Marooned on Mars: Remastered! Woot! <ABANDONED>

[QU3TZ4LC04TL]

News & Updates:
-August 26th 2010: Closed.
-July 1st 2010: Officially reopened!
-June 30th 2010: This project has suffered a major setback! Multiple blue screens of death lead to the loss of the majority of my files. I'm practically starting from scratch. The few files I could recover will help. It's frustrating to see near ancient files be recoverable, and some of the most recently used ones corrupt or lost forever. It's all good though, it happens. I'm looking towards the positive here. Theoretically since I'm not in school this term, catching up to where I was seems logical. Probably won't be a demo anytime soon obviously. I am not closing this project! In fact I have renewed motivation and some new ideas to increase difficulty and enjoyment. We'll see how it all goes! As usual I will keep everyone posted. Sorry!
-June 29th 2010: Closed until further notice.
-June 5th 2010: Demo planned for end of the month.
-June 4th 2010: Changed title, added KeenWiki link.

Screenshots:



Old look compared to new look.

Dusk: Night:
Click here to see original map. (Not in game)

The first image is an example from Keen 1 and the other two are my own renditions. With and without backgrounds.

(Not in game)


Just a basic screen. (Not in game)



Links:
KeenWiki: Marooned on Mars: Remastered

Original Post from Feb 27th 2010:
Greetings PCKF users! I have begun work on remaking Marooned on Mars with the style and look of Keens 4, 5, and 6. If things continue to move at their current pace, I may do Keens 2 and 3 as well. Perhaps even a KeenEditor will come out of this after all is said and done. My question to you guys is.. Has anybody already remade Keens 1, 2 and/or 3 in the isometric style?

[ckguy]

Interesting. Are you far enough along for a screenshot or two?

And as for other remakes, I'd say Commander Genius by gerstrong qualifies. While it does have an optional High Quality Pack which has remastered graphics, they aren't in the style of Keen Galaxy.

[lemm]

Sounds interesting. A 3D-ish keens 1 thru 3 would be awesome.

Any other info you can give us?

[QU3TZ4LC04TL]

There are currently no screen shots or playable demos. They will come in the future! I am currently creating, editing, and mixing various CK 4-6 and Keen Dreams tiles to try and get a comfortable look. After I have created enough building blocks (left ends, right ends, centers etc) placing them and building the levels will be easy! I want to try to give the enemies a better look, as well as the Mars World Map. Some additions will be; the use of poles for the player to climb up and down, the open-able/close-able bridges, and of course a soundtrack!

When will I post a screen or two you ask?
As soon as all the tedious stuff is out of the way... Sooner rather then later. We will see how real life schedules me.

At this point I am not asking for any contributions, though that may change in the future.
If anyone has any thoughts, share them please!

[KeenRush]

So, are you modding Keen 4? Or making a fan game? Anyway, good luck with the project.

[Deltamatic]

If you're adding poles, then you'd have to be changing the levels at least a bit... would you mind leaving poles out for the sake of truthfulness to the original?

[Grimson]

But remember, Keens 1-3 didn't allow saving in the middle of a level, unlike Keens 4-6 (and dreams) did. If you're remaking Keen 1 on Keen 4, this might drastically reduce the difficulty of the levels

[pizza2004]

I've already thought of doing this using the Commander Genius engine at some point. If you decide to do it, you can make the graphics and we can do the rest to make it an option. You can make the soundtrack too, but try to stay faithful to the original Keen 4-6 type of music.

[Deltamatic]

But remember, Keens 1-3 didn't allow saving in the middle of a level, unlike Keens 4-6 (and dreams) did. If you're remaking Keen 1 on Keen 4, this might drastically reduce the difficulty of the levels

Maybe some sort of no in-level saving patch could be made.

[QU3TZ4LC04TL]

So, are you modding Keen 4? Or making a fan game? Anyway, good luck with the project.

No mods. This is a fan made game!

If you're adding poles, then you'd have to be changing the levels at least a bit... would you mind leaving poles out for the sake of truthfulness to the original?

Very true. We'll see how things go. Maybe poles and bridges will only appear in a few, made by me, maps that I have in mind.

But remember, Keens 1-3 didn't allow saving in the middle of a level, unlike Keens 4-6 (and dreams) did. If you're remaking Keen 1 on Keen 4, this might drastically reduce the difficulty of the levels Confused

Something along these lines...
Easy: Access to Saving (Outside of levels)
Normal: No Saving
Keen: No Saving, No Dying (Or set number of lives)

I've already thought of doing this using the Commander Genius engine at some point. If you decide to do it, you can make the graphics and we can do the rest to make it an option. You can make the soundtrack too, but try to stay faithful to the original Keen 4-6 type of music.

Thanks for the offer pizza. However since I'm already putting the work into the graphics and have the base for the engine I should be good. I do plan on sharing all the graphics when the game is done.

Edit:
Screen shots coming within the next week or two.

[Deltamatic]

Great stuff! The difficulty levels seem a bit weird, though... here's another idea.

Easy: in-level saving and saving on world map
Normal: saving only on world map
Hard: saving only on exit! [can't revert to previous world map position when you had more lives]

Separate high score tables for each difficulty level.

[QU3TZ4LC04TL]

Progress is being made at a nice steady pace for the time being. There is still plenty of tiles and sprites to be drawn and edited. After which the task of scripting begins. -_-

An example of the developing look of the game:

Just a basic screen (Not in game). Please do not rip tiles from image.

I will be switching the darker red floor with the bottom patterned floor and extending the bottom of the rounded platforms left side. The Keen, the monsters and items are just imported sprites that have not been edited (except the lollipops the slightest bit). The background was imported from an existing Keen game. I'll be experimenting with backgrounds and other things as things progress.

Also, what do you guys think about an option to toggle on/off blood effects?

[gerstrong]

Interesting. Are you far enough along for a screenshot or two?

And as for other remakes, I'd say Commander Genius by gerstrong qualifies. While it does have an optional High Quality Pack which has remastered graphics, they aren't in the style of Keen Galaxy.

Thank you!

It is possible to make the graphics of galaxy style in HQ Pack. We once had a way to make it, and release it for some levels, without forgetting about the original engine, but it was widely rejected. So I warn you about that...

Nice screenshot. I like your style. I made the first level as isometric style of Keen1 and it worked with CG, but nobody really liked it, too sad

@QU3TZ4LC04TL: What engine do you want to use for that? Will you write one for your own... ?

[tulip]

Just to remind you: The background in Keen 1 in most levels is intended to be glass. If you look at the appearance of the cities on the map (level 1 for example) you'll see what I mean. That is why small mountains and distant structures can be seen in the original background.

Here's what I made for the Keen 1 background in CommanderGenius

[Commander Spleen]

Distant structures?