I’m learning the basics of game development. As my first learning experience, I’m recreating Keen 6 from scratch, with the exception of the sprites . Commander Keen is a very nostalgic game from my early childhood. Seeing that there is still an active community with amazing mods and level designs makes me very happy.
This post is not meant in any commercial way. This project is purely educational for myself. I’m here to share and connect with other people who love Commander Keen!
For anyone who’s interested: I’m making this in the Godot Engine, so it’s not tied to DOSBox, which results in a much smoother gameplay feel. My goal is to (almost) recreate the entire game in order to learn the meta mechanics of game design. At the moment, I’ve nearly completed the first (actual) level.
I wish you the best of luck on this project! I've been hoping someone would make a Godot framework that replicates the Goodbye Galaxy style of Keen gameplay, and this shows potential even in its early stages. I look forward to seeing how far you go with this.
Looks great! I have no familiarity whatseover with the setup/engine you're using for this, but if this is a recreation of galaxy from first principles then it's a very impressive start.
Dark's comment about jumps and gravity is of course correct, but you will undoubtedly be well aware of that and I'm sure fine tuning will be done.
I would like to add that the same is needed for the camera, as currently (based on watching the youtube at least) it is actually a little vertigo-inducing. I then watched a bit of Bloogwaters crossing in a Keen6 playthrough and the camera movements are totally different. They are actually a lot less smooth than yours which seem to be pixel by pixel. The original galaxy camera movement is more akin to the rapid movements (called saccades) which are actually how the human eye moves most of the time. The original Keen6 camera keeps up with Keen in a way that feels much more comfortable to look at.
Again, I'm sure you're well aware of this but I'm saying it to make sure you don't forget to work hard on the camera!
. Commander Keen is a very nostalgic game from my early childhood. Seeing that there is still an active community with amazing mods and level designs makes me very happy.