Keen 8: Dead in the Desert

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Syllypryde
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Post by Syllypryde »

Ceilick wrote:.........When the update comes around, I'll look into making the end of the boss fight more intuitive (and will try to fix the other bugs you mentioned).........
I liked the boss battle myself. The only thing I thought that one or more monsters could have been added on normal or hard.
I'm not sure how many extra lives there are :o
As far as I can tell here are the extra lives I have found:

Cobrit Pit, The Molten Passage and Stalagmite Peak= 4 extra lives
The Dusty Dunes, Red Rock Mountain, The Boulder, and Devil's Cavern= 3 extra lives
Tumbleworm Alley and Rocky Road= 2 extra lives
The Arid Hills, Cactus Forest, Lava Lake, Hydro Palace, Hydro Corp 1, Hydro Factory, Hydro Corp 2, and Battle for the Ship= none

So that is 28 extra lives available in the game. Of course, you get the lives, commit suicide and play the level again and keep building up extra lives!
.........Also, I really appreciate the rankings of TKoK and DitD in comparison to the real Keen episodes: helps put things in perspective and get a grasp of what I'm doing right and wrong :)
TKOK and DITD are not perfect, but then again, what and who really is?
Syllypryde: I haven't even beat in on hard :o But in theory it should be possible...Good luck! :)
Right now I am stuck on Hydro Corp 2. I hate those spikards! They remind me of bouncing slicestars and I hate those, too!

I also made some progress on TKOK. Mushroom Forest (damn those Brombos!), Monk's House (I missed the secret passage that leads to the 3 strawberry jellos underneath the swim coin because 3 slurples were right on my ass and because I was trying to rush I screwed up and got the swim coin instead of jumping over it and going to the secret passage!)Forest Skies (I swallowed my pride and used the load/save feature. Even then it still took me an hour and a half and dozens of deaths to get by this damn level!), and Slime Temple are now complete on hard. I tried Cliff Hanger, but again, damn those Brombos! It is obvious to me that CH is the replacement for Isle of Fire. I have never beaten IOF on hard. Maybe, just maybe, I can beat CH on hard! So I now have 10 levels complete on hard for TKOK.

Patrick


Patrick
Last edited by Syllypryde on Sat Aug 29, 2009 21:58, edited 1 time in total.
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Genius314
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Post by Genius314 »

I played it on hard the first time through. I wanted to make sure that I got to see everything, without having to play through it more than once.
Of course, I saved very often, but still...
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Post by Levellass »

Question: With saved games and such, do the extra lives (Or the 20'000 points.) serve any purpose at all? If they were absent, would people notice?
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Syllypryde
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Post by Syllypryde »

Levellass wrote:Question: With saved games and such, do the extra lives (Or the 20'000 points.) serve any purpose at all? If they were absent, would people notice?
If people constantly save in-level, then extra lives are completely useless and game overs are nonexistent. For those of us who only save between levels or only save when we quit the game, those extra lives can be quite valuable. I try to play the game without saving until I do not want to play anymore. Then I save the game and close it out.

I have now completed Dead in the Desert on hard.

Score: 5,696,600
17 levels complete
Lives: 15
Ammo: 301
No game overs (I almost had one. I left Hydro Corp 2 with three lives left. I went back to Cobrit Pit to stock back up on lives and lost two of them before I could get to the 4 water pitchers. So on my final life thinking I would make another stupid mistake and lose my final Keen, I did finally get the extra lives and built my lives back up to 12. So I went back to Hydro Corp 2 and after losing 7 of those 12 lives, I finally beat it.)

Now that Dead in the Desert is completed on all 3 difficulties, I will now focus on beating TKOK on hard, Keen 5 on hard and check out that new Smile levelpack.

Patrick
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Genius314
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Post by Genius314 »

Syllypryde wrote:I try to play the game without saving until I do not want to play anymore. Then I save the game and close it out.
Unfortunately, I've acquired a sort of perfectionism while playing any game. I have to get every (possible) point, not lose lives, etc. That's why I save so often.
I'm unable to play Duke Nukem anymore, just because they give you bonuses for not losing health. If I get hit once, I *have* to start the level over again.
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Post by sbartus »

Another important thing connected with those described above is that in any Keen game you keep the points you got from the level where you die. That means, if there is at least one life in a level, you can get it, collect points, die in this level, get life, collect points, die and... increase your points to infinity. In one level!
What do you think about correcting this feature in Keen 9? So that after death you re-enther the level with the same number of points you started with?

The same could be with extra lives, but it makes less sense. They will matter only after you pass the leve.
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Syllypryde
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Post by Syllypryde »

Szymon Bartus wrote:Another important thing connected with those described above is that in any Keen game you keep the points you got from the level where you die. That means, if there is at least one life in a level, you can get it, collect points, die in this level, get life, collect points, die and... increase your points to infinity. In one level!.........
I use that strategy for extra lives and sometimes ammo. Bascially, I will set aside a level or two as storehouse levels. When I get low on lives and/or ammo I go to those levels, get what I need, commit suicide, and then keep repeating the level until I am built back up again. Then I go back to the level that drained me in the first place and try again.
What do you think about correcting this feature in Keen 9? So that after death you re-enther the level with the same number of points you started with?

The same could be with extra lives, but it makes less sense. They will matter only after you pass the level.
I am not sure if that can be done or not. Even if it can, I am not sure Ceilick would be willing to do it.

Patrick
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Post by Commander Spleen »

Szymon wrote:So that after death you re-enther the level with the same number of points you started with?
Yes, this is an idea I've been trying to get figured out in the Vorticons series for a while. It really bothers me that the high scores list in the Keen games really doesn't mean anything except as a representation of how much spare time a player has to go into a level, get a few lives and a heap of points, then die and try again.

My investigation into it so far has not turned up anything complete, but there's a potential solution hopefully in the works that should be adaptable to Keen 4-6.
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Post by Levellass »

I remember spending time in Cosmo by the spawning plant, hours, if I recall. Finally I maxed out the score counter and ended the level. Possibly my proudest achievement.

If I get hit once, I *have* to start the level over again
Patch the executable.
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Post by Fleexy »

Commander Spleen wrote:
Szymon wrote:So that after death you re-enther the level with the same number of points you started with?
Yes, this is an idea I've been trying to get figured out in the Vorticons series for a while. It really bothers me that the high scores list in the Keen games really doesn't mean anything except as a representation of how much spare time a player has to go into a level, get a few lives and a heap of points, then die and try again.

My investigation into it so far has not turned up anything complete, but there's a potential solution hopefully in the works that should be adaptable to Keen 4-6.
So maybe something like in Secret Agent, where you have infinite lives and when you lose your three men for one life, your score is put back to what it was before you entered. :p
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Post by Commander Spleen »

Exactly. Except that it'd still be just one-hit death. Theoretically, a health system is possible, but due to complicated things like using a timer for temporary invulnerability, it's far easier said than done.
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Post by Genius314 »

Commander Spleen wrote:Exactly. Except that it'd still be just one-hit death. Theoretically, a health system is possible, but due to complicated things like using a timer for temporary invulnerability, it's far easier said than done.
I wonder if it'd be easier in Keens 4-6. There's already a timer used, when you exit a door, so maybe that can be used somehow?
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Post by Levellass »

That depends what you mean by 'timer'; most animations are timed, and that is what controls most things, such as entering doors. Adding a health counter may be a bit more difficult, but may be doable by making a 'hurt' animation that after a time goes to a 'dead' one.
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Post by Commander Spleen »

levellass wrote:making a 'hurt' animation that after a time goes to a 'dead' one.
Well, more like a hurt animation that coincides with the subtraction of a unit of health, but instead becomes a dead animation if no health remains. But that might be what you meant.
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Post by Levellass »

The important thing is to get an intermediate animation. For example, my mod has mines, which will kill you if you stand on them long enough (About 4 seconds.) What we could do is set up a variable when Keen is spawned, then get each iteration of the sprite to subtract one from it. This would be the 'health' when health = 0 a new behavior (Death) could be triggered. This is how Robo Red shoots in Keen 5 (Here numshots = 10)
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