Keen 2000 and Keen4ever

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Zak6009
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Keen 2000 and Keen4ever

Post by Zak6009 »

So... I have a feeling some of you might be familiar with these games. They ran on a slightly different interface and were just run from a window more or less, a lot more floaty and less controllable and he would fall a lot faster and at one point you'd fight a chicken and there were a bunch of passwords.

I did find some download links to them, but they seem to be incompatible with recent windows OS, and they don't work in DOSBox either. Is there a way to play them today?
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Re: Keen 2000 and Keen4ever

Post by Roobar »

I think your best bet is to install a virtual machine and install and run Winows 98se. And then, if it's still not working, you may need to install some click'n'play sh1t or something that's probably missing. Overall it's too much of a hurdle for me to try this out, but feel free to post a video of getting it running, if you decide to go through all that.

Also, maybe we should update the keen wiki with more details about this because every now and then someone asks about Keen 2000 (Grandy02?).
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Re: Keen 2000 and Keen4ever

Post by Zak6009 »

Oh wow, nah, probably not gonna do all that just for that game... Thanks though.

But if someone else can and upload a video playthrough of it that would be great.

That being said - is the music from it available anywhere? I remember in addition to some of the familiar Keen music it had some of its own which was nice.
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Re: Keen 2000 and Keen4ever

Post by Quillax »

Aw yeah, I remember Commander Keen 2000! That's one of my favorite fangames! I've played that game a lot as a kid, and I still play it, at least once a year. :) I have never heard of Keen4ever, though.

If you're using Windows and the games don't really work, it's very likely that you're missing cncs232.dll, a DLL that all old Clickteam games require. You can download them right from KeenWiki (be sure to read the text file included within for instructions on where to extract): http://www.shikadi.net/wiki/files/Fangames/cncs232.zip

The non-Keen music was actually from other sources. I don't know if any downloads for such MIDIs are available today, but Commander Keen 2000 does have a hidden sound test, accessible via the password "sndtest". Keep in mind that it's rather glitchy, as the wrong song may sometimes play. ;)

(In case you're wondering, I found the sound test by opening the game with The Games Factory, which is possible since the game was left unprotected.)
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Re: Keen 2000 and Keen4ever

Post by namida »

(In case you're wondering, I found the sound test by opening the game with The Games Factory, which is possible since the game was left unprotected.)
If I'm not mistaken, all Klik n Play games are unprotected; it wasn't until The Games Factory that protection became possible (or may have even been Click & Create).
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Re: Keen 2000 and Keen4ever

Post by Grandy02 »

Both games can be played with DOSBox by running them under Windows 3.1x, which works very well with DOSBox. The guide at vogons.org is really helpful. Once it's done, many more games are playable with DOSBox. You can copy the installed Windows 3.1x to any device (no need to repeat the installation process) and you don't need any VM software besides DOSBox itself. Unfortunately, the ancient Windows releases are still not freeware, not sure if they ever will be.
Quillax wrote: Fri Aug 09, 2019 16:50 If you're using Windows and the games don't really work, it's very likely that you're missing cncs232.dll, a DLL that all old Clickteam games require. You can download them right from KeenWiki (be sure to read the text file included within for instructions on where to extract): http://www.shikadi.net/wiki/files/Fangames/cncs232.zip
This is not Zak6009's problem, I think. 16-bit Windows apps simply won't run under 64-bit Windows. Or do you know about an easier way to use the 16-bit programs nowadays? Please tell. :)

Took a look at Keen4ever for the first time. Feels very Keen 2000-esque. :D I'd really like to play the later games by therealdopefish, the Real Keen Player series, which were developed for DOS and not made with Clickteam software. All three crash in DOSBox at some point. I opened the executables of the first two RKP games in a Windows 98 VM to take a few screenshots for KeenWiki, but it isn't much fun due to slow speed, graphical errors and lack of sound.
Last edited by Grandy02 on Mon Aug 12, 2019 7:13, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Keen 2000 and Keen4ever

Post by Quillax »

I've been able to run old Clickteam games on a 32-bit Windows 7 and a 64-bit Windows 10 using the DLL (although I only tried one game on the latter, which had somewhat choppy scrolling). Most of them worked very well, including Commander Keen 2000. Dopefish Forever is one fangame that wouldn't run on my computer, instead I get these error messages about not finding certain DLLs (KNPS.DLL, KNPG.DLL) and that my computer can't find "dope4evr.exe (or one of its components)".
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Re: Keen 2000 and Keen4ever

Post by Grandy02 »

Quillax wrote: Sun Aug 11, 2019 23:55 I've been able to run old Clickteam games on a 32-bit Windows 7 and a 64-bit Windows 10 using the DLL (although I only tried one game on the latter, which had somewhat choppy scrolling).
The game tried on Windows 10 was probably a 32-bit app. When I try to open keen2k.exe, I get the same message as for any other DOS or Windows 3.1x executable.

There was already a discussion on this matter back in 2011. The suggestions were essentially the same (virtual machine software or Windows 3.1 in DOSBox). The asker then played Commander Keen 2000 via The Games Factory instead. I know little about the Clickteam tools, but would it be possible to convert an (unprotected) 16-bit game to a 32- or 64-bit one?
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Re: Keen 2000 and Keen4ever

Post by Quillax »

Ah, so KNP games are 16-bit? The game I tried was made with the 32-bit version of The Games Factory. I found a program (Click Extract) that supposedly can convert KNP games into what would TGF produce, but as I said supposedly, it resulted in a corrupted mess that my computer can't run nor can TGF load it. You can use TGF to load Keen 2000 and then play it, but it does seem to end up with glitches, probably because of some changes made when going from KNP to TGF. Like, in the second level, Keen is unable to jump and can only move left and right. :confused

(Also, I finally managed to play Dopefish Forever! Turns out that Keen 2000 had a couple files that were needed to play the game, which I just copy-and-pasted over. :))
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Re: Keen 2000 and Keen4ever

Post by namida »

I'd really like to play the later games by therealdopefish, the Real Keen Player series, which were developed for DOS and not made with Clickteam software.
Real Keen Player... now there's a blast from the past. I remember getting RKP2 onto the PC at school, and making a bunch of co-op levels (usually, one player would go through each of two doors at the start, and then there'd be switches or gems or whatever in one side, that's needed to progress in the other - I was like 10 at the time, you can't expect too much creativity :P ) that were always really enjoyed.

I don't remember RKP3 so much... just that it was a huge step up in difficulty.
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Re: Keen 2000 and Keen4ever

Post by entropicdecay »

I thinking I played a Real Keen Player at some point, though I can't remember which one now.
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