Public Commander Keen Forum

Happy Keen Day! Here's the first mod I'm releasing to the Keen Community...





This Keen 1 mod started back in 2014 as a levelpack entitled "Back to Mars" and was later changed to star my original character. There were several long hiatuses in production.
In this mod, you play as Commander Cool as he explores Mars trying to retrieve his teddy bears, which were stolen by the Martians.

This is a public beta, and feedback will be much appreciated so I can make this better in the release version.

Download: https://drive.google.com/file/d/18g9l79 ... sp=sharing

congrats! what a neat mod. nice to see fresh ideas
how come you decided to put the pogo in several levels? this is indeed an interesting choice and prevents from ending up in dead ends.


and wow, 2014 till 2019, that's quite some development time. what is it you want to add or update next?

and as always:
happy modding

Nisaba wrote: ↑Sat Mar 14, 2020 21:52 how come you decided to put the pogo in several levels?

Sounds like a tribute to the original Keen1, which likewise had more than one pogo stick.

Here are my thoughts: This mod is really neat! A lot of things done right.

1. Right from the beginning with asking you whether you would like to use two button firing or not (all keen vorticon mods should have this).
2. And I like that you have unlimited lives (I know exactly for which level these two patches were meant for).
3. Gradual difficulty (easier levels at the beginning, harder at the end).
4. The best usage of bridges I've ever seen in a vorticon mod. And you've used these a lot and some in clever ways.
5. The overall design of the levels.

Though, I don't know what's the idea behind so many pogos. Maybe some kind of an award?

That being said, there are 3 really hard levels. And I think you know which levels I'm talking about. The last one I didn't even manage to beat! Dude, you should lower the difficulty of that one. The "late" one is really hard, but neat. Probably the best hint in the game was the colorful city or whatever was. Without it I would've probably missed. I've spend a lot of time trying to beat it, but it's really hard and too long. Too much for my taste. Good challenge though. If Keenrush was here, he would have loved this mod.

I think because back when this was "Back to Mars" you started with a pogo but then when I changed the protagonist the starting pogo was removed and I probably wanted to make sure the player would have a pogo by a certain point.

Nisaba wrote: ↑Sat Mar 14, 2020 21:52 what is it you want to add or update next?

I consider this mostly done, except I want to revise the levels.

@Roobar: What part of the final level were you having trouble with, and what do you suggest I change?

There's the above part, where there are a lot of spikes that needs plenty of precision jumps, just to turn on a bridge. Make that part easier. It wouldn't be that bad, if the rest of the level was easier, but it's not. There are two ice cannon part, which I get it. You have to be precise and act fast. But it's annoying if I make a mistake. But then, there's another ice cannon later. And if you fail that part, you'll have to make it all over again. I don't know. IMO there are too many things you should be extremely careful not to screw. Yeah, it's the last level and it should be challenging, but it's too much at least for me. Maybe if I spend more hours, I'll beat it, but for now I'll leave it because I'm tired of trying.

Nice job, nice to see another Vorticon mod again.

Sorry for the long delay. There's been some internet issues. Anyways, here's the second beta:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1zOrXa9 ... sp=sharing

Changes:

• Added a patch to only save the high scores when the level is completed.
• Adjusted the position of a Garg in Freezetopia.
• Removed a vorticon in Freezetopia.
• Removed ice bars near Cuddles in Freezetopia.
• Added colored tiles under some hazards to make them more visible.
• Added SGA letter tiles to make the blue area in Color City easier and to replace the big SGA letter signs.
• Removed some hazard tiles in the secret level.
• Added a tile in the secret level to help camera scroll.
• Revised the final level so it's (hopefully) a bit easier.
• Renamed "Green City" to "Green Land" and added a red rock in that level. (These were both originally scrapped from an earlier version.)

I may not be able to reply for a while until the issues are resolved.

Really excellent level design, amongst the best yet for Vorticons. It approaches the compexity of the best Galaxy levels but personally I find the Vorticons environment less bewildering. Truly great project. The story is great fun too, very Keenish in its tone!

All I can say though is that I urge you to go the whole hog next time and mod all the graphics, too!