Now what do we have here...a beta!

Here, you can get help with anything or just chat about the original Commander Keen games.
Genius314
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Post by Genius314 »

Check out the end of the secret level - the teddy bears were removed, and instead there's a tank robot and a garg in a narrow hallway.

We should compile a list of changes, this is pretty cool.
Litude
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Post by Litude »

Sorry about the problems with the link, never experienced such problems myself with the host. Anyway I went ahead and also extracted the keen 2 files even though they are corrupt to an extent of more than 90% and also added a Megaupload mirror for the stuff.
Get it here.
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KeenRush
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Post by KeenRush »

Just playing, this is so cool. :D Can't understand why they removed the cut-scene...
My newest mod - Commander Keen: Sunset: viewtopic.php?t=8568 | codename H.Y.E.N.A.
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Fleexy
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Post by Fleexy »

If you'd like to get byte changes (listed), use FileDiff

It lets you comapre two files. Each time you run the comparing part, it will append to C:\filediff.log

Windows only >:
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KeenRush
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Post by KeenRush »

Some things (sorry if mentioned, too lazy to check):
* The yorps can push you out of the level borders (at least in one of the shrine levels).
* The game doesn't end after collecting all the items (although there comes a short blackout).
* There's a large amount of teddy bears in the last level:
Image
* Can you :yorp the difference here? 8)
Image
My newest mod - Commander Keen: Sunset: viewtopic.php?t=8568 | codename H.Y.E.N.A.
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Fleexy
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Post by Fleexy »

You can't get down! :O
Litude
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Post by Litude »

One quite interesting difference I noticed is that if you stop at the edge of a tile that is next to a drop, you will start sliding (sliding in the way as on frozen blocks, not on ice) down.
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tulip
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Post by tulip »

It is truly amazing how something like this could be found after decades... well done.
I'm somewhat glad that you didn't have to finish Red Maze City in the final version, as it seems to be intended in the beta.

This calls for some maps of the altered levels being put up on keenWiki to be compared...
Image You crack me up little buddy!
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Grimson
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Post by Grimson »

I see potential in utilizing the intro sequence in mods...
"All those thousands upon thousands of junk foods made for me on the various planets I explored make me wonder how I'm still alive."
Genius314
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Post by Genius314 »

Okay, so...

-No Id Software mentioned in the intro sequence
-Animated story cutscene
-No "Previews" menu item
-Keen slides off corners of blocks
-Keen can walk off the edge of a level
-No GOD mode
-Vorticon has different jumping sprite
-"In war, do not fire all your gleebs in the first ten nooms. Do not waste gleebs."
-Red maze is not optional
-Altered ending of secret level
-Teddy bears near the top of last level
-No ending sequence

Anything else worth noting?
Ceilick
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Post by Ceilick »

Oh, and Ceilick, you're accidentally mirroring your Keen mod instead.
Haha, I'm an idiot, link fixed.
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Fleexy
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Post by Fleexy »

The Keen1.exe files have a lot of differences, mostly because the beta has a lot of blank space in it. FileDiff log here:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/3771470/filediff.log

I would copy/paste, but it's really long. It's not all different though.

(compared with v1.0 Keen1.exe)

Level and other file logs are not included.
Last edited by Fleexy on Mon May 24, 2010 0:39, edited 1 time in total.
Litude
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Post by Litude »

Genius314 wrote:-Vorticon has different jumping sprite
I'm not sure I stated this well enough, but the graphics files were corrupted beyond repair (at least beyond my capability to repair them) so I took the graphics files from v1.0 of the game. I'm pretty positive that this version is supposed to have the beta title screen among other interesting stuff in the graphics files. Hopefully someone will be able to recover at least something of the graphics files at some point.

You missed:
- You don't get a high scores entry when quitting to game menu
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Fleexy
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Post by Fleexy »

- contains TEDLEVEL.CK1
- dark left sides on world map
- extra ice block & pizza moved 1 tile in the tank-guarded area in Ice City (left of where Keen starts)
- robots fall off edges

Also replaced filediff.log with a version with v1.0 and this beta (Keen1.exe)

I just noticed that the beta EXE is much smaller than v1.0.
Litude
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Post by Litude »

Alright, I think I just found proof that version 1.0 of the game is in fact also a beta version of the game. At least if the 3D Realms release history page is to be trusted (having December 14th, 1990 as the release date of the game).

Here's why:
Apogee Software always messed with file modify dates when they released their stuff (all files usually have the same modify date, minute and second -> obviously modified), meaning that looking at the modify dates of version 1.1, 1.3 or 1.31 will do no good when trying to figure out when the files were created.

But, thanks to the discoveries of 1.32 and 1.34 (which are not distributed by Apogee) we can actually get correct modify dates on the files (and by this I naturally mean files that these updates didn't affect). According to these, the PREVIEW2.CK1 file which was used in version 1.1 as well was last modified 10th December, 1990 which is 4 days before the game was released. So what is my point? Version 1.0 has an even earlier preview picture and so also needs to have an even earlier modify date. See where I'm going? Version 1.1 had to be completed before 14th December, 1990 (the release date of the game) for this to be possible.

Now of course there is the *very* slight possibility that version 1.1 was in fact completed before the game was released but they didn't have time to make it the release build and so they still went ahead with 1.0. But I don't think that's very likely, especially considering that the release of the game pretty much only included uploading the game files to some BBS. (Had they started printing copies of the game, that would have been another matter entirely.) But if this is the case, how that build ended up on eMule is completely beyond me. :dead Anyone care to speculate?

A third possibility that I see as highly unlikely as well also springs to mind. How about the possibility of there being a version that actually identifies itself as being version 1.0 on the title screen (in other words, what we think is version 1.0 is not actually version 1.0 as it doesn't identify itself as being version 1.0 anywhere)... How are we to know if such a thing exists without finding it... If such a thing doesn't exist, we'll never know, if such a thing exists, how the hell do we find it... :barf

From looking at the modify dates, the beta found in the thread here is from around November 20th, 1990. Version 1.0 is from around December 3rd, 1990 and version 1.1 is what was actually released on December 14th, 1990.

tl;dr I think version 1.0 is a beta of the game after all and for some reason they skipped this version when releasing the game to the public. (Maybe a critical bug, maybe they just wanted to update something, who knows?).
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