Fleex & Markeen's Keen 5 Level Pack
Posted: Sat Jan 01, 2022 21:39
Happy new year, PCKF! I'm excited to release a somewhat new kind of level pack: a collaboration between myself and Markeen.
Several years ago I released some development snapshots of Markeen, a random Keen Galaxy level generator. It's still very far from creating playable levels, but it can create rough structures and sometimes creates interesting level design ideas. I personally am pretty bad at level design, but I do know how to make a level playable, so I thought Markeen and I would make a good team. After a few years of intermittent work, we completed a Keen 5 level pack. More discussion is below, but here's the download link if TL;DR:
Download Fleex & Markeen's Keen 5 Level Pack, Revision 1 (or the original release)
Extract the ZIP, copy in KEEN5E.EXE, and run PLAY.BAT in DOSBox as usual to play!
On July 11, 2017, I had my development version of Markeen generate 100 levels from a depth 5 (IIRC) profile based on the Keen 5 originals with just a couple obviously wrong tile combinations manually banned. These raw levels have only the foreground layer populated. I included them in the Originals folder in the download. As you can see, that version of Markeen creates some interesting ideas at the cost of ten zillion local tiling errors.
My job was then to pick a dozen promising levels from those 100 and make each playable and pretty. For each level, my process was roughly:
All levels, especially the last one, are designed to be doable without in-level saving. The range of the levels' difficulty overlaps with the originals'; I think I kept it reasonable, though it might be a half-difficulty-step harder overall.
There are no new graphics, story texts, or sprites. I did adjust the behavior of Shikadi Mines, but this is not essential. If you want a 100% pure "level pack" you can delete the mine-related patches from the patch file; the game will still be doable but the last level may be a bit tedious.
GAMEMAPS.CK5 is signed in a way that Abiathar will recognize as being authored by me (VeriMaps), in case there's ever any confusion about which maps file is my official release.
Thanks to the following people, resources, and other tools:
And thank you for reading and playing! I'd love to hear your thoughts and would definitely watch any recorded play.
Several years ago I released some development snapshots of Markeen, a random Keen Galaxy level generator. It's still very far from creating playable levels, but it can create rough structures and sometimes creates interesting level design ideas. I personally am pretty bad at level design, but I do know how to make a level playable, so I thought Markeen and I would make a good team. After a few years of intermittent work, we completed a Keen 5 level pack. More discussion is below, but here's the download link if TL;DR:
Download Fleex & Markeen's Keen 5 Level Pack, Revision 1 (or the original release)
Extract the ZIP, copy in KEEN5E.EXE, and run PLAY.BAT in DOSBox as usual to play!
On July 11, 2017, I had my development version of Markeen generate 100 levels from a depth 5 (IIRC) profile based on the Keen 5 originals with just a couple obviously wrong tile combinations manually banned. These raw levels have only the foreground layer populated. I included them in the Originals folder in the download. As you can see, that version of Markeen creates some interesting ideas at the cost of ten zillion local tiling errors.
My job was then to pick a dozen promising levels from those 100 and make each playable and pretty. For each level, my process was roughly:
- Pick a level that's not too small, has a manageable structure, and contains an appropriate machine (or lack thereof).
- Give the level a border and a temporary uniform background that makes it easier to see platform outlines.
- Fix the most blatant tiling errors, mainly $FA17 generation-failure markers.
- Decide Keen's route through the level: connect switches, keys, and platforms, and punch holes through walls as needed.
- Fix most remaining foreground tiling errors so the level is playable.
- Add enemies to the infoplane.
- Balance ammo and point item placement, adding item sprites to secret areas.
- Decorate: give the level a background and fix pipe tiling errors.
All levels, especially the last one, are designed to be doable without in-level saving. The range of the levels' difficulty overlaps with the originals'; I think I kept it reasonable, though it might be a half-difficulty-step harder overall.
There are no new graphics, story texts, or sprites. I did adjust the behavior of Shikadi Mines, but this is not essential. If you want a 100% pure "level pack" you can delete the mine-related patches from the patch file; the game will still be doable but the last level may be a bit tedious.
GAMEMAPS.CK5 is signed in a way that Abiathar will recognize as being authored by me (VeriMaps), in case there's ever any confusion about which maps file is my official release.
Thanks to the following people, resources, and other tools:
- The KeenWiki patch maintainers, especially Levellass and Lemm, for the wealth of patching information
- Long-time members, for being patient with me when I was clueless about patching (and in general)
- K1n9_Duk3's recreated Keen Galaxy source code, which made it much easier to create new patches
- CKPatch by Admiral_Bob and other contributors
- Abiathar by, uh, me
And thank you for reading and playing! I'd love to hear your thoughts and would definitely watch any recorded play.