Omnispeak Keen Day 2014 Preview

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Omnispeak Keen Day 2014 Preview

Post by Multimania »

Some of you might remember the project Omnispeak I posted here a couple of years ago.

Well thanks to a couple of years of extra development, and heaps of help from NY00123 and lemm, we have a new release for you!

So: what works?

Code: Select all

- You can play through the entire Keen 5 game!
- Paddle War!
- Sound and Music!
What doesn't?

Code: Select all

- The status screen.
- The Terminator scroller.
- The "Star Wars" scroller.
- High Scores.
- Joysticks.
- Mods.
- Some custom-recorded demos will go out of sync.
Windows: http://davidgow.net/stuff/omnispeak-win32-keenday.zip
Windows (64-bit): http://davidgow.net/stuff/omnispeak-win64-keenday.zip
Linux: http://davidgow.net/stuff/omnispeak-lin ... day.tar.gz
Mac OS X (10.9 required): http://davidgow.net/stuff/omnispeak-mac ... day.tar.gz

You'll need a system with OpenGL 2.0 support to run these binaries. Most computers made in the past 5-10 years can do this, but you might need to install drivers.

Hopefully the Keen source code will be released and will help us get you all the Keen goodness you need!

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Keen On!

Edit: Added Mac build (OSX 10.9 Mavericks required) from the amazing flibitijibibo
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Post by troublesomekeen »

Wow. This is really quite something. Works perfectly on my new high-powered gaming laptop specifically bought for Keening (Windows 7, 64-bit).
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Commander Keen in... Canteloupe Quest!
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Post by NY00123 »

It should be noted that this release supports Keen 5, version 1.4 (EGA graphics), as distributed by Apogee Software Ltd. and currently available on Steam.

Any other version may malfunction in any unexpected way.



Thanks should be sent to Multimania (sulix from the README file) for his work in porting this to modern platforms so far, including everything done for the 2012 preview.

Further thanks shall be sent to lemm for his work on NETKEEN which has helped, as well as his recent work on Omnispeak, which has actually encouraged me to do more for this! (Previously I just sent not much more than a couple of small patches.)

Obviously, there is also the hard work of adurdin on Keen 4, which has surely helped revealing a lot of useful information.

More thanks should be sent to the DOSBox team, for the work on an emulator letting us play DOS games at all! Considering Omnispeak, the DOSBox debugger has been useful (even if not used by me *that* often), and Omnispeak is further taking advantage of an OPL emulator from DOSBox (dbopl) for music and sound effects.

Forgive me if I've missed anybody, your contributions have surely been (more than) useful!
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Post by Roobar »

That's awesome!

One thing though. Can it run in full screen mode?
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Post by NY00123 »

Thanks for the support so far!
wiivn wrote:One thing though. Can it run in full screen mode?
Unfortunately, the answer is "no" as of this release. But the window can be resized, at least.
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Post by gerstrong »

Not bad, but the actions do not seems to open any level on the 64-bit Linux version of that app
Having fun developing stuff...
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Post by gerstrong »

Btw. No Source Code?
Having fun developing stuff...
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Post by NY00123 »

gerstrong wrote:Not bad, but the actions do not seems to open any level on the 64-bit Linux version of that app
That's strange, works for me. Wonder if it has anything to do with the version of SDL 2.0 currently in use. Or if renaming any config.ck5 file helps (Omnispeak checks for config.ck5 in a case-insensitive manner).

Apart from the limitations described in the very first post of this thread, some more can be found in the README file from the Keen Day release.
gerstrong wrote:Btw. No Source Code?
Should be found at: https://github.com/sulix/omnispeak
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Post by gerstrong »

Hey yo, you are right.

It seems the original keen sources wont be of interest anymore...

Cool preview version!
Having fun developing stuff...
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Post by ckguy »

This is really neat. It vaults gracefully over the Uncanny Valley of Keen physics simulation. Even in its unpolished state it is super polished. The lack of saving encouraged me to try to play through all of Keen 5 with the lives in Ion Ventilation System and then whatever ones I was able to pick up along the way. On easy, I managed to finish on my first try with only I think 2 lives left (I mainly blame Neutrino Burst Injector + misc stupidity), but my playthrough on normal didn't fare so well and I gave up in the middle of ..... Neutrino Burst Injector.

Anyway, this is great, and any nitpicks I had I've since forgotten about because it was so awesome. Sorry this isn't more eloquent. :)
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Post by Roobar »

Get stuck in PaddleWar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_Zq48P ... e=youtu.be

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the original keens, if you get stuck, after a while the comp will move the ball away. But here, it was infinitely stuck. It was I who decided to move. Also, at the highest speed, it should add a hole in the line where it passes, if you or the comp missed the ball. Here's a video of how this should work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTCW1JH_RVw
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Post by NY00123 »

Hey wiivn,
thanks for trying Omnispeak out! (And same to any other individual who has done the same, of course!)
wiivn wrote:Get stuck in PaddleWar:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_Zq48P ... e=youtu.be

Correct me if I'm wrong, but in the original keens, if you get stuck, after a while the comp will move the ball away. But here, it was infinitely stuck. It was I who decided to move. Also, at the highest speed, it should add a hole in the line where it passes, if you or the comp missed the ball. Here's a video of how this should work:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTCW1JH_RVw
I've just spotted this video (from 2012) in which the ball seems to get stuck for 2 minutes: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=in66UiUYm4E
So the exact conditions for reproducing specific behaviors may be just a bit more complicated than it may initially seem.
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