Commander Keen in Back to Fribbulus Xax!

[dark]

Ok! I got it working with the Dead in the Desert copy of the exe. I'm not far into it, but so far I like it a lot!

[dark]

I have played many more levels now. Wow, what tough levels! There is plenty here that seems remniscent of early platforming games and aspects of them that people have been critical of through a historical lense, such as the game prompting you to take a blind leap or drop down from a platform, and then having many hazards below that will kill the player, or needing to wait a long time for a moving platform to come by so a newcomer to the game who waits 10+ seconds isn't sure whether a moving platform is on the way or not. Jumping in between a teeny tiny space sandwiched between two drills/spikes to access a required key lock, or sliding down a pole before you notice and can react to a hazard that is placed directly at the bottom of the pole are two other examples that come to mind of things that will require a bit of luck and a bit of memorization.

This takes me back to the NES days of the late 80s where you really needed to repeatedly play levels until you memorized them in order to win the games. It also reminds me of those mario maker levels that require pinpoint precision and muscle memory. In terms of design and difficulty, it also feels very different from the original Keen games which mostly avoided these design aspects.

Unfortunately this is not really my idea of a fun time, so I probably won't put in the energy and effort to do a full playthrough of every level, but its interesting to see in a Keen game.

[Keent]

@Alopex here is de link to save games . Save game 1 is needid
Url
https://easyupload.io/9p50kq
Password : xax

[Alopex]

I have played many more levels now. Wow, what tough levels! There is plenty here that seems remniscent of early platforming games and aspects of them that people have been critical of through a historical lense, such as the game prompting you to take a blind leap or drop down from a platform, and then having many hazards below that will kill the player, or needing to wait a long time for a moving platform to come by so a newcomer to the game who waits 10+ seconds isn't sure whether a moving platform is on the way or not. Jumping in between a teeny tiny space sandwiched between two drills/spikes to access a required key lock, or sliding down a pole before you notice and can react to a hazard that is placed directly at the bottom of the pole are two other examples that come to mind of things that will require a bit of luck and a bit of memorization.

This takes me back to the NES days of the late 80s where you really needed to repeatedly play levels until you memorized them in order to win the games. It also reminds me of those mario maker levels that require pinpoint precision and muscle memory. In terms of design and difficulty, it also feels very different from the original Keen games which mostly avoided these design aspects.

Unfortunately this is not really my idea of a fun time, so I probably won't put in the energy and effort to do a full playthrough of every level, but its interesting to see in a Keen game.

Thanks for your feedback! I appreciate you taking the time to play BTFX.

This level pack was designed to be a challenge for players (and admittedly, a bit too much!). It's definitely a more difficult experience than traditional Keen games, but not impossible to conquer.

You might need a few save points to complete it, especially on the hardest difficulty.

@Alopex here is de link to save games . Save game 1 is needid
Url
https://easyupload.io/9p50kq
Password : xax

I tested your saved games and found the following:

• With the first and second saved games (where Keen is standing just before the door), the game crashed after reaching the yellow gem holder. This is a very unusual issue that I'll investigate further;

• Continuing with the fourth saved game (where you're still on the world map), I reached the gem holder without any problems and the door opened. Please try this saved game yourself. Here's the link: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/ ... sp=sharing

Let me know if you can continue playing without any more interruptions. I apologize for the inconvenience!

[Keent]

Yes your save game works. I hope you find a fix.

[K1n9_Duk3]

If the game crashes with the error message "GetNewObj: No free spots in objarray!" when placing a key gem in its gem holder in Keen 6, it usually means that the laser cannons (or turrets or whatever you want to call them) have spawned too many shots.

In Keen 6, the cannon shots aren't spawned as "removable" objects, which means the game will turn them inactive when they leave the visible screen area. The darts in Keen 4 and the cannon shots in Keen 5 are removable, which means the game will simply remove them from the level instead of turning them inactive, but the shots in Keen 6 are not removable, which means they don't get removed until they hit something and explode. That means if the cannon is visible and continues to spawn shots, but there is no wall nearby that would make the shots explode before they move too far out of the visible area, the cannons will continue to spawn more and more shots that will eventually fill up the entire object array. When the object array is full, neither Keen nor the enemies will be able to spawn any new shots. In these cases, the game will silently skip spawning the new object and act as if everything was working as expected.

But when you place a key gem in its gem holder, the game will exit with an error message if it couldn't spawn the door opener object. I guess this was done to prevent the level from becoming unwinnable because the gem was placed but the door didn't open due to the game being unable to spawn the door opener object.

You can use this patch to make the cannon shots removable, which should fix the crashes:

Code: Select all

# make cannon shots removable (Keen 6 v1.4 EGA)
%patch $113F5 $0003W

[Keent]

I have testing : set code in abiathar.pat. Will not fix this problem

[K1n9_Duk3]

Maybe I should have been more precise: It will prevent the problem from appearing, but it will not (and cannot) fix the problem when you load a saved game where the object array is already filled with cannon shots.

Also, the patch must be added somewhere before the %end command of the patch script, otherwise it won't do anything at all.

[Alopex]

Maybe I should have been more precise: It will prevent the problem from appearing, but it will not (and cannot) fix the problem when you load a saved game where the object array is already filled with cannon shots.

Also, the patch must be added somewhere before the %end command of the patch script, otherwise it won't do anything at all.

Thank you for this valuable advice!

I thought there was some kind of inherent problem with Keen 6, because that crash was very unusual (and also because Abiathar doesn't report any massive use of sprites in that level, so I couldn't figure out the cause of the problem).

I've already added this line of code to the patch file and will release a new version of the mod today. I've also done other work that I'll publish soon.

Thanks again for your help!

Stay tuned!

[Keent]

Yes this will fixed. You must restart level form start .
Save games in level can be corrupt. Some level are challenged lite bit.

[Alopex]

Hey everyone!

As promised, I uploaded a new version of the mod. Use the usual link to download it! Additionally, I also started creating the Keen Wiki page for BTFX. You can refer to the first post to find the link.

And there's also a new title screen for this mod. Check it out!

Thanks again to everyone for your support!

[Keent]

Question: is this jump possible without tricks?

Location last level

[Syllypryde]

Question: is this jump possible without tricks?

Location last level

Yes it is. This would be a perfect time to use in-level saving and just keep practicing, You will get it.

[Quillax]

Thanks for creating the KeenWiki article, Alopex! I'm really happy to see that! Quick question: Now that it's considered "Complete", is the mod now v1.0? Just want to know the version number of it.

Maybe I should have been more precise: It will prevent the problem from appearing, but it will not (and cannot) fix the problem when you load a saved game where the object array is already filled with cannon shots.

I know Keent already resolved this problem, but couldn't one just backtrack to where the cannon shots came out of view to activate them again so they can be destroyed and thus removed from the object array? Or does it not work that way? Does the object array get corrupted?

Also, I really appreciate the technical info and patch! I didn't know Keen 6 was the odd one out in that particular case. You never cease to amaze me with your extensive technical knowledge of these games! I might add that patch to KeenWiki.

Question: is this jump possible without tricks?
-img-
Location last level

Are you referring to the spiky balls? I've not played the mod yet, but as someone who's played many Galaxy mods, that jump should be possible. It looks like you have to press the jump key lightly, so you don't hit the ceiling and come falling down into the hazards. I agree with Syllypryde that in-level saving would be great to use here (I probably would, and I don't save in-level that much these days).

[Keent]

Yes i referring to spiky balls. I will try.