The Pirate Mod

Here is where to post about the latest Commander Keen fangame or modification you've finished, a new website you've made, or another Keen-related creation.
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Levellass
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The Pirate Mod

Post by Levellass »

So nobody guessed my 2800th post on the 28th had a secret link to betas of ALL of my projects plus this one completed project. (6:28 is twice 3:14! C'mon people!)

But as this is 7:15 I figured I'd release this little ditty and prepare for the onslaught of glitches and bugs people are bound to unearth. Ladies and gentlemen (Actually, are there any ladies left?) I present to you: The pirate mod

Download it here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/3940020/Pirates.zip


If you keep getting mussy problems with garbage levels this no-music version helps a great deal: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/394 ... 0Music.zip


Based on an abandoned Ceilick classic this is my swansong of Vorticon modding. My attempt to show that there is life in those episodes yet despite keeners' love for the galaxy engines. Fight your way through 32 levels of vaguely pirate-themed goodness and pray that my level design capabilities have improved.

I will accept all praise and no criticism.
Last edited by Levellass on Mon Jul 15, 2013 21:57, edited 1 time in total.
What you really need, not what you think you ought to want.
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Paramultart
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Post by Paramultart »

OH goodness! I came just in time!
"Father Mabeuf was surveying his plants"
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_mr_m_
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Post by _mr_m_ »

Paramultart wrote:OH goodness! I came just in time!
Phrasing....

Lass, nothing happens after the the "One Moment" screen. Just fades to back. :bloody Don't know if I need to change something with my DOSBox or what. So no praise...or criticism...for now.
"I just drew this stupid little fish." -- Tom Hall
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DoomJedi
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Post by DoomJedi »

This is one very interesting mod!

Love the concept, love the art, love enemy patching, love the VortiPirate, the VortiSharks and all of those....very hard and challenging mod. Love the background, love the effort.

Fish(?) jumps reminded me of "Wonderboy" :)
Bernie
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Post by Bernie »

hey not bad lass. i played a few levels of it, and one of them was just basically a garbage level (can't remember which one, one of the first ones- had repeating rows of random tiles) which I had to end my game to get out of.

at first I thought maybe you somehow expanded the graphics pallette but then realised you must've changed the pallette colours, which does make it look like a bigger pallete.

so its pretty good from what ive seen, but im not really a fan of vorticon mods.

PS whats that pic that you control in the map level? looks like a weirdo skull and bones.
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Roobar
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Post by Roobar »

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Very funny Lass!

I finally managed to run it after all, but there is a level which didn't remove the blocked way, so basically it's impossible to beat the game since you've also changed the cheats behavior...

After I quit and ran it again, the game crashes and I'm unable to run it at all again no matter what! Right before the loading screen it just crashes and quits. Btw also it's written 2012 before the loading screen.

Overall: too buggy and untested.
My attempt to show that there is life in those episodes yet despite keeners' love for the galaxy engines.
:no
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Levellass
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Post by Levellass »

Indeed. Sadly there are memory issues that crop up. (This is what causes 'garbage levels'; this is especially true if you view the extra long help file before playing them. Quitting then re-entering usually works.

Except for wiivn; I especially coded the game to never work on his setup. (It'd be interesting to see a screenshot of the level that didn't remove its blocking tiles; I have a savegame specifically created to test that and all the levels on my setup work fine.)

If you keep getting mussy problems with garbage levels this no-music version helps a great deal: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/394 ... 0Music.zip

But you miss out on some great tunes.
What you really need, not what you think you ought to want.
Ceilick
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Post by Ceilick »

Enjoying this quite a bit so far. Levels are very serene, great size (on the small side, but enjoyably so). Generally like the difficulty so far. Graphics, that aren't mine, are very nice, although I'm not sure I like how brown everything is. Enjoyed the intro story and I've just defeated Spleen the Mad, first of the pirate lords I've encountered. I literally lolled at that dialog :lol; so so subtle.

The only issue I've had so far: The Badlands loaded as a junk level. After finally getting in after trying a few things, upon beating it the world map was a junk level. I created a second save at that point and tried loading it, and I presume it loaded fine except the camera wouldn't follow Keen and could only scroll down. I tried reloading my previous save, but it was suddenly gone. I tried creating a new game, and Keen's starting position was where I had saved in my previous game...

Couple suggestions for your further ventures:
1. Subtle tile animations, anything to break up the absolute stillness that pervades many areas.
2. Outline consistency. There are various objects with black outlines that stick out glaringly. In cases like the spikes, I can see the reasoning to make them identifiable to the player, but to outline their entire structure, rather thickly too, makes them stick out too much. The sprites seem to fit in pretty well, but given the style of most of the scenery, the thick, complete outlines on some objects disrupt the scene.

Will report more when I play later.
Plasma Captain
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Post by Plasma Captain »

I was playing it without qualms for a while until I saved the game and exited. Now, when I try to run it, it gives me two of these:

Code: Select all

Illegal write to cc0082a1, CS:IP     f000:    11c4
Then it crashes after the loading screen and throws two more lines of the same error. Deleting the save file didn't change the results.

From what I saw, it was pretty sweet, though.
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Levellass
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Post by Levellass »

Those error lines are in fact a weird side effect of how TSMuisc runs, if you look at a normal run of the mod it'll do that every time.

For the crash, try replacing\deleting the scores and ctlpanel files. Sometimes they get corrupted when the game crashes.


This is a wonderful side effect of the fact that no matter how many beta testers I have (I had five if you think I didn't test this go soak your head.) I had to disable the oxygen meter underwater because it caused the game to unpredictably crash on XP systems. Why? Who the hell knows? All I get is 'The game crashed!' real informative there people! How can stop a bug that I can't reproduce? I mean seriously, is my computer just some sort of super awesome megastable dinosaur? Was dosbox updated to crappy version? I don't know! It's just that it crashes everywhere but on my system. I'll post an hour long video if I am doubted!

1. Subtle tile animations, anything to break up the absolute stillness that pervades many areas.
I tried but could not get Lemm to help me expand the tileset. This is why even the water does not move. It lends an air of emptiness doesn't it?

2. Outline consistency. There are various objects with black outlines that stick out glaringly. In cases like the spikes, I can see the reasoning to make them identifiable to the player, but to outline their entire structure, rather thickly too, makes them stick out too much. The sprites seem to fit in pretty well, but given the style of most of the scenery, the thick, complete outlines on some objects disrupt the scene.
Very true. I have a love of outlines and tried to abandon them, but didn't quite manage to make it.
What you really need, not what you think you ought to want.
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MoffD
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Post by MoffD »

Levellass wrote:Those error lines are in fact a weird side effect of how TSMuisc runs, if you look at a normal run of the mod it'll do that every time.

For the crash, try replacing\deleting the scores and ctlpanel files. Sometimes they get corrupted when the game crashes.


This is a wonderful side effect of the fact that no matter how many beta testers I have (I had five if you think I didn't test this go soak your head.) I had to disable the oxygen meter underwater because it caused the game to unpredictably crash on XP systems. Why? Who the hell knows? All I get is 'The game crashed!' real informative there people! How can stop a bug that I can't reproduce? I mean seriously, is my computer just some sort of super awesome megastable dinosaur? Was dosbox updated to crappy version? I don't know! It's just that it crashes everywhere but on my system. I'll post an hour long video if I am doubted!
*Shrugs* Huh, that's odd. :confused

I've been playing it on xp with DOSBox, not a single problem other than it saying:
Illegal write to cc0082a1, CS:IP f000: 11c4
Illegal write to cc0082a2, CS:IP f000: 11c4
but continuing to run fine

Edit: Found a glitch, but not a problem that causes crashing or anything:
Sliver stream, jumped up with the pogo a platform or two until I saw the bird. Came down and there was a bird trying to get in at the entrance from outside the map :P
Nice menu music BTW, can I maybe have some of the tracks?
mortimermcmirestinks wrote: Now I wish MoffD wasn't allergic to me.
Levellass wrote:You're an evil man.
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Bernie
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Post by Bernie »

a few more bugs i found when having another play of it-

*in one game, whenever i finished a level, it didn't 'cancel out' on the worldmap (have the skull and crossbones go over it) so that ultimately meant the levels that block your path I could never get past.

*for some reason my score got reset to zero at some point. I *think* this happened when I saved my game but I'm not sure.

*i dont know if you can do anything about it, but standing on the horizontal flying birds and the boats and having to always 'keep up' with it is annoying :(
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Fleexy
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Post by Fleexy »

Lemm has the V2 out for all Vorticons episodes now and it expands the tileset a lot. You can also save tiles by having putting some rarely-used level theme tiles in their own set.

I would do an LP of this if it would stop crashing in a variety of ways. Crashes with TSRMusic, derp levels, and general weirdnesses.
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Levellass
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Post by Levellass »

What?

WHAT?!!!!


When did he make V2 for all Vorticons episodes? WHEN DID THAT HAPPEN?! Where's the topic, the download? That's HUGE! Why did nobody tell me?!

Also, try the no music version; that may be more stable for you.

Nice menu music BTW, can I maybe have some of the tracks?
As in the midi tracks? The IMFs are there for the taking.

*in one game, whenever i finished a level, it didn't 'cancel out' on the worldmap (have the skull and crossbones go over it) so that ultimately meant the levels that block your path I could never get past.
Really weird; do you have a savegame from that I can look at?

*for some reason my score got reset to zero at some point. I *think* this happened when I saved my game but I'm not sure.
Also weird; your score should reset when you die in a level, but not to 0.

*i dont know if you can do anything about it, but standing on the horizontal flying birds and the boats and having to always 'keep up' with it is annoying
That's for added deviousness. It's evil I know, but I was channeling KeenRush. There's a trick to it though.
What you really need, not what you think you ought to want.
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cyber zero
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Post by cyber zero »

I'm playng this mod right now.
It's lot's of fun. :)
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