The Keys of Krodacia: Revision Discussion

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zdude
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Post by zdude »

I played through the Shoal on hard difficulty and it is INSANELY hard. The Ogobogos are placed where it is near impossible to escape from them. It may have something to do with their speed but I noticed that if Keen is doing the boost swimming, he outspeeds the Ogobogo no problem. Its the close quarters environment the Ogobogos are encountered that make it difficult. Would it be possible to tweak the positions of the Ogobogo to make it easier to escape them?

@Nospike I think it was mentioned that there will be some new music added as well.
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Post by Syllypryde »

Grimson wrote:
Edit: My plan is to keep the game the way it is as much as possible. I am definitely in the minority here. It seems from past posts many people want to overhaul half the game and that troubles me so!
It's because the overall quality of KoK is no longer on par with later titles, DitD and BotB. It's necessary to update both the graphics and audio to make all titles of the trilogy equally awesome (although, BotB will likely remain as the best mod of all time :dopekeen).
Who says it has to be on par? The point of sequels that they are supposed to be true to the first of the series but then to be more than the first. Plus I enjoy seeing the evolution from TKOK to BOTB. Please do not think I am against making the game better because I am not, but not at the expense of the essence of the game. I do not want to play the game and cannot even recognize it anymore.
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Post by Gridlock »

I think Krodacia should be improved. Remember, this is likely the first thing people playing TUIT will try out. I'm not saying it needs to be changed beyond recognition, but it just feels too much like Keen 4. Most of the enemies act like the K4 enemies, parts of the worldmap are recolored K4 tiles, and there isn't enough to the music. Ceilick may not agree, but I think doing this revamp is pretty important right now considering that some newcomers will probably play this in preparation for BOTB. Plus I really want to see some of the discussed ideas. :)
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Post by StupidBunny »

I agree. I love Keys of Krodacia, but it definitely shows that it's much less evolved then the two sequels are. And I think it would be possible to make it go beyond the limits of Keen 4 without compromising its original character too much. Besides, the original versions will still exist, I don't figure it'll be a George Lucas-esque elimination of the original in place of something new. :)
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Eros
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Post by Eros »

ideas:

the stone krodacian is a tad underused, and how it's only available in the secret level, it's like you're missing a whole lot. same with the DitD lavaworm. i understand that K5 has the korath only do that and all, but that was special.

also, i don't really like the whole concept of "gems" giving you extra lives, same for the swim coin.
Keen: hmm... i already have a wetsuit... not sure what this coin is supposed to do!
would energy swirls and a wetsuit pressure adapter (different climates shadowlands-vs.-krodacia) work?
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Post by Deltamatic »

Secret levels are supposed to be special. I like it when they have unique enemies.
And the gems are okay, they're alien gems after all so they could be alien medical technology or something.
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Post by Toothpick »

Eros wrote:would energy swirls and a wetsuit pressure adapter (different climates shadowlands-vs.-krodacia) work?
I think energy swirls would have been more appropriate for BotB, actually.

As for the wetsuit replacement, I am thinking that the water should be replaced with magma and have Keen find a magma-resistant suit instead. Maybe make the creatures in the magma lake slightly modified to be more lava-themed.
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Post by Ceilick »

Just to be clear: This is not a remake of keen 7. It is a revision, an update. It will be similar in scope to my Keen Dreams plus project. While the focus of that project was level design, the focus of this project will be graphics. That isn't to say other things won't be changed, obviously spelling will be fixed up, the texts will be cleaned up, the music will be improved, enemy behaviors will be examined, etc, but have no intention of changing the substance, the essence, of Keen 7 into something else.

The goal is to build on what is in the game, not to substitute what is already in the game for other ideas. There will be cases of the later, but I hope to keep it to a minimum.

I'm not trying to restrict the flow of ideas, just reiterating the intention behind the revision; improving the mod without compromising the 'essence' of what makes The Keys of Krodacia "Keen 7: The Keys of Krodacia".

Regarding the water areas:

They will remain underwater. I do hope to patch the Shoal level to behave as a normal water level, rather than use the normal level scrolling which is kind of wonky when underwater.

The swim coin may or may not be replaced; it depends on whether a longer message can be patched in for the "I need a coin" message (the original message being "I Can't Swim". If the message is limited to this many letters, we have a problem). The original intention behind the coin is that Keen must pass through a tollbooth to enter the water. If the coin remains, the coin itself and the entrance to the lake will be graphically better.

As far as improving underwater gameplay:

I don't know if it is possible, but I would like to investigate the possibly of Keen using his stunner while underwater. If this is indeed possible, this will change all kinds of things, but until that is determined, I'd like to refrain from proposing ideas that might utilize this.

I would like to improve the Ogobogo. Possibilities include patching in some kind of new behavior instead of eating Keen, patching it's speed, and/or making it smaller.
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Eros
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Post by Eros »

then could the coin be shrinked and a tollbooth be placed in front of the waters?

it's a small nitpicky thing.
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Post by Gridlock »

I like your philosphy behind this Ceilick. Things need to be improved, but not directly changed (except maybe enemy behavior and a little of the world map) The "I can't swim" message can be made longer to fill the entire text box space; I've done it.

Seeing extra underwater behaviors would be nice. For me the biggest problem is the tricky-to-control movement and the rather bad collision. The ogobogo is a cool enemy, but feels WAY too much like a Dopefish-knock off. Maybe Levellass could work on patching them (I need lots of dopefish patches for Atroxian Realm as well)
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Post by GARGapplesauce »

Gridlock wrote:I like your philosphy behind this Ceilick. Things need to be improved, but not directly changed (except maybe enemy behavior and a little of the world map) The "I can't swim" message can be made longer to fill the entire text box space; I've done it.

Seeing extra underwater behaviors would be nice. For me the biggest problem is the tricky-to-control movement and the rather bad collision. The ogobogo is a cool enemy, but feels WAY too much like a Dopefish-knock off. Maybe Levellass could work on patching them (I need lots of dopefish patches for Atroxian Realm as well)
Yeah, I have to agree with this. I'd love to see minor changes just for the "playability" of the game, but it's a good game as is.

The dopefish and ogobogo are too similar, It's behaviors weren't changed at all, as far as I can tell... not that that's really a problem, but it could stand to be more interesting.

Collisions ARE tough underwater. I've been ninja'd by the red smoke-bubble things so fucling many times... it doesn't make it easy, but maybe its just me :) .

All around, I'm excited to see what comes of this (especially the music, It should be changed.)
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Re: The Keys of Krodacia: Revision Discussion

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Post by Levellass »

Squiddly: Put a "so" after the comma. "They like to steal goodies, so you'll have to race them if you want all the points!"
This is forgivable though, as this sentence itself shows, you can leave a word out and most people would not fault you., Indeed the sentence even makes sense without the comma as well. My english teacher used to say commas had become little more than pauses in a sentence.

Page 2: How can nothing catch Billy's eye if Mortimer's room is "suspiciously clean"? It seems that the lack of stuff caught Billy's eye, if that makes any sense. There should be a comma after "home."
That depends, maybe it was the cleanliness itself that was eye-catching (Anyone who has walked into a cleaned messy room will confirm this, but not me since it's never happened here.) Or possibly one of the few items *in* the room caught his eye, in which case it might be better to say 'The room was suspiciously clean' followed by something like 'but something caught Keen's eye'

Page 2: "Here's" should be written "here are."
Here's, despite being short for 'here is' seems to be being used for 'here are' as well, possibly because of a lack of 'here're' (which I've certainly heard spoken.) most people for example would not bat an eye at the sentence 'Here's the parts you wanted' (Google gives it 3 results, two without the comma and two for the 'correct' 'here are' )
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Post by GameBird »

I'm really looking forward to the revision. I just hope at least one of my songs can make it in ;)
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-- Botfloria is Out of Flowers! -- The Atroxian Realm --
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Commander Keen
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Post by Commander Keen »

I can agree that Keen 7 can use a little update, considering that it was one of the first completed Keen 4-6 mods. I would also suggest that on Keen 8, the sounds for the level entering/exiting, gun picking uping, etc be updated to match Keen 9's sounds. Also, the DOS screen when you quit should be updated on both 7 and 8 to make it match 9's DOS screen. Im sure everyone involved on the update team will do a great job.
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