In search for missing fan-games and mods

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Grandy02
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In search for missing fan-games and mods

Post by Grandy02 »

In the old PCKF, in most cases in the Unofficial Keen Games and Release subforums, I've found information on several fangames and a few mods which are not available in the KeenWiki. There is (almost) nothing related to those games in today's PCKF, too. In case anyone of you still has one of the following fan-made works, it would be really nice if you reuploaded them somewhere so that they can be added to KeenWiki. Most of them were released between 2004 and 2007. The original download links are all dead now (already checked Wayback Machine).

Requesting Critique (2005)
Pre-beta demo (2006)
KeenX Latest and Hiatus (2007)
Commander Keen in the Cosmic Heist Enigma a.k.a. KeenX by Vitamin Zach. Galaxy-style fangame written in C++, "on hold" since 2007. Its website Keen Koncepts still exists with tech demos, screenshots and more, but it was last updated in 2005 and lacks the 2006 and 2007 releases, including the latest level editor.

Decline - VERSION 11 Update Available (2005)
Decline v12 (Source Out) (2005)
Commander Keen Decline by alex87. Made with Game Maker. Appears to be an arcade-style game where Keen has to collect as many points as possible. Alex also released the source.
(Received the game from Spleen, except for the source, will upload it soon.)

Paddle War Deluxe (2004, no replies left)
Paddle War Deluxe by BBalazs. Probably is what the title implies.

My crappy keen game (2004, no replies left)
A "crappy Keen game" by alex87. Made in less in than two minutes according to Alex. I don't know anything about its content.

Dance Keen (2006)
Dance Keen by Genius314. A music game in the form of a Java applet. Was inspired by TMST's Disco Keen, but while fragments of Disco Keen survive, Dance Keen disappeared entirely.

RKeen - Change Pink to Red! (2006)
RKeen Series - Change Pinkt to Red! (all finished) (2006)
RKeen5 and 6 by Q90. Skin mods that change Keen's pink shirt to a red shirt in Keen 5 and 6.

(topic lost, 2004)
Commander Keen: The Lost Oracle by John Eubank a.k.a. Twilight Dragon. The long-defunct website, later followed by another site, didn't feature any downloadable game.
However, John posted something in the Release Forum in 2004. All I know is that it had to do with a renewed engine, the thread is lost. I found mentions of this game in the current PCKF and Keen: Modding, enemies designed by Ceilick were to appear in The Lost Oracle.
(Received 2003 versions of the game from TCL999, will upload them soon.)

InsideTheWeb post (1999)
Demo of Real Keen Player by therealdopefish. Shortly after its release, Ilsoap created a level pack, which survives. The demo was available on at least two sites in addition to therealdopefish's one, including CC314.

New Isis and Contest (topic not restored yet, 2001)
The Mystery of Isis II level editor by the Isis Team. The March 2001 demo of Isis came with a level editor. The team needed level designers and held a level design contest. This was also mentioned on Commander Keen Nexus.

(no topic)
Commander Keen in Keen 4 as a Vorticon by Fordka a.k.a. James Behr. Skin mod, Keen is replaced by a Vorticon Elite and the Council Member by the Vorticon King, there are some more graphical changes. This was added to Beyond the Pogo in January 2006. Fordka adapted many Keen 1-3 creatures to the Keen 4-6 style, but all the download links don't work, just like the one of the mod (the images of the sprites were also on Freewebs, which are gone). Interestingly, I don't remember any PCKF/Modding member named Fordka or James Behr, though he posted multiple comments on DOS Classics...

Image
Works that are available again:

commander keen And The Grand Intellect ONLINE (GET IT NOW) (2004)
CKGI 2.1 Sprite help (2005)
Commander Keen and The Grand Intellect by Creative madman. A two-player platform game made with Game Maker where Keen and Mort fight it out. It had a little webpage (no screenshots archived), the actual game files were hosted by Commander Spleen.
Thanks to Spleen.

10 New levels for Keen 4-6!! (2006)
SupFanat's Keen 4, Keen 5 and Keen 6 Level Pack. According to KeenWiki, Shikadi's 2009 The Rapid Pack contains the first fan-made Keen 6 levels, but SupFanat released the levels three years earlier. History needs to be rewritten! ;) SupFanat continued to work on the levels, but I don't recall any more releases.
Thanks to Malvineous.

Usermade Keen 4-6 levels? (2002)
More Keen 4 levels by ChargingMoose. ChargingMoose did not only create the first fan-made Keen 4 level, he also released the first set of Keen 4 levels. In his first thread, ChargingMoose told about "many more levels" and posted two screenshots in September 2001. While he didn't finish the level pack, he released what he had in July 2002. The file could still be at ChargingMoose's 50megs site, even though the link was removed. I wonder whether ChargingMoose still has the password for the site (in case he reads this).
Thanks to the author.

Creating a new Keen fangame (2006)
Multimedia Fusion Commander Keen Engine emulation... (2006)
Keen:Return by DaVince21. Abandoned platform game made with Multimedia Fusion, only the source was released (the second topic was created by a different Keener, DaVince posted the file on the second page).
Thanks to the author. It's actually a predecessor of the abandoned Sphere-based Project Keen.

RKeen - Change Pink to Red! (2006)
RKeen Series - Change Pinkt to Red! (all finished) (2006)
RKeen4 by Q90. Skin mod that changes Keen's pink shirt to a red shirt in Keen 4.
Still had a backup of this one. I don't have RKeen5 and 6, though.

Update: baCK, version 0.02 (2006)
baCK by OnkelPeterle. Appears to be a Galaxy clone in an early state.
Thanks to Spleen.

Keen Galaxies Demo (2007)
Keen Galaxies by TCL999. Abandoned game made with Click and Create, seems to be a mix of genres. Keen battles enemies in space with his BwB and flies to different planets where he has to complete missions, according to the author's description.
Thanks to the author.

...Test your keen skillZ... (2003)
Three Keen 1 levels by Captainkeen. In addition to Test Your Keen Skillz which can be found in the KeenWiki now, a separate set of 3 levels (3levels.zip) by the brother of Eazyjay a.k.a. Joriz was posted in the above thread.
Thanks to TCL999.

(topic lost, 2003)
An unnamed Keen 1 mod by Krayzie Thug03 is mentioned in issue 19 (2003-08-31) of the Commander Keen Newsletter. I never heard about the mod and its creater before. A long-defunct Keen fansite had the ZIP of that alpha/teaser under the name k1pro.zip, but the link is dead.
Thanks to TCL999.

Return of the Vorticons (2007)
Return of the Vorticons by KeegTech (StupidBunny). Like Keen Galaxies, it was released by its author long after the abandonement. Created with The Games Factory, also features a mini-game.
Thanks to the author.

(Removed the first Isis II demo from the list, it was available all the time under the working title Commander Keen: Infinity.)

Image
By the way, I recently "rediscovered" a remake of Shadow Keen 1 released by Levellord as a birthday present for Spleen in 2005. At least I don't remember that any Keen site had it, including KeenRush's former sites. There were only two replies to Levellord's announcement (in the Misc. forum). Part 2 stars Spaceman Spiff rather than Keen now, equipped with anti-gravity boots (patched pogo). The KeenWiki article made no mention of the remake until I added it two weeks ago. What I've seen looks promising, it's too bad that there are major bugs again (you can only access a few levels in Part 1 as the teleporters don't work properly). I wish for a version of this mod with everything fixed and maybe some extra stuff like music, a kind of "definitive edition" of Levellord's first mod (or mods, rather). And I'm surprised that my name appears in the high scores of a mod I was not even aware of. :D
Last edited by Grandy02 on Sat May 28, 2022 13:05, edited 16 times in total.
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Re: In search for missing fan-games and mods

Post by Nisaba »

just pinging TSK. There is a good chance that his Keen folder contains something useful:
out now (link) : Image
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Re: In search for missing fan-games and mods

Post by troublesomekeen »

Wowsers. I have not a single one of these. The only fan-game I have is from Dr. Colossus, I think. This is great research though!
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Re: In search for missing fan-games and mods

Post by Benvolio »

I think I remember the Spleen birthday version of Shadow Keen. And the red shirt one sounds familiar too.
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Re: In search for missing fan-games and mods

Post by Grandy02 »

troublesomekeen wrote: Sat May 25, 2019 19:12 Wowsers. I have not a single one of these. The only fan-game I have is from Dr. Colossus, I think. This is great research though!
Thanks. I'm more interested in mods than fan-games, but it wouldn't be nice if all the hard work of those Keeners fell completely into oblivion.

I've added three more things to the list in the first post: Real Keen Player demo by therealdopefish (a level pack by Ilsoap survives), level editor that came with the March 2001 demo of Isis II, and Fordka's Keen 4 skin mod featuring Vorticons (Fordka a.k.a. James Behr adapted many Keen 1-3 creatures to the Keen 4-6 style, all his sprites are gone).
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Re: In search for missing fan-games and mods

Post by Vitaminzach »

Hey I know a thing or two about one of those!
Thanks for digging into these old projects Grandy, I didn't realize just how long it's really been... yikes!
I had my 4 and 6 year old boys hooked on Keen for a few weeks earlier this year. But they later discovered Minecraft (youtubers :no )
I don't remember exactly what I was up to with the project last. There's a very limited "level" I was using to play around with the basics, that actually runs it seems (this surprises me... again, it has been a long time!) but so far none of the more interesting levels want to work. I need to take some time to package up at least the minimum to get the application to run, but I'd really like to try to figure out why some stuff won't... but I think I built it in DirectX 7 and I'm not sure I can even get the codebase compiling these days.

Anyway, enough rambling on, I'll set aside some time to at least get something out there soon!
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Re: In search for missing fan-games and mods

Post by Grandy02 »

Vitaminzach wrote: Wed Jun 26, 2019 17:42 Hey I know a thing or two about one of those!
Thanks for digging into these old projects Grandy, I didn't realize just how long it's really been... yikes!
I had my 4 and 6 year old boys hooked on Keen for a few weeks earlier this year. But they later discovered Minecraft (youtubers :no )
I don't remember exactly what I was up to with the project last. [...]

Anyway, enough rambling on, I'll set aside some time to at least get something out there soon!
Nice to see you here again, Zach. :) Thanks for taking time for KeenX again after so many years. I remember promising tech demos, but somehow I missed out the later releases. Maybe your boys' interest in Keen will increase again when they learn about dad's very own Keen game. :D

Creative madman's game Commander Keen and The Grand Intellect is available for download now. Thanks to Commander Spleen for the files!

I'm very happy that the research was not for nothing. :D
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Re: In search for missing fan-games and mods

Post by Grandy02 »

Finally, another work from the list is available again: SupFanat's Keen 4-6 levels. I asked Malvineous since he was one of the people who replied in SupFanat's thread back in 2006. He still had them! :)
SupFanat's Keen 4 Level Pack‎
SupFanat's Keen 5 Level Pack‎
SupFanat's Keen 6 Level Pack‎ (the first fan-made Keen 6 levels)

I "rediscovered" three Keen 1 level packs from the early 2000s, too. I didn't have to ask someone, they were still available for download. The levels were never added to the database of Beyond the Pogo/DOS Classics, unlike most packs of the time, which likely contributed to their obscurity. Anyway, here they are.
Kopievan Keen Pack
Karsaanpas
Forge's 1st Level

Have fun with the "new" levels. :D Also, thanks to Quillax for creating the KeenWiki articles.
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Re: In search for missing fan-games and mods

Post by Roobar »

Oh boy! Nicely done! Finally something Galaxy new. Alright, now gotta play all of those SupFanat levels which look awesum! 👍 :D
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Re: In search for missing fan-games and mods

Post by Nisaba »

what an awesome detective work. nice research!
I'm curious, what those levels might look like. I may borrow one or two ideas for FitF...
out now (link) : Image
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Re: In search for missing fan-games and mods

Post by Grandy02 »

Thanks for the nice comments. :) Asking "contemporary witnesses" appears to be the only way to retrieve the lost games and levels. Many of these people don't frequent this place as commonly as they did in the past, if at all...
It would probably have been easier if I had started the research 10 years earlier. ;)
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Re: In search for missing fan-games and mods

Post by Quillax »

Hey, guess what PCKFers? Grandy02 found FOUR more levelpacks for Vorticons that weren't added to KeenWiki until recently and are probably not very well known today, although they are newer than the other missing fan-games and mods listed here. I also found two levels contained within one levelpack that were made for a different game, and created KeenWiki articles for all of the levelpacks. Here they are!

Shikadi's 1st Levelpack
Shikadi's 2nd Levelpack
Shikadi's 3rd Levelpack (the two levels I found can be looked up here)
Keen 2.5

So, Grandy02, thanks again for all this awesome research! :D
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Re: In search for missing fan-games and mods

Post by Clara2020 »

awesome share and work :disguised
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Re: In search for missing fan-games and mods

Post by Grandy02 »

@Quillax @Clara2020: Thanks! :)
I am happy to announce that another long-lost treasure has been recovered. ChargingMoose did not only create the first user-made Keen 4 level, he also released the first set of custom Keen 4 levels in July 2002. I found a way to contact him, and now the levels are back after more than a decade and a half. The pack features six complete levels and a single unfinished one:
ChargingMoose's 2nd Levelpack

About a month ago, I read the thread "Usermade Keen 4-6 levels?" and learned that ChargingMoose had posted a levelpack then. It was not finished, but he published what he had. While lots of Keeners' old sites at free webhosting services have gone offline over the years or the services themselves have been shut down, CM's 50megs site still exists. The download link is not there any more, but I thought that the file might still be available on the webspace and could be retrieved with the help of ChargingMoose.

I didn't find any recent Internet activities by him under that name, though. There was an e-mail address in an old member list, but any mail sent to it bounced back. I also asked Nisaba since CM's first level is part of Buried in Oblivion, maybe she had contacted him before. But it was not the case.

Luckily, ChargingMoose had made a brief reappearance in the PCKF in 2006 and told about his success as a player of the Xbox game Geometry Wars. The story of his high score was covered by multiple media outlets, so I found out his real name. In a certain article, I read about one of CM's brothers. I visited the brother's website, sent him a mail and asked to forward my message to ChargingMoose. Not long after, I received a reply from CM. He was both pleased and surprised to see that he is still remembered in the Keen community and that his first level has even been included in a levelpack (thanks to Nisaba for suggesting the mention of Buried in Oblivion).

However, CM didn't have the password for 50megs any more and his available old e-mail accounts didn't receive the password reset mail. I told him about the aforementioned defunct mail address from the member list. He reregistered it and on the same day, he was able to retrieve the files from 50megs, including the levelpack. Thanks, ChargingMoose! :)

Well, enjoy this piece of Keen community history. :D
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Re: In search for missing fan-games and mods

Post by Roobar »

Wow! You deserve a medal, detective Grandy02! Well done! Fascinating story! It's a miracle that after all those years the level pack still exists and is back again for download. Definitely gonna play it. Thanks.
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