CloneKeenPlus v0.3 Future plans. You decide it

[gerstrong]

Clonekeen Plus v0.2 with music support has nice features now and runs very well even with mods.

As some of you know, I want to support Keen 4-6 and Dreams. This still is a goal bit far away, because first 1-3 must run nearly like the original. I also have to check, how Keen 4-6 and Dreams work. First things first!

Now here you can vote, what you would like to see most in the interpreter.

I'm going to adapt the priorities to it and begin with the most voted.

However all things in the poll, will be implemented.

As I want to get version 0.3 to a very matured state, it must perfectly run all the 3 episodes. Then the other episodes will be implemented.

If you have other wishes, you can also tell me here. I'm talking about features and not bugs. The physical problems will always be solved by time. Please don't write about them here.

If you find bugs, please report to my email address.

[ckguy]

Other - Better physics. I'm sorry, I know you've put a tremendous amount of work into this, but I find it to be almost unplayable because the 'feel' is just too different from the original games. I think you should focus on getting the gameplay to feel more like the original Keens before adding fancy features.

[tulip]

The storyboard would be nice, especially for further mod uses, also I think it will be rather easy to implement, as well as the highscores. This might be a good next step in range.

[gerstrong]

Physics is something I don't in this engine either. I didn't this part of the code.

However I'm still looking how I can change it.

I know enough about physics to implement it correctly, but I'm not sure if it is accurate to the original game.

I would implement acceleration, speed and position, like Newton laws and apply them. It seems, that in the original version it works that way.

examples: When Keen is jumping, being in the air, it is very difficult to change the direction. Falling speed increases by the time you are falling.

I'm going to look for that. I want to restore the original gameplay feeling, even if the game becomes more difficult.

[tulip]

I don't think the original physics will make the game harder. CKP doesn't feel easier than the original, just different. I guess the changing of directions while in the air is the most obvious difference to the original physics.

[gerstrong]

Time will do wonderful things!

[Genius314]

Suggestions:

-Possibility for new level filetypes? With stuff like integrated storylines?
-Automatic game detection (detect all subfolders).
-Remove case-sensitivity in Linux (if possible... Idk. There's gotta be some way around it, right?)
-Better physics (of course).
-New filetypes for the original games, which allow difficulty (more like 4-6... some bad guys only on normal and hard modes)?
-Paddle-War (and other games, maybe?)!!

[XkyRauh]

Other: Accurate Pogo/jump feel. Refine, refine, refine!! :)

[Commander Spleen]

I'll put my name down for better physics too.

Additionally, some groundwork to allow patches to be ported into this engine would be nice. That way the more complicated mods can be made to run as intended. Already many should be doable, such as 'no pogo at start' and all the menu patches. But sprite patches, for example, would require a lot of variables to be made user-accessible.

[gerstrong]

Haha, all the world want better physics. It is not that easy, because I don't know exactly how the original performs that. I can only run the original game and guess what happens, or I can use real physics, but I think it may distort the game too much!

Maybe someone has an idea.

So far I've implemented storyboard in version 0.2.1.

Ahh, and the physics of this game has been polished, too. It should be more accurate to the original game now.

Maybe when it is out, someone can test this and tell me exactly in which parts it has to be changed.

@Commander Spleen: You told me about inertia in the other topic. I've changed that behaviour. Tell me how it is now. I would be very grateful!

When released, you will see something like this

[gerstrong]

@Spleen: Do you mean patches, which modify the exe files of the original games and let for example choose with how much shots you need to kill a vorticon?

How does this patch look like?

[Commander Spleen]

Yes, those patches. They look like raw machine code, but of course it's only their effect that's relevant when implementing them in CloneKeenPlus.

I would imagine the best way would be to use a basic scripting language that describes the patches, so that we can write a new one up for each mod and make them available from some central source. Putting in the menu might be useful, if only for development and experimentation, but a script file is a must as far as I see.

[KeenRush]

Yeah, Spleen's solution is pretty much the only way. Otherwise you'd have to just emulate the original binaries. The patches can (and some do) contain any x86 instructions. They are not only changing properties. Some patches overwrite some other code to create some new features, for example. This is pretty much the biggest problem when making something that can run user-made mods.

[gerstrong]

@Commander Spleen + KeenRush : I like that idea very much. Why don't you write a script of what you imagine. Not to complex, because we start that feature, and I will see what we can do in CKP.

[gerstrong]

CloneKeenPlus Update

There is another version of CloneKeenPlus. This time with better physics, I hope even for the fans!

Version 0.2.1

get it!