Keen 8: Dead in the Desert

Post by **Ceilick** » Fri Sep 18, 2009 21:27

Thanks, NYOO123

I do plan on using the scorebox in all episodes of my TUIT, just have to get to updating tkok with it.

You're right about the cups of water in the boss level, they should be bottles, i'll be uploading the download with that soon.

Shadow Master · Post by **Shadow Master** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 20:00

Nice! It's really awesome, and it uses the engine of my favorite Keen version! How could I almost miss this, I should visit more often!

The different level areas (above ground, underground and the water areas) are a nice idea, although I'd have wanted to find at least one more enemy in the Hydro Corp/Place/Factory levels. Or maybe it's just that I was playing on Easy and missed some difficulty-specific enemies.

Some minor things I noticed:

In the water area levels, I stumbled twice or more upon areas which were apparently supposed to be accessible only after finding some switch or keygem. However, playing in Easy difficulty means Keen can jump higher with the pogo stick, allowing me to get to those areas using shortcuts. The more specific case I recall now is the highest "level" (no pun intended) in Hydro Palace, where it is possible to jump to a higher ledge from the blue keygem door area, making a certain switch elsewhere in the stage completely unnecessary on Easy.

The smaller cactoids are too cute when stunned. When I shot one for the first time, I couldn't avoid feeling sad for the poor guy. ;( And so I wasted some lives trying to make my way past the desert levels without killing a single cactoid. Of course I failed horribly at that, so I ended up feeling sad for dozens of cute little guys. Same with the bigger cactoids, more or less. I mean, it's not their fault, I'm just unusal prey invading their territory...

Occassionally, I'd get an "Insufficient memory for background music!" message when loading saved games or starting levels (especially the underground levels); this seems to be very random though. I'm using DOSBox 0.73 on 64-bit Linux, playing version "8.2". Since the music is so awesome, I had to reload/quit the game a few times so I could continue playing with music.

The demo for the Cactus Forest level doesn't work properly. Keen ends up killing himself in a very silly manner. Also, the last regular demo is of the High Scores level - memory constraints, or just didn't want to spoil more levels?

The external help file is very nicely done; I had wondered how you were going to deal with that in this mod. However, page 4 of "The Game" section states that switches have red or green marks on them, which is obviously a Keen 4/5-only fact, not for Keen 6/this mod.

In short, great job, guys!

Makes me wanna rescue my mod, or my pending improvements to modkeen, or... aaargh. ;(

NY00123 · Post by **NY00123** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 20:49

Well, I know Ceilick had problems with demo playback.

On a relevant note, I've recently figured out by myself the order of demo files as they're played, which can be confusing.
Here it is (the digit stands for the number # in a file of the form DEMO#.CK6): 0, 1, 4, 2 3
I guess 4 is a special case, being the high-scores table.

Post by **Ceilick** » Mon Sep 21, 2009 21:30

Glad you enjoyed it, Shadowmaster

On areas being easier on easy; it wasn't planned, but i gues it's fitting

hehe, sorry you had to kill so many innocent cactoids

On the music errors, this might be caused by the patched stomper action, i'm not sure. Glad you got it to work though

As previously stated and nyo123 mentions, I had trouble both getting demos recorded and to play back correctly, and eventually i just gave up on them.

Glad you liked the external help file that Mink put together, it was a must have given the stupid lack of ingame help section. Guess we missed that spot about the switch.

Post by **Levellass** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 9:05

A "tiny" bug I've noticed, in the factory levels: Near pink spikes popping up from the floor, you can hear some kind of a sound, although it's quite silent.
It's probably something left over from Keen 6.

*Hem hem* The hammers from the manufacturing level? This is easy enough to patch.

Shadow Master · Post by **Shadow Master** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 22:26

Was it necessary to allow Keen to exit the boss fight level by the left edge? I was playing on Hard, I was close to beating that idiot and I accidentally hit the edge.

Also, the boss tends to get temporarily stuck at the left or right edges when charging at them.

(Nitpicking!

)

Post by **Fleexy** » Thu Sep 24, 2009 22:36

About those purple spikes that come from the ceiling: They don't hurt you if you just stand under them. However they do kill if you jump on them.

And it is possible to get across the floor of spikes without using the platform.

sbartus · Post by **sbartus** » Mon Sep 28, 2009 16:41

I would like to have a look at Keen 8 level maps. Is there any chance they will be available?

Mr. 314 · Post by **Mr. 314** » Tue Sep 29, 2009 22:06

yeah there's this one part whcih i simply can-not-get-to!!! i neeeeeeed the level maps

Post by **tulip** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 9:54

Making levelmaps of Galaxy games is still a problem. There is no satisfactory way to make them yet, except the hard way (Making screenshots while playing and puzzling them together), or with severely reduced details (like Ceilick did with KoK on KeenWiki).

I hope Levellass will extend her wonderful Levelviewer to Galaxy games!

Syllypryde · Post by **Syllypryde** » Wed Sep 30, 2009 11:34

Mr. 314 wrote:yeah there's this one part whcih i simply can-not-get-to!!! i neeeeeeed the level maps

Where is the part you cannot get to? Maybe some of us have found this area.

Post by **Ceilick** » Fri Oct 02, 2009 20:20

Was it necessary to allow Keen to exit the boss fight level by the left edge? I was playing on Hard, I was close to beating that idiot and I accidentally hit the edge.

Heh, yes, I did that incase the player ran out of ammo (even though theres a ton of it in the level).

About those purple spikes that come from the ceiling: They don't hurt you if you just stand under them. However they do kill if you jump on them.

And it is possible to get across the floor of spikes without using the platform

Huh, didn't know that about the ceiling spikes, might be something up with the tileinfo. And i have no idea if that floor of spikes is passible without the elevator; maybe if you're extra tricky with your pogo stick

Regarding level maps, Tulip's correct that we currently don't have a satisfactory way of producing them.

Post by **Levellass** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 10:26

Making levelmaps of Galaxy games is still a problem. There is no satisfactory way to make them yet, except the hard way (Making screenshots while playing and puzzling them together), or with severely reduced details (like Ceilick did with KoK on KeenWiki).

TED5, select an area (Whole map) then graphic map dump. It's saved as a Deluxe Paint file, which can easily be converted to bitmap or other formats. I can get level images easily enough.

I hope Levellass will extend her wonderful Levelviewer to Galaxy games!

Aaah, but how much demand will there be? Once KeenGraph 3.0 is out, I may try this, there'd be a lot of trouble drawing the sprites though!

lemm · Post by **lemm** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 12:09

Hey I was wondering, since the Nospike was the final boss, did you ever consider making him fall down a cliff to do the Wile E Coyote question mark thing, thus stunning him?

Post by **Ceilick** » Sat Oct 03, 2009 18:47

Yes, that had definately been under consideration. The problem was, it would be too easy for the nospike to do that without any action by the player; you could win without doing anything.