bigger a level, the more easy and linear it should be... That's my 2 cents.

Sometimes a super-easy level here and there is a nice breath of fresh air, so I think Ceilick may be on to something there.

it comes from a mentality of wanting to keep the player in a level for as long as possible to experience all the effort put into it

for me the reason why i did it was cause I just didn't want the game to be too short. theres only 15 regular levels in the mod :/

Personally, I PREFER small levels with big challenges.

yeah me too but again, i don't want a mod to feel too short.
the Keen Dreams game i believe fits this description, the levels are pretty damn short. but then i finished that episode in one sitting.

for me the reason why i did it was cause I just didn't want the game to be too short. theres only 15 regular levels in the mod :/

And yet we can patch 24 levels in. More with a few simple patch tricks. I intend to have a 48 level mod, though I could go as high as 99 (The game's actual hard level limit.)

well i started making that mod without having any patching experience, and i wanted to have several mini levels in it. meh, i think 15 is good enough.

so to have more levels you just have to move code that comes after the level names or something? i havent looked into that.