Public Commander Keen Forum

Those yellow things really jump out of nowhere on the third(?) level!

As for the bunny:



Mystery solved!

This was a fun little mod. Nothing super revolutionary here, but it had a nice classic Keen feel to it, and it was quite heartfelt. I enjoyed searching for the cameos scattered throughout.

My favorite patching addition was those fast-moving horizontal platforms. Though pretty challenging (I was breaking out the savestates), I enjoyed that dynamic and wish it could have been used more in the mod.

I also enjoyed the hunt for the secret level. It wasn't too hard to find, but I like that you put some thought into hiding it and offering clues. When I played the secret level, I hadn't yet discovered the ice levels in the game, so I thought that the ice area was just unique to that secret level. I suppose that would have been a neat little secret, but it was nice playing some other ice-themed levels. Also, that switch trick at the end of the secret level was pretty clever.

A couple of times I found the enemy placement/level design a little annoying, but overall this was an enjoyable mod to play. I'm glad that, after 8 years, you were finally able to finish it. Congrats on the release

(Should I be vain enough to search for a grid-related cameo here? I don't know if I'm well-enough known to have earned one)

Looks like a very good and fun mod, done very well.
Levels are VERY hard for me...but I'll keep trying.

I love such mods...it's a product of love and good modding taste.

Is ironirdy a pre-evolution of Skarmory?

Gridlock wrote:This was a fun little mod. Nothing super revolutionary here, but it had a nice classic Keen feel to it, and it was quite heartfelt. I enjoyed searching for the cameos scattered throughout.

[...]

A couple of times I found the enemy placement/level design a little annoying, but overall this was an enjoyable mod to play. I'm glad that, after 8 years, you were finally able to finish it. Congrats on the release

Thanks! Could you give one or two examples for the not so good parts of the game? I'm eager to know what I could improve for future levels.

Gridlock wrote:(Should I be vain enough to search for a grid-related cameo here? I don't know if I'm well-enough known to have earned one)

Of course, there a lots of Keeners who would "deserve" one, but I didn't want to overload the mod with cameos, so I had to decide. I hope no one feels left out.

DoomJedi wrote:Looks like a very good and fun mod, done very well.
Levels are VERY hard for me...but I'll keep trying.

I love such mods...it's a product of love and good modding taste.

Thank you, that's really nice to hear (and read)!

VikingBoyBilly wrote:Is ironirdy a pre-evolution of Skarmory?

Yeah, but the item Skarmory needs to hold for an Ironirdy egg is still top secret!

wiivn wrote:There's also something else freezed and something that looks like it's sleeping.

The other freezed thing is a poor Ironirdy and the sleeping fish is just a little eye candy.

Love the Mario reference

A week has passed, it's time to reveal the 18 cameos, plus the other references!

L01: Levellass - bunny from this signature
L02: VikingBoyBilly - Bananasauros
L03: CommanderSpleen - Keen's head from Monky Business
L04: Tulip - avatar
L05: Genius314 - "G:314" on the wall, colouring based on this signature
L06: Flaose - his logo used on CC314
L07: Ilsoap - King Lick from the Shadowlands animated series
L08: Lemm - avatar
L09: Too Much Spare Time - Duke Nukem from this animation
L10: Ceilick - Lavaworm (Ceilick replacement!) from Dead in the Desert
L11: Benvolio - Bunny Basher
L12: XkyRauh - XkyKeen
L13: Levellord - self-portrait from some of her mods + "LL" initials
L13: Andy Durdin - avatar
L14: Malvineous - avatar (from Xargon)
L15: KeenRush - Garg with "KR" can only stand for him
L16: Xtraverse - avatar (snowman from Calvin and Hobbes)
Map: Djaser - tree at the northern map border resembles his Monk Yorps

And then there's also:
- The overall design of Level 2 is a reference to the Super Mario Bros. (NES) overworld levels.
- The secret Level 16 features multiple references: A frozen Dopefish, stone blocks arranged like tetrominoes from Tetris, and the point items above the latter are arranged to fit the sprite of the enemy "Chibibo" from the Game Boy game Super Mario Land.
- Last but not least, the yellow body of the Garg replacement "Rorrefe" is based on the former design of the yellow capsules of the Kinder Surprise Eggs (though it was still used when I made the sprites). In fact, its name is an anagram of Ferrero, the company behind the Kinder Eggs.

Seeing all the possibilities today compared to 2004/05 and your nice comments (again, thank you!), I feel motivated to start a new mod sooner or later.

Wow! Most probably I wound never figure some of these references. For instance, the Bunny Basher. And now I just see and remember Flaose's old logo from that site. That was something completely forgotten. How you come up with that is beyond me. Maybe it has to do with the fact that you were working on this mod for 10 years.

Also, how did I missed that Mario reference !

Btw, if you intend to make another mod, please shorten the time! Lets say 5 years max?

At LAST! A fun Vorticons Mod!!!!!!!

wiivn wrote:Btw, if you intend to make another mod, please shorten the time! Lets say 5 years max?

Yeah, let's not take say 12 years, only a total dweeb would do that.

wiivn wrote:Wow! Most probably I wound never figure some of these references. For instance, the Bunny Basher. And now I just see and remember Flaose's old logo from that site. That was something completely forgotten. How you come up with that is beyond me. Maybe it has to do with the fact that you were working on this mod for 10 years.

Actually, I thought that shocked Keen (used as his avatar) would be a little too generic to be recognised, so I searched for something else and found that logo (when CC314 had already long been inactive).

wiivn wrote:Btw, if you intend to make another mod, please shorten the time! Lets say 5 years max?

Gosh, NO!!! 2 years, maybe even 3, but that's really enough then! As said, there were various long breaks, including whole years when I did hardly anything for the mod, but nonetheless I always wanted to finish it. I'm really glad that I've finally got rid of the "burden" and can move on to new mods (without breaks that long!), I seriously don't want to "go through" that again.

Levellass wrote:Yeah, let's not take say 12 years, only a total dweeb would do that.

Yeah, Commander Keen Forever!

First Keen mod I've played in years, and it lived up to the hype! Great mods of the 'Garg' and 'Blue Vorticon' enemies from Keen 1, now they're actually in the open and not just rare and guarding something you can leave. Their death mods are good too.

I'm only on level 4 (4 keygen level), but still, I'm impressed. I'm giving up on level 4 for tonight as I keep dying doing something dumb, this time, landing in the fire instead of the cocoa.

But fun, not just chore like or survival like. You can really go for it, or be conservative, whatever you want or need.

Massive kudos Grandy, I really hope to see more from you. What ones have you done before?

@spikey: Thank you, I'm pleased that it appeals to you!

spikey wrote:Massive kudos Grandy, I really hope to see more from you. What ones have you done before?

Well, actually not that much as of now, as seen on my KeenWiki page. I've contributed some graphics and levels to Patchwork Mod II and III (L14 and L09 respectively) and made one level (14) for the Keen 1 competition.
But after reading the many positive comments on my mod, I'm convinced now. I'm 99% sure that I'll start a new mod this year! Lots of ideas are floating in my head...

Yes! It's great to see this finally saw the light of day, I was afraid it would simply vanish somewhere.

I urge everyone to play this mod, it's one of my favourites of all mods, I think it's excellent. The level design is totally my taste, these levels are so well done. Some of them are huge. So check it out. (I haven't played the released version yet, but I doubt it has changed so radically from the one I beta tested that these words wouldn't apply. )