Commander Keen 64

You can discuss anything about fan-made Commander Keen games here.
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Lava89
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Post by Lava89 »

@Grimson:
Thanks!

Because of the shape of this level, I don't want to reveal too much with glass. Instead I will put in gray walls that look similar to the marble-like texture on the side of the stairs in the last picture I showed. That way it keeps the gray & cyan color scheme of the old games that Ceilick mentioned, but doesn't compromise the level design. So there will be glass in that level, but just in areas where I want the player to see ahead without letting them jump ahead of where I want them to go.

@Nospike: Hopefully there will not be a problem with walls getting in the way. Mostly because in Keen 64 you can just turn Keen around if something is obstructing your view and the camera is close enough I believe to not have anything in the way.

@DHeadshot: Thank you for your very in-depth review! Both the compliments and constructive criticism.

I am sorry for the help menu not working. Sometime in the future, I might try and find one of my older computers with XP on it. So I can playtest it and work out the problems. I want to at least fix those issues by the time of the release of the full version.

As for the shooting, would you say the inaccuracy comes from the speed of the shooting? Or was it a camera problem? If I can isolate the problem, maybe I could make the shooting easier.

As for the yorp problems, that might come from issues with the platforming, which is something I'll address that in the rest of my post below. Unless you believe it comes from something other than aiming Keen when jumping.

@RoboBlue:
Great ideas! Thanks for bringing these up.

For shooting, I could make it gravitate towards enemies. However if I can make the shooting better in general without helping the player too much, I would prefer that. But if not, your idea will definitely be considered.

As For the platforming, I'm not sure if I would make it gravitate towards the platforms specifically. However, what I did have in the earlier build of the game was a sliding effect when Keen would jump on a platform. I could always bring that back and make it optional.

However, I have been working on a new camera feature that is optional in the full version, and I believe that will help the player much more, when it comes to platforming. I already experimented with this feature in the demos. You'll notice that when you fall from a ledge, the camera starts to "look down" so you can better land your plummet. This will be expanded to a greater scale so that when Keen jumps at all, the camera will look down a bit so can you can see ahead of Keen. The reasoning behind it, is that in 3D platforming, you're guiding your character to the side and how far he moves forward (so two sets of directions). Unlike 2D platformers, where all you had to do was guide the character's distance that he had to jump. So with the camera looking down in 3D, you get a better idea of the depth between you and the platform. Otherwise, you're just jumping ahead and merely guessing how far each platform is.

@QU3TZ4LC04TL: Thanks! I hope your project goes well, too. We're somewhat in parallel dimensions, project-wise, haha.

Here is a link to the latest demo and thread:
viewtopic.php?t=807

Also, any previous links are on the first post of this thread. I try to update them.
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DHeadshot
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Post by DHeadshot »

The inaccuracy is camera-based. Basically, since there's no crosshair (apart from when the gamee glitched out for a second - that was weird) you line up shots with the centre of the screen. However, while is most games shooting angle adjusts with camera angle, here it doesn't, so on FPS mode at least it's difficult to line up a shot.
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thehackercat
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Post by thehackercat »

Wow, I wish I had a decent PC... :drool :drool This project is looking awesome! I can't wait to walk through that marble level!! :crazy

Everything to say has already been said! You're awesome! Keep it up!
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Lava89
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Post by Lava89 »

@DHeadshot: Thanks for the follow up. There actually is a crosshair (hopefully I put that in the ReadMe, haha). If you press C it should show up. Now as for the camera angles, it will shoot the bullets in the direction of the camera, when turning from side to side. The only direction it doesn't turn is up \ down. So, are you suggesting to make Keen shoot up or down when pointing the camera up or down?

@thehackercat:
If you are speaking about hardware, such as RAM, processing or video graphics, most computers should be able to run the game. I have not tested many low-end computers, but I say this because of the low detail I have put into the graphics. If you are talking about Operating Systems, I would like to make the game work better on Windows XP. It should work as is and I have put in some provisions to compensate for some of the problems the game had when on XP. However considering that there are more OS-related issues, I plan to start testing it for that system before I release the full version.

So if you do try the demo and \ or the full version when I release it, feel free to let me know if you have any problems running the game.
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Post by Dr. Kylstein »

I just tried the demo, and it runs way too fast! (In much the same way as running some early DOS games on later computers.) I suggest you set the physics/AI to update at a certain number of times a second rather than as fast as possible, if you haven't already done so.
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Post by Tom.K »

Dr. Kylstein wrote:I just tried the demo, and it runs way too fast! (In much the same way as running some early DOS games on later computers.) I suggest you set the physics/AI to update at a certain number of times a second rather than as fast as possible, if you haven't already done so.
I agree. Mostly that pogo jumps are too fast... In addition, those buildings are bigger than keen (which makes him a giant)...
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VikingBoyBilly
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Post by VikingBoyBilly »

If keen is stranded on mars, how come the BwB can fly back to his backyard without the ship parts the vorticons stole?! :rolleyes
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Post by Tom.K »

Maybe vorticons still didn't stole ship parts. Yet, they could be stolen after maybe... 1st level or pogo shelter level?
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Nospike
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Post by Nospike »

The story of the demo takes place BEFORE the Vorticons stole Keen's ship parts. No problem here. In the final game, I assume it will end when you get the ship parts and then it will be possible to fly back to Earth. I suggest making the Earth with night, like it was in the Keen 1 ending.
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Lava89
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Post by Lava89 »

Nospike is most correct, it is before he got the parts taken (as I have included all of the parts on the model of the ship). Essentially, Keen is exploring another pocket of space on Mars before he found the majority of the cities from Keen 1.

And yes, you'll be able to fly back to a night-time version of his yard to complete the ending.

Thanks Nospike!

@Tom.K: I made him big to reference the size of Keen on the maps from the original games, and I think he's even bigger in the original games (for instance, alot of the times he covers the buildings completely when he's hovered over them). So I guess the size of Keen is more a artistic. Plus, if I made him too small, it would take alot more time to move between each city. But thanks for pointing that out.

As for the pogo, so are you saying to slow down Keen's speed of springing and falling with the pogo? That would definitely slow down the pogoing. If so, I will look into it. Thanks!

@Dr. Kylstein: What OS are you using? I ask this because I believe XP and Vista can change the speed of the game. So if you aren't using Vista, I will try to taylor a separate version for the OS when I get a chance to work on the XP release. Thanks!
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Nospike
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Post by Nospike »

Yeah, Keen is pogoing a bit too fast. Try playing the original Vorticons and then you can tweak it to be just the right speed. ;)
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Post by RoboBlue »

Maybe there should be an option to alter keen's pogo speed, so that more skilled players can move through levels faster.
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Dr. Kylstein
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Post by Dr. Kylstein »

Lava89 wrote: @Dr. Kylstein: What OS are you using? I ask this because I believe XP and Vista can change the speed of the game. So if you aren't using Vista, I will try to taylor a separate version for the OS when I get a chance to work on the XP release. Thanks!
Wine was set to XP mode at the time, I think. Now it just throws memory access violations whenever I try to run the demo, so I can't find out if changing to Vista or 7 mode does anything.
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Post by NY00123 »

Dr. Kylstein wrote: Wine was set to XP mode at the time, I think. Now it just throws memory access violations whenever I try to run the demo, so I can't find out if changing to Vista or 7 mode does anything.
After seeing the above reply, I've decided to make a few more tests, using Wine on Linux. Looks like one would need to have a true Windows OS installed for the time being. Maybe this app can be reported in the Wine website (so patches would be written for Wine, in order to make the game work as expected), but I don't know.

Regarding the tests: I've got the same error with Keen64Demo_Pogo.exe and K64DP_Alt.exe, running in XP, Vista and 7 modes.
With K64DP_Alt_Menu.exe in XP mode, there was a weird phenomenon where the display appear to have had a rotation by 180 degrees and a horizontal flip altogether. I'd just appear to quit after pressing 1, 2 or 3, but maybe that's intended, I'm not exactly sure.

BTW, I do recall playing an earlier version (maybe the "non-pogo" demo), which appeared to work. And anyway, good job with this!
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Post by Tom.K »

Could it be possible to do this: When you try to press a key for pause/main menu, keen moves a hand to computer wrist and the camera aims at wrist showing options? Another idea for computer wrist is used for scanning, identifying unknown objects, translating SGA and showing details about them (however, he'll need to do more analysis to get more information about specified object)?
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