Keen Clone

You can discuss anything about fan-made Commander Keen games here.
gerstrong
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Oops!

Post by gerstrong »

I've found an error here! I've uploaded another version, with this bug fixed. I only released the windows version. In the next version this bug won't appear anymore.

@tulip: "data/KEEN2.EXE" must be lower-case. Are you sure, it is? You need that exe file, because it contains the sounds. Thank you for your mods suggestions. I will check them out! put "keen2.exe" in the data directory too. Did you put Keen2 into another directory different than "./data" ? If yes, than you have to modifiy "games.cfg"

@Commander Spleen: That's right. But CKP normally detects de EXE-files and extracts those sounds.ck?. Maybe I am going to change and let them straighly load without extraction.

I hope I get the version uploaded now. Sourceforge is a bit slow now and I have to go to work. If it doesn't work, I will upload it later.
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tulip
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Post by tulip »

Whoops. :o I forgot the exe file.

But turns out that wasn't the problem. The files must indeed be lower case, which I don't understand, because my keen1 files aren't and it works fine. Anyway, I tried Keen3 upper case and the program just terminated as it used to. I renamed the Keen2 files already to lower case and now the program hangs up
stdout ends with:

Code: Select all

latch_loadlatch(): Decoding bitmaps...
latch_loadsprites(): Opening file 'data//egasprit.ck1'.
latch_loadsprites(): Decompressing...
latch_loadsprites(): Decoding sprites...
loadstrings(): Opening string file 'strings.dat'.
loadst
I hope I'm not annoying you with these posts. I do this because I want to help you getting it working. If you just want me to give you some time, just say so.
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gerstrong
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Fast Yorps!

Post by gerstrong »

I've forgot to tell something.

The Yorps are moving fast, because difficult mode is enabled.

To see the game behaving normal, just disable this option.

I'm about to release another version, this time improved sound again.

This version will be a prerelease to 0.2. It has a more consistent structure and will crash less. It also load a bit faster, and is smoother.

Please be patient.
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CKP

Post by gerstrong »

I've released another Update.

It is a test version of my new start engine and prerelease of version 0.2

check it out!

https://sourceforge.net/project/showfil ... _id=249154
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tulip
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Post by tulip »

OK, I tested your new version.
I now tried it on my vista computer and the distorted sounds are gone, seems it was a problem with my old computer. I find it interesting that the new version needs the ctlpanel file, while the old one didn't (I know this because I used a fresh copy of keen with your program and ctlpanel doesn't exist until you load keen once. It was running before, now I had to create the files, but after that it worked fine. Still i can't get Keen2&3 started. it still stops like I posted before, just after strings.dat in the stdout.txt.
Does anyone else have this problem?
I'm using 1.31 versions of each keen game if that's any help.
Another minor thing I discovered is that you keep your keycards when you exit a level (not by dying), this is different in original keen. This is not a big problem, I just think you might want to know.

I just compared it to the original episodes again and it looks so much smoother and nicer. Keep up the good work!!
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Post by gerstrong »

@tulip: I see there is a lot of trust in you, when you test things :-)

Indeed, you are right. You don't need ctlpanel.ck?. I've implemented a consistency check algorithm in CKP, so there won't be any crashes anymore. However it still must be improved and adpted to some mods.

Thank you very much for that!

About your sound. Maybe the 48Khz helped you in removing the distortions or it was your Vista PC.

About Episodes 2 and 3 I don't know what happens for now, but I'm going to check that today and I'll tell you. Never give up the hope ;-)

Keen shouldn't keep keycard, I think. We will change that.

I have tested Episode 2 (v1.31). It works out of the box. Are you sure, all the file names are lower-case? Did you
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Post by tulip »

I just had an idea for a menu option in ckp: Why not add a menu item: "load custom level", right below "2-player game"
This way you could just throw all the single levels floating around on spatang and bipship and so on in to the data directory, name them as you please (like "ckguys3rdlevel.ck3" or so) and then start it...
the only thing where it might get a little more complicated is that you should be able to choose your raygun shots, and whether or not you have a pogo before starting the level.

If that's possible this would make a great addition to ckp.
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Post by gerstrong »

@Tulip: Good idea, but I will do that later, because this requieres an extra load menu, and implementation of menus is quite complicated in the source code. I'm working on a new menu system so I can implement the sound and video options again, but as seperate options. I want to support higher resolutions and maybe opengl for drawing all the pixels, so the game runs smoother and the main processor has less load, which would be very nice.
I find it interesting that the new version needs the ctlpanel file, while the old one didn't (I know this because I used a fresh copy of keen with your program and ctlpanel doesn't exist until you load keen once. It was running before, now I had to create the files, but after that it worked fine.


This was a bug too. I wanted to look for the exe-files, because they contain data, especially in Ep 2&3. It is fixed in v0.1.9.1
Still i can't get Keen2 and 3 started. it still stops like I posted before, just after strings.dat in the stdout.txt.
Does anyone else have this problem?
I think, the problem are your sounds. I had a bug when extracting from the exe-files. That is fixed now in v0.1.9.1. Please try this one and tell me. I'm behind that problem and want to solve it.
I'm using 1.31 versions of each keen game if that's any help.
This version of files also works in CKP. That's not the problem.
Another minor thing I discovered is that you keep your keycards when you exit a level (not by dying), this is different in original keen. This is not a big problem, I just think you might want to know.
Okay, This bug is fixed in v0.1.9.1

As you can see, I have released another version of CloneKeenPlus. Have fun using it!
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Post by tulip »

The program still hangs itself up there

Code: Select all

latch_loadlatch(): Opening file 'data/egalatch.ck2'.
latch_loadlatch(): Reading 129856 bytes...
latch_loadlatch(): Decoding 8x8 tiles...
latch_loadlatch(): Decoding 16x16 tiles...
latch_loadlatch(): Allocating 66945 bytes for bitmap data...
latch_loadlatch(): Decoding bitmaps...
latch_loadsprites(): Ope
Once it got as far as: Loaded 69 strings from strings.dat
Then nothing.

Why is your program so picky about lower-case file naming? The old version started Keen1 with upper-case files as well, the new one has problems. Where does this come from?
But don't worry i have all my files in lower case, I even tried unlzexe on the keen2 and keen3 exe, with no result.

PS: The sound distortion is indeed gone, also on my old xp computer.
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Okay

Post by gerstrong »

It cannot get enough information from your outputs. Unfortunately some text at the end is trimmed. Strangely this only happens in the Windows version. I'm going to write another version of CKP today.

Following items will be added:
- More accurancy on map when walking, like on the old game (constant speed). (thanks to Malvineous)
- Better text files. I noticed, that games.cfg looks horrible when opening with Notepad under Windows
- Better error logging, so we finally can trace errors and have no trimmed messages with segfault.

@Tulip: I'm sorry, that your version still doesn't work. I don't believe, it is the sound which cannot be extracted. But in the next version, the log text will be complete, so I will finally see well your errors.

I was wrong with the lower-case files. It is because of Windows, that it doesn't matter if your file names are upper or lower case. Only in Linux they have to be lower case. In Windows you don't care.

Today you get another version, a better one and this time I'll find your error. Don't worry... be happy :-)
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Post by gerstrong »

New version is available, but I have trouble uploading it on Sourceforge.

It is version 0.1.9.2

As I promised, I have improved some features:

- More accurancy on map when walking, like on the old game (constant speed). (thanks to Malvineous)
- Better text files. I noticed, that games.cfg looks horrible when opening with Notepad under Windows
- Better error logging, so we finally can trace errors and have no trimmed messages with segfault.

@Tulip: Now you can send me "ckp.log" located in your program directory and I can check exactly what problems you have in running the other episodes. Please try it out! Maybe this one solved your problem, because I had an error, when opening the start menu. It was a pointer problem. My fault.... :o
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Post by gerstrong »

Okay, now they are uploaded!

Have fun and happy testing!
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Post by tulip »

Okay, tested it again. Sadly Keen2 and 3 loading hasn't changed a bit, not even the stdout.txt. I can show you the full text if you like, but it just stops somewhere around strings.dat...
Anyway I loaded a levelpack (a.a. levelpack 1, first one on bipship) into it and found out that the butler bot isn't falling, meaning when its placed one tile above the ground it should be walking on it will stay there, not moving, normally it should just drop onto this ground and move there.
Next I found out your program is creating a tileinfo itself, not using the one given. That could be a problem with implementing mods which almost always use a different one...
I noticed that because ckp treats several tiles differently from the original:
The blue water tile is treated as blocking (I found out because of the level pack where you spend some time under water)
When you start level16 (original, not levelpack) the bridge to the castle should not be slippery, the white and yellow tiles should be foreground and the pillars as well.
First time I started the new version of ckp I had a critical shut down of my system with blue screen... when I loaded it again I had no problems. Strange.
And the sound seems to switch off from time to time, when I started a new game trice in a row.

Well hope that's helping. Just take your time. I know sometime it will be working, and it's gonna be great.
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Post by gerstrong »

That's really sad. And I still don't know what happens on your system. I get them running. All versions.

There are some hints I have in mind:

- Did you delete your directory and reinstall all from beginning with the newest CKP-Version?

- Did you check "games.cfg" file? Is it correct for you? What did you put in there?

I'll be working on those bugs you reported here ;-)
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Post by Napalm »

@gerstrong: To stop the logs from being trimmed you should add a fflush call after your log output. This will force windows to drop the file cache to disk. This way if it crashes the log file is accurate.

Napalm
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