Keen 1 Redrawn

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Pandakeen
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Keen 1 Redrawn

Post by Pandakeen »

While there's been attempts to remake Keen 1 in other engines, I'm making a skin mod that replaces all of the graphics of the original Keen 1 for fun. I'm planning to do the same for Keens 2 and 3 after this.

Here is some of the work I've done. A lot of the graphics here still haven't been replaced yet.

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Nisaba
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Re: Keen 1 Redrawn

Post by Nisaba »

Yes! A graphic overhauled skin mod. That's a neat idea and looks very promissing.
The Teddy looks excellent.
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Re: Keen 1 Redrawn

Post by Nospike »

Oh this looks amazing. One issue I've always had with Keen 1 is that it doesn't feel very immersive. The graphics in the levels just don't make you feel like you're on Mars, the mysterious Earth-like planet that everybody wishes they could see. Especially the new ground tiles and the world map stuff look great, the highlights on the city domes for example are excellent. :)
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Re: Keen 1 Redrawn

Post by StupidBunny »

Oooooh I love the richness of your color choices, amazing how lively the same items look with a bit of clever shading.

I'm with Nospike, I always thought Ep. 1's portrayal of Mars was a bit flat. Just your red soil texture by itself fixes that a lot, it looks like actual Martian regolith now instead of just, like, a flat red thing. Excited to see what else you can do just with a reskin. :garg :yorp

Out of curiosity are you thinking of changing the sky texture at all? Obviously there's not a whole lot of feasible options with 16 colors and a simple reskin but I always felt like the gray sky was also not very Martian (and kind of lifeless besides).
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Re: Keen 1 Redrawn

Post by proYorp »

Pandakeen wrote: Tue Aug 24, 2021 18:07 Image
I can't get over how metal this soda can is. :goth
For real though. ;) The colors make it look like it's actually got a metallic label instead of just being matte plastic or something. These things have got material to them. I didn't realize that was possible in EGA. And the Everclear looks like it's made of crystal. :lol

The teddy bear looks so round and squishable now. :D As a teddy should be.
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Nisaba
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Re: Keen 1 Redrawn

Post by Nisaba »

yeah, the tin can looks indeed excellent! it has so much depth and detail. your shading skills are really impressive
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Re: Keen 1 Redrawn

Post by Pandakeen »

Thanks guys :D
StupidBunny wrote: Wed Aug 25, 2021 14:54 Out of curiosity are you thinking of changing the sky texture at all? Obviously there's not a whole lot of feasible options with 16 colors and a simple reskin but I always felt like the gray sky was also not very Martian (and kind of lifeless besides).
Well, I guess yellow is the closest you can get to the Mars sky color with the EGA palette. But I'm not sure if that will look right.
There will be 2 versions of this: one that adds new tiles and modifies the levels accordingly, and one that's compatible with all Keen 1 mods that don't change the graphics. The former will add more details to the sky, such as clouds.
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Re: Keen 1 Redrawn

Post by StupidBunny »

Pandakeen wrote: Thu Aug 26, 2021 18:33 Well, I guess yellow is the closest you can get to the Mars sky color with the EGA palette. But I'm not sure if that will look right.
There will be 2 versions of this: one that adds new tiles and modifies the levels accordingly, and one that's compatible with all Keen 1 mods that don't change the graphics. The former will add more details to the sky, such as clouds.
Oooooh I didn't realize you were also gonna have a version with levels modified to include extra tiles! Now I'm triply excited :drool Can't wait to see how you Mars it up.

That's fine re: the sky, you're probably right that light gray is as good as you can do without making it look weird or having a game that's too red.
I guess after looking at your tiles I figured you'd have some sorcery at hand to pull of a sky that looked just right. I mean I'm still squinting and trying to convince myself that you only used 16 colors in these ;)
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Re: Keen 1 Redrawn

Post by DoomJedi »

Very cool idea, looks much better!
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Pandakeen
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Re: Keen 1 Redrawn

Post by Pandakeen »

Well someone has been trying to convince me that the yellow sky might look good after all.

Image

I'd probably only do this in the version with extra tiles because a few locations are dependent on the gray sky. The tile-for-tile remake would just keep the gray sky. Any thoughts on this?
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Nisaba
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Re: Keen 1 Redrawn

Post by Nisaba »

my suggestion would be to change the games colour palette slightly to make things look even more Mars like. There already exists a patch that allows modification of the default 16-color EGA palette which could come in handy. https://keenwiki.shikadi.net/wiki/Patch ... rs_-Keen_1

to give an example here's a quick and dirty colour swap:
Image
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Re: Keen 1 Redrawn

Post by Benvolio »

This gave me a pang of nostalgia... the first thing I ever did in Modkeen was change the pale grey background to yellow. It looked a lot like your screengrabs... this of course gave rise to "Vanished to Venus".

Leaving that vignette aside, I like Nisaba's suggestion. It's hard to know what would give the most mars-like colour. A sprt of peach-colour could be tried but I would suspect it might look bizarre unless perhaps a low saturation (i.e. greyish) one was found.

This project is a cool one for sure and I look forward to watch it progress towards completion!
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Re: Keen 1 Redrawn

Post by proYorp »

I'm just saying, yellow works as an appropriate color for the Mars sky and it also makes sense as a warm light color for a lamp:
Image

Yeah, it is quite a bit brighter than the default gray, but maybe it'd just take some getting used to.



Though yeah the ice tiles... might not fit in as well there...
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Re: Keen 1 Redrawn

Post by Pandakeen »

Nisaba wrote: Tue Aug 31, 2021 19:23 to give an example here's a quick and dirty colour swap:
Image
I was aware of the palette patch, and considered using it but I wanted to push the limits of EGA without changing the palette. That and the graphics I've drawn are tailor-made to the default EGA palette's colors, some things might not look right with a changed palette.
I could have a seperate version with a changed palette that's forked from the extra tiles version, and have 3 versions... :stoned
Pandakeen in 2 years wrote:Wed May 18, 2033 3:33 OKAY GUYS I JUST FINISHED MY 7TH FORK OF KEEN 1 REDRAWN :begging ZORPS :yorp :yorp
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Re: Keen 1 Redrawn

Post by gerstrong »

Nice.
Having fun developing stuff...
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