What is the hardest secret you've found in Commander Keen?

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morris_fudley
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What is the hardest secret you've found in Commander Keen?

Post by morris_fudley »

How did you find it? Was it by yourself, someone showed you, or you cheated (I know how to but won't say how)? My hardest is in Keen 4 Level 11, Pyramid of Moons. I saw that ledge with the door and the extra life. I could never get to it, until I got a saved game with Commander Keen on top of the pyramid. Spoiler (highlight text):
In the basement of the pyramid, go to the left side. Use the pogo stick to go through the ceiling and make Keen climb.
I don't find many secrets in Keen 1 - 3 hard, except for the way to the secret level in Keen 1.
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Post by Stealthy71088 »

Your hardest secret I found for the first time a couple years ago. Even with the help of the maps on the keen wiki I had trouble figuring out how to get there. Originally, I was convinced that that was the way into the Pyramid of the Forbidden, until eventually I found the real way to get there (which I had to look online for).

I did find the 7 free lives in border village, along with the hidden door, by myself when I was little.
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Post by Levellass »

Hmmmmnnn.... tricky. There are a lot of secrets I consider to be of approximately the same difficulty, mostly candy tucked away in ceilings. The only way to find them is through a lot of trial and error.
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Post by morris_fudley »

I used to think that if I took that exit out of Pyramid of Moons past the key door, the guy at the end of Pyramid of Forbidden would get angry. I had a friend in high school who told me about the secret in Border Village.

I find it easiest to get those ceiling secrets when a platform comes down from it.
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Post by Levack »

I think it was Korth. I used the bug
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Post by Bubbatom »

My most difficult secrets that I found were probably all in Keen 4 as that was the only keen game I played before "discovering" the internet, which allowed me to find out where everything was in later keen games.

All the "really difficult" secrets I or my brother had found before I even turned eight, apart from The Pyramid of Forbidden entry.
There were a couple of secrets that I found hard to find though. The Chasm of Chills had two secrets above the hilly section that I always pondered about. morris_fudley's hardest secret was also another one of these secrets I couldn't reach, along with the outside of the pyramid and that small room of icecreams below the level entrence in the Pyramid of Moons. That troll life water flask on the left side of The Pyramid of the Gnosticene Ancients always got me too. Life Water Oasis' life water flasks always made me angry, with no possible entrence.

The secret that I thought about the most was The Pyramid of The Forbidden entry.
I always knew that there was a reason for only having one keygem for two doors in The Pyramid of Moons and that "pointless" bridge.
I also knew that there was a member of the High Council in The Pyramid of The Forbidden because of the help sreen image of him. I knew that no other Council Members had that rectangle-shaped door next to where they were imprisoned, so I guessed it was an image from The Pyramid of The Forbidden, and I was right.

The best part about Keen 4 for me was not knowing how many secrets I'd found. After finding the large room at the top of The Cave of Descendants I thought that other levels would have large-roomde secrets too.
Another thing is I always thought that there may be more levels over the mountains near Crystalus and that the only way to get to these was through The Pyramid of The Forbidden.

All in all, I would say Keen 4 is my favourite game ever due to the amzing secrets in the game.
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Post by Roobar »

For me, the hardest one was the secret level in keen 2. It was so hard to find it that it took me like 20 years to find it out.
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Post by Levellass »

I have to admit, I only got that PoTGA flask once. Not been able to get it since.
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Post by spikey »

Getting to that ledge inthe secret passage, top-left of the level in the Ion Ventilation System! i was doing that the other day and couldn't do it without the jump cheat. Is there an easier way to do the Impossible pogo jump than what I do, maybe?

Yeah, I still can't do the extra life in the PoM.
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Post by Plasma Captain »

I can't remember any one secret being the hardest to discover, and most of those which I didn't discover on my own were eventually spoiled for me on the Internet. I do have a mildly amusing story, I suppose.

When my dad gave my grandmother his old computer, she inherited a copy of Keen 4 that was on it, so she got into playing it. One day, she called us up and was asking about some rope in the trees at Hillville. My brother and I had no idea what she was talking about, and thought that she was just imagining things... until we checked. Yeah, turns out that there were some of those invisible platforms (she'd perceived the "shine" effect as being a rope) leading up to a whole mess of points in the sky. I had never thought to look up there.
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Post by StupidBunny »

There are still some secrets in Keen Dreams which I have never been able to reach without cheating, I think one underground in Spud City for instance. Of course, this is partly because I only rarely ever play Dreams.

Of the ones I've found, I'd have to go with that one in the Pyramid of the Moons as well. For years I kept trying to access it through that sneaky door in the large chamber, the one under the longer platform...it was a veeeery long time before I discovered that the access was, in fact, somewhere else entirely. Then mind was == blown.
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Post by T-Squared »

It wasn't in Commander Keen, but I found the hamburger hidden in the satellite in episode 1 of Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure when I was around 5 years old.
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Post by Benvolio »

T-Squared wrote:It wasn't in Commander Keen, but I found the hamburger hidden in the satellite in episode 1 of Cosmo's Cosmic Adventure when I was around 5 years old.
Excellent, that is almost definitely the coolest secret of the Apogee platformer era! And what an ingenious power-up - rather than giving health it gives potential health! We've never had such a thing in Keen mods have we, say a patch where your gun can only hold one bullet unless you pick up a spare empty magazine which can be filled with bullets. Or raygun battery etc.
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Post by Levellass »

Actually, I just worked out a patch for Keen 1 that lets you do that.


What I liked was what the satellite WAS. I wish I could find the interview that both confirmed and debunked my theories.
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Post by T-Squared »

Levellass wrote:Actually, I just worked out a patch for Keen 1 that lets you do that.


What I liked was what the satellite WAS. I wish I could find the interview that both confirmed and debunked my theories.
Oh? There was a reason for the satellite? O_O
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