It's been a while...

[WrathofThea]

About 20 years ago, I was a productive member of the Keen community. Bloogology being the most notable example, as well as fielding questions about the game play. I left after a hard drive crash ate my files, and then Diablo 2/school ate my life.

Lately, I've been keeping myself busy by putting my creative efforts into writing science fiction novels. It's great fun, especially when it's about sentient AIs. I plan on competing in NaNoWriMo again to help get the next installment out. Science was my first love, and Sci-Fi the second.

It was just the other day that I was thinking of Commander Keen and contemplating buying episodes 1-5 on Steam. I'm floored that there is still such a strong following for these games. I even did some mental tests to see if I still remembered SGA as I had it memorized all those years ago. The answer is some, but not all. Oh well.

Anyhow, I'll be around.

[Keening_Product]

Hey, welcome back! What prompted you to start thinking of the game again?

[Roobar]

It would be either Grandy02 or the news about a new commander keen reboot

Anyway welcome. Good news is, after 20 years there is so much for you to catch on... Its like you've time traveled. how could you missed all that.

[Grandy02]

Hi Thea! Thanks for accepting the invitation, welcome back.

It would be either Grandy02 [...]

How could you know...? Well, I asked Thea whether anything of Bloogology 314 still exists (besides the splash page image). I didn't even have Internet then, but I read various positive comments about it, there was a lot of creative stuff according to them. Apparently, it was popular among Keeners around 1999, even Tom Hall sent the link to Joe Siegler back in the day.
So I thought that I could just ask the site's creator even though it was unlikely (and compared to ChargingMoose, it was easy to find her). While Bloogology remains unavailable, it's cool that my mails contributed to Thea's reawakened interest in Keen.

[namida]

Oh wow, I first saw this topic and didn't even make the connection to the former admin Thea. (Not that I really knew her much back then beyond "she exists" either, I first came to the site during the time she still sorta was around but not very active.)

Always cool to see members from so far back still interested in these kind of communities.

[Clara2020]

the most amazing topic in this community, welcome back for the next 20 years !

[Snortimer]

Welcome back, Thea! Perhaps you remember me from back in the day. It sure is fun that a lot of the old-timers seem to return here every so often. We had Ilsoap and Geoff returns a while back, among others.
I hope this board stays alive so it can keep happening.

If you're in the mood to try out some new/old Keen gaming, I'd trawl the "new releases" forum and try the mods that have the most pages of replies. My favourites from the last few years have been "Atroxian Realm" and "The Ruin of Roib", and also "Keen 8: Dead in the Desert" from some years earlier.

What sort of sci-fi have you written; is any of it online? Myself, I sometimes draw webcomics , among other things.

[NY00123]

I know that I'm probably just another indivudal who's never communicated with you.

Regardless, great to see that you've made a short visit! Especially since it's been 20 years.

I also haven't been around recently, but this is mostly since I generally tend to not post in forums a lot, nd I usually post only if I have a good reason to. Also general changes of habits, meaning they're again less, well, Keenish, I guess.

[WrathofThea]

Sorry for my late reply, but thank you all for your kind words, and a few of the names even sound familiar. I have a couple of old schoolers on Facebook, and I'm not exactly hard to find. I had no idea about a Keen reboot, now I'm going to spend my afternoon reading about it.

Hi Snortimer, your name definitely rings a bell. Hanging onto one of the coolest games ever for 20 years, that's an accomplishment! I'll give your webcomics a read.

As for Bloogology, I even got the chance to ICQ chat with Tom Hall and John Romero. It made my teenage heart so excited and happy. I regret taking the page down now, but I was in a very bad place at the time and didn't think I was doing a good job with it.

With regards to my sci-fi, I write a series called "The ABACUS Protocol." It delves into the question of sentient artificial intelligence. It also deals with learning to trust and coming of age, with the lead human overcoming an insane boss, and the AI fighting for his continued existence. Right now, I'm in NaNoWriMo and working on something a little different, which has the working title "Worshipers of the Black Hole." I'm making a concerted effort to get back into writing daily, as I haven't been well and got out of the habit. I love creating and entertaining people, so writing is a logical career for me.

Here's a link to book 1 of The ABACUS Protocol for those interested (currently working on book 3): https://www.amazon.com/ABACUS-Protocol- ... 00OBQS22C/.