Keen Is At It Again! - My first Keen 1 mod

[transporthummel]

So, after 30 years of playing Commander Keen and introducing my kids to the game this year, I decided to finally learn how to make my own levels and mod the game a little bit. What started as a few new levels for the kiddos quickly grew into a 24-level mod with a new world map and some new graphics as well (I cannot draw, but I tried my best).

If you want to give it a go, I'm very happy to share my work here. Let me know what you think!

The mod can be downloaded here:

https://www.transporthummel.de/keen_is_ ... in_1.0.zip

Some screenshots:

[Dave216]

Welcome transporthummel!

It's really cool that you're making new levels for your kids
I gotta say, I am having a lot of fun with this one. The pacing is nice. One level is calm and easy, and the next thing you know, you're running down the corridors in total panic. I love it. Not having ammo seemed like an odd choice at first, but it adds to the whole experience.

It's a bit of trial and error, but it feels good when you figure out how to get around the hazards. I am mostly talking about the pitfall level. At first glance, it seemed really unfair that there is no indication of where you're supposed to go, but since you collect a lot of points on the way down, you usually get a life, therefore another chance at beating it. Figuring out the correct path turned out to be quite fun for me.

I seemed to be stuck on the icy level. Well, to be more precise, I am pretty sure it's supposed to disappear upon completion, and it... isn't? 

[transporthummel]

Thanks so much for your opinion and review (well, up to the ice level at least)!

Yes, the level should be marked as "Done" and become passable after beating it, just like all the other ones. I played through the whole mod again before releasing it and did not run into this issue. However, I remember having this happen to me at least once while building the mod. At the time I assumed it had something to do with changing the levels around during testing and using an old save state. Obviously I'm new to patching the game, but maybe it's an issue that comes with having more than the standard 16 levels?

Can you maybe send me your save file so I can investigate? Maybe I can fix it somehow if it's reproducible for me. Until then, feel free to pretend the level is passable by using God Mode

[Roobar]

Looks fun!

[Benvolio]

I must play this soon and report back!

In the meantime, you mention you included 24 levels, which is more than the game typically allows. The persistence of the level graphic on the map (rather than the DONE sign) is a common occurrence with various levels numbered above 16. I do recall inconsistency with how this manifested. In some cases the level could be re-entered. In others you just got a brief fade in and out of black. The inconsistency was influenced in part, if I recall, to the memory situation. That might differ between the modder and other players due to hardware specs or dosbox configuration, and furthermore memory might be used up by other software or even other components within the mod if loaded into memory. Normally even with these "glitchy" higher number levels, I think you should be able to walk through the level on the map after completion but perhaps not always, and it may also depend on the tile info.

All that said, the 32 level patch exists to allow more levels to be used.

Find it on Keenwiki at https://keenwiki.shikadi.net/wiki/Patch ... Vorticons)

[Nospike]

Hey and thanks for sharing your mod. I've played it for a bit, up until the ice level which I haven't beaten (without cheating) yet. That little cave with the two gargs in it and the ice hazard above guarding the keycard is really hard.

It definitely stands out in terms of level design, Keen 1 mods/levelpacks usually seem to draw upon the original game's design and feature a lot of open areas, but this one has many closed corridors. My latest mod-in-progress, if you can call it that, also features a weaponless, pogoless character and a focus on exploration, so I was actually able to get used to the same in your mod very quickly.

Some areas in these levels unfortunately suffer from a common pitfall (pun intended) in Vorticons mods which is the inability to look up or down, resulting in blind drops killing you when there are enemies or hazards. In some places like the falling garg level this actually seems intentional, and while there's nothing wrong with some trial-and-error it gets a bit annoying when you run out of lives and have to constantly reload the game. There are patches to give you infinite lives or even remove/hide the life mechanic entirely which are often used in challenge mods like this.

I like that the levels are easy to navigate, even though as a result they're linear. I did see (using cheats to get past the ice level) that there's a maze level, so I might have yet to eat my words.

Anyway though I'm definitely going to play some more later. Good job.

[transporthummel]

Thanks to all of you for playing and for the detailed and helpful reviews! It makes me really happy to see that there's such a friendly and dedicated community for my favorite games from my childhood!

Thanks a lot for the explanation regarding the memory. I think I actually used the 32 level patch, and even changed the number to 24, but I have to check tomorrow. It's definitely a strange bug and I hope I'll be able to fix it somehow.

The Garg ice cave is easier than it looks, because I think the ice on the ceiling does not actually hurt.

Also yeah, the pitfall level is based on trial and error. I had hoped that the Gargs don't leave many possible ways to steer and that it would not result in too many failed attempts. But I'll probably add some hints to it, and maybe add some teddy bears at the very beginning, guaranteeing one extra life for each try.

The mod is only pacifist for roughly the first half, until you get the gun. I had some ideas for levels that would not have been possible with the ability to shoot (the pitfall level being one of them). The same is true for the pogo, where you can only progress beyond the level with the teleporter once you have collected it. It makes it the world's smallest metroidvania

The levels will also get more open and non-linear in the second half.

[Benvolio]

This is indeed good fun! Mostly has a "levelpack" vibe rather than outright "mod" or "total conversion", but its got lots of fun level design ideas.

The mini-"puzzle" to get the bear point item above the green spikes in the garg chasing level is simple but quite cool, I am envious that I didn't make more use of those falling blocks in my work before now.

There seems to be a nice escalating difficulty with each level, whilst certain design motifs are preserved. Some of the garg stuff is quite crazy and even the yorps can be vicious in this one!

I applaud this effort and suggest further releases with graphic conversions! Perhaps the kids could get involved!