NETKEEN: Multiplayer Keen Game

PandoricaShark · Post by **PandoricaShark** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 8:29

By the way, the four characters we have here are the only ones we're going to get I believe. I spoke to Mink and I don't think he could fit any more in. We used to have Barker instead of Spot I believe.

Post by **Ceilick** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 9:31

When multiple characters were first introduced (prior to that point players played as multi-colored keens), the original lineup was Keen, Lindsey, Spot, and Lt. Barker. Shortly after I realized the unfitting absence of Mortimer and when told by Lemm that the limit was four characters, I decided to drop Lt. Barker since his character sprites were the least complete at the time.

DHeadshot · Post by **DHeadshot** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 12:59

Paramultart wrote:Wow! And I thought having him as a neighbor on Ravenwood Fair was awesome. Imagine playing NetKeen with THE Tom Hall!

Imagine beating him

szemi · Post by **szemi** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 14:11

Ceilick wrote:When multiple characters were first introduced (prior to that point players played as multi-colored keens), the original lineup was Keen, Lindsey, Spot, and Lt. Barker. Shortly after I realized the unfitting absence of Mortimer and when told by Lemm that the limit was four characters, I decided to drop Lt. Barker since his character sprites were the least complete at the time.

It means no more character?

ckguy · Post by **ckguy** » Thu Feb 24, 2011 15:39

Hey woah I didn't know this had gotten officially released. I've been hanging out on IRC almost exclusively.

Pretty darn neat about Tom Hall too. BUT I don't think I'd be able to play a NetKeen game with him, I'd prolly freak out the whole time lol. FANBOISYNDROME

szemi wrote:It means no more character?

I am afraid it does mean no more character.

BBalazs · Post by **BBalazs** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 8:57

Or at least no more than four characters at the same time. However, consider something along the line of mods. Multiple exe files (or one launcher exe) each starting the application with a different character set. Having the thing done via a "selection list" where one could pick four characters from a list would be even better. There is no need to worry about network play, today one can clearly communicate to its partners which character set/characters to choose and a simple check and error message (character set mismatch) is enough.

Nevertheless, I've no idea how the engine works, but still, if you consider that mods don't change the engine, simple character sets should be possible.

Lunick · Post by **Lunick** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 8:58

I can't beleive I missed this, I need to get on the IRC more.

_mr_m_ · Post by **_mr_m_** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 18:05

PandoricaShark wrote:

Someone linked him to this thread in the comments, and said he should play with us, and he was all that'd be cool after GDC.

I linked him to this thread. I dunno who tipped him off about the video.

EDIT: Guess that gives away my identity, but since most of the regulars on here know who I really am, it's not a big deal.

Paramultart · Post by **Paramultart** » Fri Feb 25, 2011 19:03

DHeadshot wrote:
Paramultart wrote:Wow! And I thought having him as a neighbor on Ravenwood Fair was awesome. Imagine playing NetKeen with THE Tom Hall!
Imagine beating him

If I had the opportunity to play against Tom Hall, I wouldn't have to fantasize about beating him... It would be a reality.
Honestly, I doubt he would be any competition.

PROVE ME WRONG!

Roobar · Post by **Roobar** » Sat Feb 26, 2011 7:55

Is there a group or a page for Tom Hall? There are dozens of Tom Halls in FB and I want to see what more he will say about DM. I wonder if Tom Hall and John Romero will try to beat each other. That would be fun!

Snortimer · Post by **Snortimer** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 7:44

I wonder, would it be possible to make a port to the Pandora? (Linux, Angstrom distribution)

I could try it through DOSBox I guess, but that would probably be too slow.

This looks really neat. Love those videos!

TerminILL · Post by **TerminILL** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 8:34

It's DOS and forever going to remain DOS. DOSBox is the best you'll do, I'm afraid.

Commander Spleen · Post by **Commander Spleen** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 13:06

It should (just) run on a 386, so the Pandora should run it.

I sure hope it does, anyway.

MOM4Evr · Post by **MOM4Evr** » Mon Feb 28, 2011 13:58

Paramultart wrote:If I had the opportunity to play against Tom Hall, I wouldn't have to fantasize about beating him... It would be a reality.
Honestly, I doubt he would be any competition.

Aww, come on, you should at least let him win once or twice. You don't honestly want to totally beat up on him, do you?

Snortimer · Post by **Snortimer** » Tue Mar 01, 2011 0:22

Commander Spleen wrote:It should (just) run on a 386, so the Pandora should run it.

I sure hope it does, anyway.

DOSBox on the Pandora doesn't seem to be very optimized yet... the last three Keen games run pretty well if you overclock to 800-900Mhz, but every so often I get some small slowdown or break in the music. Other people say that they don't notice it, so I don't know - could be that I just don't know which conf settings are best to use to optimize DOSBox performance. I have cycles set to "max", maybe I'll try tinkering with that a bit.

Anyway, I tried single-player Netkeen on Pandora yesterday. Seems to run quite well on some levels, but slows down in levels with lots of moving things, such as the goplats in space level. The slowdowns would affect play, I imagine. I wish DOSBox had auto-frameskip; that would greatly alleviate the problem.