Commander Genius Version v0.3.1 Testing Release

All discussion about the Commander Genius project (a Keen interpreter + more).
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Levellass
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Post by Levellass »

Trouble? What's wrong?
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Post by gerstrong »

Don't worry, nothing about the development.

Those problems are just based on some personal situations.
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Post by gerstrong »

Well,

today we release RC2. Thanks to the people who helped us reporting at the trac system.

Let's see, what you find now...
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Post by Flaose »

I have a few comments, but I'll wait until today's release has been uploaded before making them (in case things have changed).
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Post by gerstrong »

It's uploaded.

You can find it here:

http://clonekeenplus.sourceforge.net/download.html

Thanks for testing :-)
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Post by lemm »

It screws up when I select graphics from the menu. Scanlines aren't properly arranged or something.

Tiles have nice shading now :)
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Post by gerstrong »

@Lemm: In this case please send us your log file, the cgenius.cfg file and tell us which system (Windows, Linux, Mac, other) you use so we can reproduce the error and fix it.

You can also use our Trac@sourceforge for reporting bugs and uploading files. This way everybody from our team can test and fix it.

Thank you!
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Post by Flaose »

Ok, after many hours of play, these are my results. All using CG 0.3.1.0 on Windows (7).

Each group is listed generally, and then specific things are listed in order of the games that they apply to.

Because I lack a better term, “shadowâ€￾ refers to the animation that plays when picking up an item such as a key.


Bugs (these should be fixed before full release)
-Loading an empty save-game slot crashes the game

-Choosing “The Menuâ€￾ from the help menu on the title screen crashes the game

-Entering level06.ck1 (the second blue ice shrine) crashes the game

-Starting CG without game files crashes the game (I know it’s mentioned in the readme, but an error message would be nice).

-Readme.txt has a messed up format in notepad for Windows. The other txt files open properly though...

-Going into the graphics configuration menu when CG is windowed causes the top half of the screen to be vertically bisected and repeats the left-hand side of the screen twice. Hard to explain, easy to experience.

-Changing audio format (bitrate) while sound is playing causes severe audio glitches

-The key “shadowsâ€￾ are mixed up. Picking up the yellow key shows the blue key’s shadow and vice-versa, and picking up the red key shows the green key’s shadow, and vice-versa.

-Also, the border of the blue key’s shadow is different from the rest, instead of a two-pixel wide yellow border it has a one-pixel wide yellow border enveloped by a one-pixel wide white border.

-The yellow, red, and green key shadows in Keen 3 have a transparency effect whereas in Keens 1 and 2 the keys white in place of this transparency. The transparency effect is superior and probably intended for all keys (which is why I listed this as a bug).

-It’s possible to make keen “moon-walkâ€￾ on the world maps. An easy way to do this is by walking down+left (he’ll be facing to the left) and quickly switching to down+right (he’ll be walking right but still facing left). The originals avoided this problem by facing Keen up whenever any combination of the up key was pressed and facing him down whenever any combination of the down key was pressed.

-There are no player-sprites for the other players in Multiplayer. I’m sure this is already known though as it’s a WIP...

-The top two shards of destroyed ice from the ice-maker act strange. Hang around the Vorticon’s section of the Ice Palace to see what I mean.

-When pushed off a moving platform by a block, Keen hangs in the air instead of falling, Wile E. Coyote style. He only falls after moving, however jumping will cause him to jump up, as if standing on a block. The same is true when standing on the Mangling Machine’s arms as they are destroyed.

-The blue moving platforms in Keen 2 are “slipperyâ€￾. They maintain your momentum in a very strange way; play Weaponry B to see what I mean.

-The Ankh “shadowâ€￾ shows a two-stemmed ankh, the invincibility bubble appears one tile lower than it should, doesn’t follow Keen, and doesn’t disappear when time runs out.

-Getting an Ankh causes an enemy to “attachâ€￾ itself to Keen. It’s hard to explain what I mean, but see for example Cape Canavorta, where a Meep attaches himself to you after getting the ankh.

-Messie can’t be ridden! Also, I’ve seen her get stuck near the bushes at the top-left of the map.

-Waterfall masking is sporadic. Keen’s head sometimes “peeksâ€￾ between tiles. These, tiles would be good candidates for transparency. (Fort Vorticon is a good place to see this problem.)

-I’ve twice had a Vortininja survive 4 shots. It appears to happen if the fourth shot hits him either right before or right after he begins jumping. The death sound plays and the first frame of the death animation plays, but the next frame he is back in his “idleâ€￾ animation. The next shot kills him for good. This is a hard bug to reproduce on command.

-Though it was a bug in the original Keen 3, the candy bars should be made to be worth 100 points, and the burgers 500 points (see the rationale here: http://cc314.shikadi.net/encyclopedia/e ... es-k3.html)


Differences between Originals and CG (not necessarily bugs, but should probably be fixed to maintain fidelity to the original games)
-Keen jumps 1 pixel higher in CG than in original

-Keen pogos a full head higher in CG than in original

-Keen does not “bounce backâ€￾ as fast on his pogo when he hits a solid tile above him as such

-Somewhat related, some notes on the pogo: Period of pogo jumps (without holding down jump) with different max. heights. With unlimited height (roof 4 tiles or more above Keen): Orig. 1.105 seconds/jump CG: 1.120 seconds/jump. Max height with head-hit (3 tiles above Keen): Orig. 0.860 s/j CG: 0.845 s/j. 2 tiles above Keen: Orig. 0.615 s/j GC: 0.645 s/j. 1 tile above Keen (the smallest corridor he can walk through, so really 1/2 a tile above his head): Orig. 0.405 s/j CG: 0.495 s/j.
Though these differences seem insignificant, they do change the feel of the jumping game, especially for roofs 1 or 2 tiles above his head.

-God mode continues from level-to-level (instead of having to reset after starting a level) however, the ability to walk through map walls is eliminated after completing a level (very strange and frustrating when trying to quickly walk across the map testing levels)

-When in God Mode, touching yorps, Vorticon youth, Vorticon women, and meeps kills them. Touching however, doesn’t. The opposite is true in the originals.

-Also in God Mode, lasers pass through you, pushing obstacles (like jack balls) don’t push you, and Vorticon youth don’t knock you out (these are welcome changes, though)

-The screen cuts instead of fading from the Apogee/id splash screen to the title screen (having it cross-fade, much as it does from the title screen to world map, would be best).

-Keen walks in front of doors instead of behind them

-Vorticon Commander dies in front of grey block instead of behind it.

-The Yorp is knocked out for only 1 second in CG, compared to 5 seconds in the original

-Gargs only “seekâ€￾ when he is in line with them, but do seeking animation every time they have to turn around. In original they seek Keen randomly and will turn around (when forced to) without doing the seeking animation.

-The Keen 1 tank robot never “seeksâ€￾ Keen. In original it seeks Keen after every shot

-The Vorticon Youth aren’t quite as fast as in the original and don’t jump nearly as high. (In the original games, they generally jump twice as high as in CG, but sometimes they jump three times and even four times as high!

-When hit by a Youth in the originals, it is rare for Keen to be rocketed into the air, as opposed to CG. Also, in the originals, Keen cannot control himself after being hit, however in CG Keen can move and slide around up until about a second after landing.

-Both Vorticon Elites and Vorticon Women are able to shoot units of the same type. In the originals their shots would pass through enemies of the same type. This leads to some funny situations in CG where places that are supposed to be difficult (such as the Subway in New Vortiville, and any of the Tantalus Ray levels) are made quite easy due to “friendly fireâ€￾ killing all the enemies but one.

-Because you asked in the changelog, here’s a fairly exacting look at the Vortininjas:
Their idle animation is about 50% faster than original however their movement speed is at least 50% slower. The movement speed in “Hardâ€￾ difficulty is about right, though in this case it’s a little TOO fast. Their high jumps should go twice as far forward as they do now. In the original their jumps had a nice parabolic arc. In CG their forward motion ends abruptly about two-thirds of the way into the arc.

-Shots go through one-way barriers in Keen 3. Originally they stopped
when hitting them.

-The shots from shooting tiles (like the guns or lights) interact with each other in CG. This makes the beginning of level12.ck3, for example, much easier.

-Messie moves slower on the world map than originally.

-The paparazzi don’t take pictures at the end.


Personal Suggestions (you can ignore this if you want, I suppose. But I think they're important)
-There should be independent volume controls for sounds and music; I find the music often drowns out the sound effects.

-When starting a new game, the difficulty level should default as Normal, not Easy.

-After saving and loading a game, while playing, the dialog box should disappear, instead of forcing you to hit the ESC key twice to back out of menus.

-I feel that you have to move too far to the left or right of the screen for it to start scrolling. It leaves too much of a “claustrophobicâ€￾ feeling because of the lack of ability to see in front of you. Currently the screen starts scrolling when Keen is three-quarters of the way towards the edge of the screen and “centersâ€￾ itself when he stops with keen at five-eighths of the way towards the edge of the screen. Having the screen start scrolling when Keen is five-eighths of the way towards its edge and having it center itself with him in the center would alleviate this problem.

-In any yes/no menu, the game should respond to keypress ‘y’ and keypress ‘n’ as well.

-It would be nice if the Help/Info menu was available from the Main Menu (though Help wasn’t in the original game, the story and credits sections were).

-Machine gun fire should default to “offâ€￾

-A very minor gripe (as these things are easily replaceable) but I’m not a fan of using Keen 4-6 sound effects in CG. The Wolfenstein sound effects are alright though. I feel like redoing the original sound effects in higher quality would be best.


However, with all that being said, this project is still amazing! It's the closest I've seen to a proper replication of the Keens 1-3 engine. Keep up the good work!

I've also reposted these things to the sourceforge trac.
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Post by tulip »

Wow, thank you Flaose, this is the most detailed review I've seen so far, I couldn't have put it better. Some of your bugs have already been reported and are worked on.
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Post by TerminILL »

The readme.txt issue is because Notepad is retarded, and the readme.txt file was likely written on a Linux system.
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Post by gerstrong »

As I don't like Windows I compile and write everything on Linux. Also part of our team. Nevertheless, we will fix those and the reports of floase will also receive some of my comments.

Thank you very much for reporting. It will take more time now for the release and maybe another RC, but you know, it's getting better every time... :-)
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Post by pizza2004 »

Well, I'll change the smooth scrolling stuff, and I'm not certain how to make it default to Normal, but I'll try.

@Flaose: We have had independent volume controls as a planned feature for a very long time, but have had many more important details in CG to worry about. Given the fact they are so widely desired however, perhaps we should add these before adding Galaxy support. As far as the Help menu goes, I designed it that way to make it function more like Keens 4-6, so that it is newer, but still familiar. You'll notice I structured the menu as close to Keens 4-6 as I could.

Once all his bugs are fixed, then we release 0.3.1.0, then we work on his differences list and any new bugs people report, and release that as 0.3.1.1, then we can look and fix any more things that come up as we implement Galaxy support and move into CG v0.4! How does this sound to everyone?
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Post by pizza2004 »

Okay, in my newest submit, I fixed the scroll, the normal, and the save/load.

As far as your Personal Suggestions list goes, machine gun fire SHOULD already default to off, if it doesn't then that is a bug, or you changed it, because it doesn't change back by itself. The sound effects are entirely up to you, you can use whatever you want, if you don't like our hqp, make your own.

I might look into the y/n options, but not any time really soon. Other than that, we just need the volume sliders, and something your actually missed. We need to add the little try again or exit to map dialog that was in Keens 4-6 into these ones, which might be a tiny bit harder than thought, but we should get all this stuff in the list before Commander Genius v.04 gets released. That way, they will match each other much better than they do in the original DOS version.

And, when we get support for Keens 4-6 implemented, or maybe later on when we have it virtually completed in all of its features, we might start a project to use CG to bring the original trilogy into the Keens 4-6 graphics and gameplay, so they all match and flow properly, as well as bringing Dreams up to par with the rest.
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Post by Flaose »

@pizza

I've double checked it. Machine gun fire is definately defaulting to "on" when CG is cleanly installed, so I guess it's a bug.
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Post by pizza2004 »

deleting it then downloading it isn't a clean install. You have to delete all of the configuration files. So, I'll look at it, but I don't think it is a problem. And I fixed several of the other things in your list as well, and I'll try to create a fix for the candybars and burgers in Keen 3 sometime soon, which became a little of a debate in a different topic.
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