Public Commander Keen Forum

Commander Keen in "The Adventure Begins"

Episode Zero: Printed to Pluto


And at last it's done! Download now: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/4975825/Keen0.zip

Good Szemixperience (so far) Exactly how we love it

Good stuff:

Art - love the new palette, the art, brick texture, treasure sprites, color theme consistency and proper recolorings and recoloring ideas, including difference between background and foreground.

Love smart reuses of Keen art into something....else, something that gives it a whole new meaning and connection with the story.

"Less Good" stuff:

1. Art. Too many art reuses and recolorings to create a new unique experience without feeling like you play recolored Vorticon trilogy. Again , a bit lazy...you sure make more mods with this approach, and it's great as we love to play your mods. But the price is for each such mod not to feel like...a new mod...a new world...just recolored mix of other games. It loses it's...modding charm.
Especially it's visible in World Map level entrance tiles.
World map is a bit too blocky.

2. Story/spelling/mistypes. Story has not only spelling mistakes - but is written....sorry for lack of other word - like written by a child. It doesn't flow, doesn't show good english phrasing....

Side notes:
1. Pluto is not a planet. And is not visited by astronauts.
2. How Keen cannot know upfront he crushed on Pluto? Is the flying blindly/randomly?

Okay let's see:

You always come with this "too many recolour" subterfuge, which you say like my Keen modding is full of with ONLY recolours. Moreover, the story is very good, even if it has mistakes. And it's like a child has written it? I have to disagree.

And you critize the worldmap's shape as well, which I think is very good. Why? Have you seen non-blocky (so circle) worldmap or what? C'mon!

Moreover you say "recolored mix of other games"? (Uhuh, do you when.)
To let you know (almost) everybody uses recolours from other games except those, who has big talent to make completely own tiles for game mods.

And now sorry for saying this, but you critize little things like
"How Keen cannot know upfront he crushed on Pluto? Is the flying blindly/randomly?".
Isn't it nevermind? Story is story, the essential things are in the story, but why he cannot know upfront, that's not important, so I don't know why you critize it so much!
"1. Pluto is not a planet. And is not visited by astronauts. "

I know it's not a planet. Well, it's in favour of the game story. But wait: why don't you realize it's a game only!


Overall: instead of critizing little things try to focus on the game itself. We make mistake, we make "recolours", etc., but that doesn't mean the game mod is bad

Sorry if I came too harsh...I didn't mean to.
I actually like you, your mods and your modding style.
You do more with less. And it allows you to make many mods.

I like your love for Keen.

Jeez Szemi, calm down. DoomJedi is giving you good examples of what to improve, to make your mod better, and you just want to ditch his advice with such harsh reply? I know it might not feel nice to receive criticism for what you've just completed, but at least DoomJedi puts it very politely and constructively. And he never said the mod is bad, that's something you interpreted yourself. In fact I think he showed quite a bit of appreciation at the very beginning of his post:

DoomJedi wrote:Good Szemixperience (so far) Exactly how we love it

And not at least to let you know do you know how long had I been working on this mod? Since the very beginning of May and I finished it in June!

szemi wrote:And not at least to let you know do you know how long had I been working on this mod? Since the very beginning of May and I finished it in June!

1 month. That's a new record in keen mod development hell, I tell you what.

Seriously, szemi, do you know that finishing the meat of a mod in just 1 month is a godsend? You could hold of releasing it for just a little bit of time to give room for fine tweaking and tuning so you don't have to release subsequent versions 1.1 and 1.2 (at least, not right away).

My big wolf3D projects take something like 3-4 years to develop.
I can only envy your pace

Patience and dedication are things that need to be learned to create amazing things. I'm amazed that you managed to do this in just a month. Let's look at the time frames for other mods:

Battle of the Brains (by Ceilick with a few others): 3 years.
Keen -5 (by me): 1 1/2 years, and it's not all that great.
Abiathar (also by me): 4 months, but it's not a mod, and doesn't really fit. Self promotion FTW!
A New Dope: 2 years?
OrbKeen: 8 years now?! Or is it more? And it's not even out yet!

Point is, creating one masterpiece takes a long time - one month is nothing.

Everything in the Keen's Night at the Improv pack supposedly took less than 24 hours each. (but let's get real. Cheaters, you know who you are )

Don't forget the Botafloria dev hell - 3-4 years I think and not even halfway there yet

Quality over quantity at any time!

Hey Szemi, I think you did a pretty good job with this mod. The fact that you patched the enemy behavior, creating new types of game play makes it stand out from most mods in a very positive way in my opinion. Also there is quit a bit of orginial artwork that is pretty good. Yes some ghraphics are from the original but who cares. We aren't trying to fool anyone that this isn't a keen game. I finished the mod and all the levels and overal I liked them. You created new types of challenges for the player never seen before in keen modding. I do have some comments for improvement. Try to keep your levels to the point. There were to many dead ends or places with just points. Also its nice that you cant stomp the yorps for a change but don't place them in corridors were the only choice you have is to lure them or shoot them. Also i agree with DoomJedi that the story has some pretty bad flaws. Keen can fly a space ship but he doesn't know were he is? The theme of keen being on an ice planet. Or pluto I gues, does work overal tough. Also i disagree with mars being right next to earth at the ending. All of that doesn't really matter that much tough to the enjoyment of playing so whatever. Good job.

Captainkeen wrote:Also i agree with DoomJedi that the story has some pretty bad flaws. Keen can fly a space ship but he doesn't know were he is? The theme of keen being on an ice planet. Or pluto I gues, does work overal tough. Also i disagree with mars being right next to earth at the ending.

1. Don't critize the smallest things in the game. Thanks. (And the story gives itself, read it and you will get what the plot is! Keen is flying in the space, but in the meantime his rocket starting to get frozen, that's why he falls down to an ice planet, which is Pluto as Keen's computer wrist showed! Okay? So like I said: QUIT BOTHERING THIS ANYMORE!)
And Pluto is a planet, but only in favour of the story. (Anyway I know Pluto isn't a planet.)
2. It's because it's a prequel happening before Keen 1, so Mars is right next to the earth. You know: it's called CONTINUATION, just like the Vorticon Mothership in Keen 1.
3. I disagree with you and DoomJedi.


Not to hurt you, but these kinda critiques start to get on my nerves.
Everything is in the story. If you didn't understand, I can't take about that.

1. I think bothering the smallest things in a game/game mod kinda annoying after a while.
2. Sorry, it's not dumb. And I posted this in this forum as I promised Keen 0 last year, just couldn't make at that time.
3. Sad enough. In my opinion this is the way where the story has sense. Without that you wouldn't know where how many km.
4. Amen.