Keen Dreams 2: Another Helping of Veggies

[szemi]

Well, ladies and gentlemen! After strict 5 months I have finished my Keen Dreams "mod".
I present you now:

Keen Dreams 2: Another Helping of Veggies





What is this?

Keen Dreams 2 is an unofficial sequel and an enhanced successor to Keen Dreams with somewhat closer resemblance to Keen 4
an unofficial precursor of Keen 4 containing new veggies, new fruits, new levels (now +1 secret unlockable bonus level), and many other never-seen features. And of course not to forget about cameos either. The game and the conception of KDR2 started in July anyway.

Now the key features you should know about:

Keen can do everything in both directions, except the crouching due to sparing space for the unused jump up frames
Some of Keen's sprites have been made Keen 4-6ish style
All the 16 levels are used (every level have been tested by me)
Secret unlockable bonus level
Keen can read papers and talk
Long help menu (like in the registered Keen Dreams)
New veggies, new fruits
Mysterious Kumquat Chasm has become level in this game
Calling the status window make noise
Choosing a new game also makes sound (exiting sound)
New second boss: Queen Bustling Tuberina, wife of King Boobus
Window that mentions you cannot defeat King Boobus less than 12 bombs has become a general helper message
No Boobus Bomb in the game, only Flower Power that vanishes enemies immediately
Magic Eyeball's counterpart, the Passive Eyeball that gives you only 10K points
Red frame for the GAME OVER window + red background after having Game Over
Green frame for the ending sequence + green background after winning the game
Enhanced, new tiles
Cameos


And such... explore the other things yourself, haha.


Many many thanks for Levellass' epic and stunning patches and efforts and also thanks to myself for finding the unused space that let me have bigger length for the help menu sections. Thanks for Ceilick for letting me use some graphics from Keen Dreams Plus.

And of course thanks to all.


Last, but not least here's the download link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/zentl3cjr9wxh ... 2.zip?dl=0

Demo teaser video: https://youtu.be/ac15UEapQIg



RULES AND NOTES

No criticizing please, I had hard 5 months with this project. If you don't like it, don't play with it.

Everything is written down in the help menu, stop asking how to complete or unlock something as it would just ruin the illusion.

Only constructive criticism allowed.


Golden rule: Enjoy the game!

[Roobar]

I've completed several levels now and I'm actually quite enjoying this mod. By exploring and looking at the design of the levels, it feels like a weird... dream . You know what I mean? But.. there's something cool about the simplicity and the lack of colors (EGA that is). That feels nostalgic to me. The mod is also not too hard, which I like. Dare I say there are some places in the levels that have quite nice level design touches. Sure, the color changes here and there, the texts and the bugs makes it a complete szemi experience. Not gonna question some design choices, but given that you've made this in 5 months, that's an achievement by itself. Overall, your Keen Dreams mods are your best ones to enjoy. So yeah.

[Plasma Captain]

It's always nice to see a new Keen Dreams mod. I've been having fun with this one so far; the changes to the gameplay and the new enemies are interesting. Some of the enemies are now like hazards that you have to destroy; I'm a little surprised I haven't seen something like this in a mod before (and the mushrooms add a neat little puzzle element too). Like Roobar said, it's also good to play a mod that isn't extremely hard. (I think the last Keen mod I played really stomped me into the ground and I still haven't finished it yet...)

I haven't completed it yet, but there are a couple of oddities I noticed:


In Blueberry Hill, I accidentally clipped through the hill right here, without having to unlock the door.


I swear, somebody is going to tell me what I'm doing wrong, and I'm going to feel like a complete moron. But, I can't seem to get back through this narrow passage on the world map, no matter how hard I try...!

I've played through the bottom half of the world (below the bridge, except for that secret strip?), and several of the levels up top, but I'm currently stuck here.

[K1n9_Duk3]

The way I see it, it's pretty much impossible to align yourself correctly so that you can get though the opening. I'd say it's an error in the level design. If the waving tree was removed, you could easily get out of there.

Unfortunately, Keen Dreams doesn't have a noclip cheat. For now, the only way to get past this is to save your game and hex-edit your savegame file to move Keen to a valid position. The best way I see would be to set the four bytes at offset $28 in the savegame to 0. This will force the game to respawn Keen at the starting position on the world map. (If your game was saved on the world map, use W+F10 to warp to level 0 after loading the saved game).

If you don't know how to hex-edit your saved game, grab my patching utility and use the following script to patch your saved game:

Code: Select all

%file SAVEGM0.KDR x
%patch $28 0 0 0 0
%end

You need to modify the first line of the script to use the correct file name of the saved game you want to modify (SAVEGM0.KDR is the first entry in the save menu, SAVEGM7.KDR would be the last) and the correct size of that file (replace the 'x' with the size in bytes).

Copy this code into a text file and save it, then run the patching utility and open the text file that contains the script. Follow the instructions and don't forget to save the patched file at the end.

Note:
Once szemi releases a fixed version, you will still have to warp to the world map if you load a game that was saved on the world map. Otherwise the game will just load the old world map layout from your saved game and you don't get to see the new world map until the game re-loads the level (either because of a level warp or because you entered another level).

[szemi]

@Plasma Captain: The door-clipping problem can be found in the original Keen Dreams as well since in Keen Dreams there is no tile-based door that surely blocks your way without any bugs and can be opened like in Keen 4-6. Since the door is a sprite that you can go through due to the size, the problem can happen, but be prepared that it could also happen in other levels as well.
Moreover, as for the DONE sign problem, don't do that or you will really get stuck as you did. Why? Because you must complete the Fruit Woods level you got stuck around.
The map is divided into two areas, the first 8 levels can be found lower (where you start the game), 8 levels can be found upper since I didn't want to uncover all the enemies at once.

@K1n9_Duk3: I must admit that I very rarely and hardly ever mod Keen Dreams because of how the game is coded and the poor memory. That's why I rather mod Keen Galaxy, but since Levellass had and managed to create several awesome patches like talking and reading that nobody has ever seen, I wanted to grab the opportunity to create this improvement sequel/mod.
Anyway, thanks for mentioning the savegame issue, I'll look into it as soon as I can.

[K1n9_Duk3]

Anyway, thanks for mentioning the savegame issue, I'll look into it as soon as I can.

I think you misunderstood something. There is no savegame issue that you need to look into. I just mentioned the saved games because the way I see it, patching a saved game currently is the only reliable solution to let Plasma Captain continue his playthough.



If you release an updated version of your mod with the waving tree on the left removed entirely, that should prevent the player from getting stuck. Patching the saved game is just a workaround for those who don't want to wait for an update.

But in either case, using the warp cheat to warp to level 0 (or re-loading the world map by entering and exiting a different level) is necessary for those who are stuck behind that gap.

[Plasma Captain]

Thanks for the suggestion, K1n9_Duk3. Strangely, on a silly whim, I tried just using W + F10 to warp to the map (from the map, without altering my save file), and I was no longer trapped. Loading the save, I'm trapped again, but if I warp to the map once more, it seems to correct the problem, and I can pass back and forth through the passage without any qualms. Utterly bizarre.

So I was able to finish the rest of the mod. I did not manage to find a way into that bonus level though, so I'll have to go back in and do some searching.

[szemi]

Okay, I fixed the 'get-in-stuck' problem as Plasma Captain showed on the picture. Hope it now works. Link updated.

[MoffD]

Great Work Szemi! I feel spoiled because of all the updates to the project you were sending me

[szemi]

Hehe.


Anyway, if you find further strange things in the game like glitch, bug or something else, post here.

[Syllypryde]

This was a good mod overall. Just a few petty gripes here and there, just personal preference, but nothing to report for the most part. A lot of good puzzles, definitely a lot better and more constructed than the original Keen Dreams. I consider Ceilick's Keen Dreams Plus the official Keen Dreams. The original was a mess and I found it to be little fun. The only thing I really noticed is in Cantaloupe Mine sometimes the minecart doesn't come to you. For whatever reason if I missed a cart or fell off of it, more times than not it never comes back, making the level impossible and having to intentionally die to start the level over.

I like the new vegetables and the new graphics. Overall a good edition.

[szemi]

The only thing I really noticed is in Cantaloupe Mine sometimes the minecart doesn't come to you. For whatever reason if I missed a cart or fell off of it, more times than not it never comes back, making the level impossible and having to intentionally die to start the level over.

Sometimes you do something so that the game's camera scrolls a little bit up or down to see what is under the level. Then you will be able to see the Cart. Since Keen Dreams has no looking up or down possibility that scrolls the camera up or down like in Keen Galaxy...

[Roobar]

I did not manage to find a way into that bonus level though, so I'll have to go back in and do some searching.

Tuns out the bed is an actual level you need to finish.

[Plasma Captain]

Yep, that was what it turned out to be. I got into the secret stage. It's too bad there's no spoiler tag... Well, I had forgotten "that" was in the original Keen Dreams (kind of interesting when almost everything else is a vegetable, now I'm curious as to why they included it). The bonus level is a cute reference to that.

[szemi]

If we are talking about reference, I put an easter egg in the secret level as well. Also keep in mind you must use the 'jumping down the EXIT sign' bug (which happened in the original Keen Dreams), which has now become useful bug to hide references/easter eggs. Get it?

As for the secret level's character is special as in the previous Keen Dreams it was just a background character while in Keen Dreams 2 it's not only a background character you can jump onto sometimes when it comes out, but also became a real character that serves as a platform-type creature.