Commander Keen in ... "Keen Meets the Meats"

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Levellass
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Post by Levellass »

Aah nice to see.



The screenshots are indeed bland, they're using the basic ground tileset, one that lacks a theme and was created especially to be dull and grey and bleah. Given that other tilesets are actually made of food and we've dedicated a whole fifth of the tileset to bright and colorful adverts hopefully that will add a bit of spice to things. Indeed I am pleased that the level looks sterile and kind of depressing, all 'factory' levels are intended to look oppressive and monotonus. At least until you reach the chainsaws.

There will be a generous helping of blood and gore in keeping with a theme of 'This is where your greasy food comes from' but the counterpart of that is that there will also be a focus on meat products from ham to spam. Expect later levels (This is in fact a test level) to be filled with grease. (Literally, you can be fried in a pan of the stuff.)

As for being a sequel... in a way yes, in the same way my candy mod was. We're not trying to make the official release here but something more of a... 'this is how we see that game'

On reflection I think Keen in the title screen should possibly be a little less bloody, there is a lot of red there and it might do just to make him look more unkempt, possibly using his hair all messed since he doesn't wear his helmet in this game.
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Post by DoomJedi »

Levellass wrote: The screenshots are indeed bland, they're using the basic ground tileset, one that lacks a theme and was created especially to be dull and grey and bleah. Given that other tilesets are actually made of food and we've dedicated a whole fifth of the tileset to bright and colorful adverts hopefully that will add a bit of spice to things.
That was exactly what I've hinted of in all my last posts, without spoiling.
That was the least colorful and interesting theme we have (but it too serves a purpose) - and even to it - those are the least spoiling screens. Don't conclude about the rest of the mod. It's all part of overall concept and vision.
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Post by Paramultart »

DoomJedi wrote:AFAIK it does.
Not all dreams have the same level of realism to them. It's not the same dream...a different one.
Lass wrote: We're not trying to make the official release here but something more of a... 'this is how we see that game'
Szemi wrote: Amen!
If you guys were so determined to break the mold of traditional Keen games, why did you tackle a project like "Meet the Meats" in the first place?
As for it not being an "official" release, of course it'll never be a true, licensed sequel to Keen Dreams; but it is named after one, albeit a canceled and potentially bogus one.
Regardless, a lot of Keen fans, such as myself, were eagerly anticipating this title, and there's a basic set of standards and expectations that should be met if you care at all about how the mod is received; otherwise, such scrutiny shouldn't surprise you.
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Post by DoomJedi »

We are all Keen fans who love Keen much.
We'll do nothing to hurt Keen's legacy in this mod, or ever.
This mod is done with alot of love to Keen.

We have never seen the scrapped official "Meats" project, so you have no way to know if the company would be able to make it's meat mod without blood at all. I doubt it. The fact that it's "veggies mod" was bloodless tells us nothing.
But in any case - we've never seen that other mod and have no vision to try to copy or recreate...we've making the mod like we envision it.
Let's not over-react - it's not like we're putting ROTT's ludicrious gibs into it :)
Blood is not the main art theme of this mod - meat is. And there is alot of various meats :)
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Post by Levellass »

If you guys were so determined to break the mold of traditional Keen games, why did you tackle a project like "Meet the Meats" in the first place?
As for it not being an "official" release, of course it'll never be a true, licensed sequel to Keen Dreams; but it is named after one, albeit a canceled and potentially bogus one.
Regardless, a lot of Keen fans, such as myself, were eagerly anticipating this title, and there's a basic set of standards and expectations that should be met if you care at all about how the mod is received; otherwise, such scrutiny shouldn't surprise you.
Whoa, wait, what? There's going to be scrutiny? Standards? Nobody mentioned anything about this. That's it, I'm out!

To be honest though, I think this project is not being done in a 'serious' sense but more an atmosphere of fun. Certainly I have enjoyed the back and forth dialog and exchange of ideas. While I hope that this won't be a total mess, I wouldn't go as far as saying we're 'determined' to do anything. This is just an interesting project exploring some possible and unused ideas. If it turns out as an excellent mod, bonus, but if it inspires people to look at Keen (and especially the Keen Dreams engine) and say 'I bet I could do something with this' then we have achieved what we set out to do. (If they say 'What garbage, I can do better than this!' that's almost as good.)
What you really need, not what you think you ought to want.
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Post by Levellass »

Ok now, I have found a way to eliminate the difficulty level from the game. You'd select a new game and start it immediately. As this affects only how long things stun for, is it even worth having three difficulty levels? From playing dreams myself I don't think so, but I'd like the opinion of other keeners.

And yes, I also got rid of the (pointless) 'Turn music on\off' option:

Code: Select all

#Disable music on\Off option
%patch $284A6 $FFFFW $FFFFW $FFFFW $FFFFW $0000W $0000W $0000W $0000W
              $0000W $0000W $00000000L    $0000W
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Post by szemi »

Progress is going good as I've managed to start/finish some levels.
We still have to make levels though, even enemies.


(Hmm, maybe a demo level could be good?)
Yeah, piece of cake!
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Post by VikingBoyBilly »

Woah, this is actually in the works beyond the ideas and fanart phase? I gotta finish my lambchopper, then (or whatever I called it).

I wasn't expecting it to be about an angry butcher in a metal meat factory. I thought it was supposed to be another dream world (and of course I'm not the only one that instantly thinks of EWJ2's "level ate"). It's looking more nightmarish.
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Post by Levellass »

Well its dream-ish. Mods have a tendency to get away on you and end up as something other than what you initially intended them.
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Post by VikingBoyBilly »

Yes, but the final boss looks like this creepy butcher, and I was expecting the ruler of Beefburgaria to be a king T-bone steak or something.

I PM'd doomjedi about whether I should complete the beefburgarian and the lambchopper.
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Post by DoomJedi »

I think you should :)
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Post by KeenRush »

I haven't seen any screens (can't get that link working) -- and even if I had I would say the same thing: Keep your vision 100% as it is. There's no reason to change any of it. I like seeing projects taking crazy and different paths. Fucl, I more or less killed Keen in my three previous mods, in Fastest Gun under the sugar coating of the graphics Keen was portrayed as a somewhat sadistic and ruthless neural stunner slinger. :dead I haven't followed this topic and didn't know this was progressing with such a big (3? 4?) team. Can't wait to see this now.
My newest mod - Commander Keen: Sunset: viewtopic.php?t=8568 | codename H.Y.E.N.A.
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Post by DoomJedi »

Thanks KeenRush :)
Things are going well...this is gonna be a very...different mod :)

I myself did plenty of graphics for this - but currently I'm passive and am not contributing much beside following the development...busy with my wolf3D mods and...life. But I might do more art for this, need to find the right mood.
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Post by Levellass »

VikingBoyBilly wrote:Yes, but the final boss looks like this creepy butcher, and I was expecting the ruler of Beefburgaria to be a king T-bone steak or something.
Yeah but we actually got permission from a famous butcher to use his likeness and a giant burger... eh, that's kinda predictable. It'd be Boobus Tuber turned carnivore. We kinda figured since nobody else will ever touch Keen Dreams we can be... inventive.
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Post by VikingBoyBilly »

But KMTM needs to be an exact retread of keen dreams! It must be A Dream, set in the meaty land of Beefburgaria, with king T. Bon estakus as it's corrupt ruler capturing children in their dreams to force them to eat... tuna, liver, and other meat kids generally complain about! Don't you see that the key to innovation is making a direct copy of everything that was done before (with maybe a slight reskin)? That's the mantra of modern game industry! 8)
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