Public Commander Keen Forum

Its a sequel to my mod 'The Ruin of Roib' and i roughly finished it. theres probly a few dings and things in it but its basically there. i hope this link works:

https://app.box.com/s/81zuv00djxaasbuj07qe

its very different to my Roib mod stylistically. its got a magical theme to it. i sent it to our lord and saviour Levellass first but im impatient and want you people to have a look at it too. i spent way more time making it than i thought i would im really tired of working on it.

anyways, playtest away!

FYI: if you noclip through levels on the map it might screw up things in the game in general, cause i use a lot of the game's level counters for other things aswell. Also, might be a good idea to check out the F1 section cause i changed a number of fundamental things with the game. also my F1 section looks cool

thanks anyways.

Phenomenal!

Woah! Well done, Bernie! Another tremendous effort! I know how strenuous, tedious, and exhausting keening is. Words are not enough. I wish you could shake your hand. Congratulations! I wasn't expecting this mod for another 3 months! How fast you work! And what gorgeous things you create! Snapitap! And just look at that patch file! Wowee! You really hit it out of the ball park again, Bernie.
http://youtu.be/2eizQxv2GqY
(More words of praise in the description box)
Edit: For anything who no like 'box' here's a dropbox link:
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/773 ... timate.zip
I must say, however, that box site is quite good.)

Just some quick thoughts after playing a couple levels (going to bed but will look into this more):

• The capital E in text is messed up something fierce.
  Menu's cool, but sometimes the text disappears entirely (colored black?). Not that I'd forget what any of the options are anyway...
  Any chance I can disable the auto-debug mode? I use a slightly different key setup (z/c/v instead of Ctrl/Alt/Space) which I can't use here without causing game over: I don't mind switching to the classic buttons but it'd be more convenient is all.
  Music's awesome for this atmosphere. And, for that matter, the graphics provide a great atmosphere! Sometimes it's hard to tell exactly where Keen can stand, but the aesthetics alone are remarkable. I take it this is an obvious homage to Ultima Underworld (music also stems from that series if I'm hearing correctly).
  Loving the wall destruction! It's a neat idea and you can do a ton with it (as shown in Cave of Secrets).
  Is it possible to make chests activate with the up-arrow key instead of just walking over them? Or is it intentional to sometimes make it hard to avoid using keys?
  Those black, red-eyed enemies are really annoying because they don't seem to be aware of Keen's presence, so you can't even manipulate them somewhere.
  Can you do stuff with potions immediately or is it a skill you gain (or maybe people you talk to)? I found a "gun recipe" but didn't know how to make use of it.
  I completely failed in Cave of Illusions. Maybe there's an invisible door or something but I honestly have no idea where to progress. (Perhaps there's a potion recipe to see through illusions, wouldn't be surprised.)
  Underwater movement is a little awkward, but mostly it's hard to control going into and leaving from the water. I'd make sure there's ample space to move between mediums (the green gem in The Understream would benefit from this); if it's possible to let Keen just jump out of the water with an Up+Jump command, that'd be beneficial as well.
  Game crashes when saving/loading while Keen's standing on one of those giant gears in The Understream. Loading causes a smaller version of the level entrance box to show up, then the game hangs (and sometimes crashes DOSBox).

I haven't played Ruin of Roib yet but I sure as heck want to. Nice work thus far!

So everyone's playtesting this?

I mean... wow. This could take weeks to digest. And so soon after I cam across SWAG too.

Your previous mod left me Keen-depressed for months. Just when I was recovering some from my latest month-long bout and about to work on my mods some, here's this...

Yes, it's once again so ridiculously advanced, phenomenal, inventive, I'm made sick by how garging great work it is. And I've only played the first level...

This is not fair!

Unfortunately, if you collect keys (when you press enter, it says gems) and save and then load, the keys are lost.

hey thanks troublesomekeen for putting it into a dropbox link. i couldn't get the thing to upload to dropbox :/

Unfortunately, if you collect keys (when you press enter, it says gems) and save and then load, the keys are lost.

ah crap, i have an idea what that is. ill check it out, thanks

actually ill deal with fixing it up a little later, im kinda sick of working on it for now. but by all means leave any issues here and ill check it out eventually. and thanks capnclever for that list of stuff to fix.

Awesome! I'm playing it right now... This is very impressive.

I've noticed a couple of weird things that haven't been mentioned yet, though.

In the Cave of Secrets, the first time through, I couldn't break open the crate no matter what I did. After reading wiivn's comment, I decided to die and try doing it without saving/loading beforehand. That time, it broke open. Not sure if it was related to saving/loading or not.

In the Great Seal, kneeling before the door kills Keen... Or is this intentional?

Seriously, who gave this guy the source code?

This tile is passable in The Understream, though it doesn't seem to cause problems: http://oi60.tinypic.com/2yyyxjr.jpg

Also, in The Understream, on the platform to the far right of the silver gem holder, I found that Keen kept crouching for a split second when I pushed the up button. So I fiddled around until he walked through an invisible door in the blue background, immediately exiting (and winning) the level. I was just trying to avoid the fish to get back across and place the silver gem...

Both the Blue Hat Gnome who opens the bridge to the west on the map and the bridge itself frequently disappear during exploration, though the area of water over which the bridge is supposed to cross is still passable.

I'm getting creamed pretty badly in the base and the crystal level, so I thought that I'd go ahead and post these things while I take a break from the game and get back to doing, uh, the stuff that I'm actually supposed to be doing right now.

Oh yeah, CapnClever - with regards to the controls setup, in case there's not a good fix for it or, otherwise, just in the meantime, you could move the controls up to a/s/d instead. I tend to use both a/s/d and z/x/c interchangeably and am also more fond of that sort of setup (as opposed to Ctrl/Alt/Space). I have no idea how I played these games with Ctrl/Alt/Space back in the day. I suppose it's because I didn't know anything else at the time.

Well, I presume you're using a laptop. But if you are using a regular keyboard and not a laptop, then Alt + Ctrl are pretty decent and do the job. However, you need to use Ins for fire and use the numeric pad for movement. That way it's perfect.

Great mod


How are the potions supposed to work?

Looks impressive yet again Bernie! I'll give it a go after finals

wiivn wrote:Well, I presume you're using a laptop. But if you are using a regular keyboard and not a laptop, then Alt + Ctrl are pretty decent and do the job. However, you need to use Ins for fire and use the numeric pad for movement. That way it's perfect.

Woah... why would you assume that?

I mean, I am using a laptop. But I have a mouse and keyboard plugged into it because it's on top of my desk and out of reach (and touchpads are unwieldy). I don't have a traditional PC right now.

My problem with Ctrl and Alt is that they're just weirdly big for the task, the spacing between them feels awkward, and using letter keys feels more natural and offers more options, at least for me. I'm looking at my keyboard and the placement of both insert keys seem oddly out of reach - are you using the insert/0 combo key on the numpad, and using your thumb for it? And using 2/4/6/8 for directional buttons? If so, that's totally funky... But I guess that this is why good computer games offer control customization, so everybody can find what's comfortable for them...

Back on topic, I also am not quite sure that I understand how to use the potions.